The Babri Masjid Demolition

In the late 1980s, the Bharatiya Janata Party had raked up the issue of the Ram Janmabhoomi to its advantage in the 1991 elections. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) was even more vociferous and aggressive on the issue and began organising protests and demonstrations in Ayodhya and in other parts of the country demanding a temple at the site of the Babri Masjid. There was apparently some demolition and building at the site earlier itself but the administration took no notice. Uttar Pradesh was under BJP rule and the chief minister at the time was Kalyan Singh.

The VHP announced that on December 6, 1992, work on the temple would begin. Thousands of volunteers – the kar sevaks – converged on Ayodhya. While the plan announced was that prayers would be held on a platform near the mosque, when the time came, groups of kar sevaks were moving towards the mosque despite being asked not to by the RSS and the police. The crowd became quite uncontrollable and not amenable to reason, their one intention being to demolish the mosque. They were armed with iron rods and other tools and had soon scaled the mosque walls. The BJP leaders gathered there, such as L.K. Advani, are reported to have called these kar sevaks back but to no avail. The police did little to control the situation. The mosque was soon attacked and reduced to rubble. The BJP clarified that it was not a party to the vandalism and that it was an unfortunate thing to have happened. It was more than unfortunate; it was tragic and ominous and would have long-term repercussions. BJP leaders were arrested Communal riots broke out in Uttar Pradesh and many other parts of the country resulting in many deaths. Bombay was one of the worst sufferers with the Shiv Sena stoking the violence. In 1993, there were bomb blasts in the city at strategic locations orchestrated by a couple of mafia dons based in Dubai, apparently in retaliation for the attacks on Muslims earlier.

The fact that Kalyan Singh did nothing to stop the situation from turning ugly cannot be condoned; as a chief minister, he was an authority of the State and he should have upheld the law and enforced it. What shocked many and aroused criticism was the non-action of the Centre. Surely, it was pointed out, president’s rule should have been imposed in anticipation of trouble and central forces should have been given firm orders to intervene and control the situation. Maybe the prime minister did not want himself and his party to be dubbed anti-Hindu by taking firm action. The Uttar Pradesh government was dismissed and president’s rule imposed on the state only after the destruction had taken place.

India’s image was damaged world over because of this event and its aftermath of riots. There were dire predictions that India wold be reduced to one of those lawless countries with ineffective government or become a dictatorship of some kind. The predictions did not come true, but the Babri Masjid demolition remains a blot in the history of modern India that continues to echo down the years ominously. In society, where there had so far been no open antagonism between Hindus and Muslims, though a sense of victimhood was felt by both and communal riots did occur, now there was open suspicion and even hostility between the two communities. It would not be fair or true to say that every Muslim and every Hindu felt that way, but the general impression to that effect had been created.

Liberhan Commission A commission was appointed

ten days after the Babri Masjid demolition by order of the home ministry. The one man commission, comprising Justice Liberhan, a sitting judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, was assigned the task of probing the sequence of events that led to the occurrences at the Ram Janmabhoomi- Babri Masjid complex on December 6, 1992, resulting in the destruction of the structure. The commission submitted its report some seventeen years later in June 2009 when the UPA was in the government.

The commission indicted top BJP leaders, and held 68 people culpable, including L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Kalyan Singh, the then-Chief

Minister of Uttar Pradesh. It identified the Kalyan Singh-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh as the key to the execution of the conspiracy to demolish Babri Masjid. The report of the commission apparently contained no criticism of the 1992 Indian government and then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. It accepted Rao’s contention that it was not possible to legally and constitutionally impose president’s rule in Uttar Pradesh in December 1992 before the event.