“The preparation was accomplished with phenomenal secrecy, was technically flawless with consistency and assured results. The theme was power. It attracted clusters of young men to support the hidden agenda. Leaders know how passions are aroused and how to prevent the same; they however always see what would be beneficial to them rather than what would be good for the nation. This is what happened in Ayodhya.” (from Liberhan Commission report on demolition of Babri mosque).

Preface

Babri Masjid has become history. A thing of the past.

Soon we will have a Supreme Court judgment on the case regarding the mosque, but as we know, the name of the case itself is something vague — Ram Janmabhoomi – Babri Masjid land dispute case. It is about two entities, and just like the first one, the second one is also nearly a myth by now.

Problems with things of the past is that we soon forget what it was and where it stood. And in current India, it will not be a surprise if after a few more years it does not even find a place in the history books taught in schools. If it finds, it would only appear as a symbol of Muslim aggression. Even the court dispute has become more about beliefs and people’s sentiments than about historic and archaeological evidences. Rightly so. But when an ‘almost’ Hindu nation weighs its sentiments, sentiments of a large section of people go unnoticed. Forgotten. Ignored.

That is precisely why an alternative recording of events become important. Alternative sources of history, when the mainstream history is limited to the heroic accounts of the dominant society and its protagonists. Ram Rajya’s history is about the heroics of Ram. The villainy of Ram and his disciples will have to be heard from the backyards of history. It needs to be told nevertheless. it needs to be heard nevertheless. At least by those who do not want to be run over by these cultural bulldozers.

A multitude of accounts

‘Babri Masjid, 25 Years On’ is a book that came out in 2017, a collection of essays edited by Sameena Dalwai and Ramu Ramanathan. Irfan Engineer’s name is listed as ‘Journal Editor’. It comes after two other important books on the same topic — ‘The Babri Masjid Question 1528-2003: A Matter of National Honour’ and ‘Destruction of the Babri Masjid – A National Dishonour’, both by veteran lawyer and political commentator A G Noorani. What makes this book different is the multitude of accounts and angles covered in the book, as it is told by a spectrum of authors that covers many prominent artists and activists.

I know it is too late to introduce a book that came out almost two years back, so I will stick to highlighting some parts of the book that I find important, and placing it in the context of the legal and sentimental dispute as well as the ‘conscience of the society’ that I am a part of.

Countdown and a Witness account

In his essay ‘Countdown to Ayodhya’, senior journalist Anant Bagaitkar describes political developments centred around the Ayodhya issue close to the demolition. He recollects how he and some other journalists secretly met a senior RSS leader and the conversation they had, where the leader clearly said they were prepared to break the structure if the Government did not yield to pressure by the end of the three month deadline that they had given. This was in July 1992. Later in September, VHP leaders VH Dalmiya and Ashok Singhal declared that a temple could not be constructed without the demolition of the Babri Masjid. In October, VHP organised a meeting of the dharma sansad to consider the future course of action on the issue. In this meeting the decision was taken to resume the kar seva and the date decided was 6 December, 1992.

He also recalls that by November end RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena workers had gathered in Ayodhya as kar sevaks, and even before 6 December, the assembled mob indulged in attacking mosques and mazars (shrines) in the vicinity of Ayodhya.

What follows is a witness account of the events from 1st to 6th December 1992, in an essay by then Maharashtra Times journalist Pratab Asbe who was entrusted with reporting the events in Ayodhya. He recollects that on 5 December, during the rehearsal of the kar seva, leaders had announced that the kar seva on 6th will only be a symbolic gesture. They said, “On 6 December, two lakh kar sevaks will put a fistful of soil in the four-acre  premises of Ram Mandir and the monks will clean the Ram Chabutra with the holy water from the river Sharayu.” However, we know that was not to be the case.

On 6th December afternoon, Adwani gave an inflammatory speech that went like this, “No power in the world can stop the construction of Ram Mandir. If the central government tries to obstruct, then we will not allow the government to run. Those who have come to be martyrs let them be martyrs. Let the fortunate ones be able to make it to Lord Ram’s feet. Let them be martyred.”

It is particularly interesting how they manhandled the media persons who tried to cover the incidents of that day. “Many national and international journalists were standing near Ram Chabutra. Kar sevaks and saints started misbehaving with these media persons. The so-called holy men started abusing journalists. One of the monks was hitting a journalist from Voice of America. This was followed by a Time magazine journalist getting beaten up. Even BBC’s Mark  Tully  couldn’t  escape  this. And  then  anybody  and  everybody started hitting the journalists. Just then, television cameras faced the wrath of this aggressive mob of kar sevaks. Around 60-70 television cameras were damaged..” “only the photographers with a still camera  were able to put the cameras in a leather bag and escape. They were also followed and beaten up. As a result, the photography and video shoot of kar seva came to a halt. This attack on the press was pre-planned and a well-co-ordinated strategy..”

The final acts of the drama unfolded soon. In his own words, ~as if the doors of a dam were opened, mobs of kar sevaks started jumping on the compound surrounding the Babri Masjid. In no time, they broke the compound and entered the mosque and with an unswerving determination, climbed the mosque up to its dome. They started hitting the mosque with anything that they could catch hold of. Immediately, they were being supplied with spades, shovels and ropes. This boosted the demolition process. High on the sadistic pleasure derived from the act, kar sevaks were repeatedly attacking the mosque as if it was a living human being. Unable to withstand the shocks, the mosque began disintegrating. The soil and bricks started falling apart. At this end, the voice  on  the microphone announced, “Siyawar ramchandra ki jai, mandir yahin banayenge.” Seeing the  attack on the mosque, women spectators along with their men counterparts started dancing and shouting slogans..~

~at 2.45 p.m., the first dome of Babri Masjid was demolished. The moment the dome collapsed, Uma Bharti joyously embraced Murli Manohar Joshi. Uma Bharti and Sadhvi Rithambara shouted inflammatory slogans, instigating kar sevaks. Sadhvi Rithambara announced: “ek dhakka aur do, babri masjid tod do” (Pound and thrash till it collapses). While all this was happening, the police was also seen clapping and expressing its joy. Around 4.00 p.m. in the evening, another dome  collapsed. And then the third and the last dome at 4.46 p.m. Sadhvi Rithambara congratulated the Hindu population on the microphone by saying, “The shameful structure has fallen.”~

Artists’ accounts

The first among the six artists’ acoounts is that of theater actor, director and activist Sudhanva Deshpande of Jan Natya Manch New Delhi. He weaves his narration beginning with his memories of Operation Blue Star and Indira Gandhi assassination that he witnessed as a teenager and his experiences during 1992.

In the next essay ‘How it feels to be a Muslim in India’, award winning playwright Shafaat Khan talks about the post-Babri Muslim life in India and in Mumbai in particular. He says, “the Mumbai riots ensued by the demolition of the Babri Masjid had brought a change in direction. Until that time I believed that violence was in the hands of a few goondas and politicians. For the first time I saw that physically and mentally, the common man was imbibed with the destructive forces all the way. A whole society was given over to violence with a strong belief that it provided all the answers.” He explains how this affected his life as a playwright and director, and how his adaptation of Asghar Wajahat’s Hindi play Jis Lahore Nai Dekhya, O Jamyai Nai, was an attempt to communicate with ‘the rioters, supporters of riots and those who strengthened them by standing upright on the street.’

Unfortunately, around 27 years on, that ‘whole society’ is still at large, making use of every opportunity to ‘annihilate the other’. The hatred machines have got more and more official channels at their disposal and perpetrators of hate crimes are rewarded with election tickets, increased popularity and more and more power.

In her essay ‘Why I never wish to forget the violence’, Playwright and screenplay writer for popular Marathi TV serials Manaswini Lata Ravindra tells how her mother who never wore religious symbols was forced to wear a bindi to escape violence from a Hindu mob. She also recollects memories from her school days, about how the dominant ones in the class silenced those who had different opinions, or were just different, say by name / religion. “The day the episode of Shivaji Maharaj chopping off Shaista Khan’s fingers was taught in the class, all the Hindu boys assumed themselves in the role of Shivaji and the Muslim boy was obviously considered to be Shaista  Khan. I remember the Muslim boy was so petrified that he skipped school the following day.” She also tells about how she realised that at no cost will she ever be able to gain experiences from someone else’s societal environment. “How much ever one tries, it is very difficult to change your context of being someone.” Which is an important point in any intersectionality we talk about these days.

Joy Sengupta writes about how he woke up to a hard realization at home, that ‘the well-oiled mechanism was geared towards bringing about a preconceived, elite-driven Hindu unity’. He adds that “Middle-class India, under the mask of liberal democracy, was nothing but a sheer bunch of fence-sitters belonging to the Hindu majority waiting to cross over. This demolition just helped them unmask and breathe in soft Hindutva. Indian nationalism and the modern Indian state were getting crafted out of the affirmations of Hindutva.”

Veteran theatre artist and television host Dolly Thakore has contributed with a piece titled ‘Joining hands, building trust’. She was also a volunteer for an NGO ‘Citizens For Peace’ that did relief works in a riot-struck Mumbai. Playwright, actor and women’s rights campaigner Sushma Deshpande feels the ‘obsessive need for communicating the ideologies of Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule to the masses’ and writes about her experience of conducting a theatre workshop for Muslim girls in Hyderabad.  She notes that ‘when the whole community is under attack, the scope to address the issues and the rights of the weaker sections within that community get further eroded.”

Activists

In her account ‘Where is the place for the activist’, academician and activist Shama Dalwai explains how being a Muslim or having a Muslim in family in Mumbai became a frightening prospect by end of 1980s. She says that the school that her children went to, though seemed like a liberal institution, “affixed a Muslim identity to my children by singling them out as ‘strangers’ and ‘the others’.” During the Mumbai riots that broke out post the demolition of the mosque, as a Hindu mother of half-Muslim children, she recounts how she became terrified for the safety of her children (Sameena is her daughter). The police violence, mayhem by Shiv Sainiks and, most shattering, she says, was the withdrawal of the Leftist comrades from the scene. She also talks about how media selectively omitted certain kinds of news, and talks about her attempts to calm down the Muslims.

Helen Bharde, a former corporator affiliated to Indian National Congress, is a christian woman married to a Muslim. Her write-up is mostly about setting up and running the relief camp at her locality Golibar. She writes about how that place, near Santacruz, became a haven for the Muslims during the riots. How Muslims, fearing for their lives, had run away from their homes and formed a community at Golibar and sought refuge there. It does not mean it was all safe there. She recalls an incident when a young boy who was playing in the vicinity was mistaken for a rioter and shot down by the police. And ‘if that wasn’t tragic enough, the old man who went to retrieve the boy was also beaten up brutally’, she adds.

In her essay ‘Walking the tightrope: Balancing gender and community’ Flavia Agnes critiques the women’s movement that failed to create a strong alternative for women of all castes and religions.

Rekha Thakur of Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh in her note writes about the ‘dual agenda’ of Massacring the Muslims and criminalising Bahujan at the same time. One could say it is problematic to make such a reading, as the growth of Hindutva in India from late 80s to 2019 can not be understood only as a savarna ideology. It is essentially based on hatred of Muslims (and Christians, though to a lesser extent). Many of the Sangh leaders were from OBC communities. It also succeeded in containing the OBC angst post anti-Mandal uprisings of 1990s.

In ‘Riots in the pink city’, M Hassan narrates Jaipur of 1989 to 92. He describes it as a period of intense polarisation and violence. How the southern hilly region, being predominantly tribal, is a fairly known ‘laboratory’ of communalism due to the Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad of RSS, which spread its tentacles in each tribal settlement. About how Jaipur’s Musafirkhana acted as a shelter and relief camp during communal riots, and how the Musafirkhana issued guidelines to
ward off confrontation and escalation of conflict in 1989 and 1991. Hassan writes about how the ‘Game of riots’ that is often played to alienate one community. It is a game that continues even now, Musaffarnagar being the latest major instance.

In her essay ‘A bruised nation’, Shaila Satpute, who was Maharashtra State leader of Janata Dal once, confesses that she is more afraid today than what she was during the days of riots. “At that time there were sporadic incidents of violence. Today, I notice that the seeds of hatred that were planted have grown into a poisonous tree. Now, everyone is a target. At that time, the Babri Masjid incident provided a reason for violence. Now, people don’t need a reason to resort to violence”, she says.

Vaze College Physics Professor Dr. Sanjeewani Jain’s account of the collective action of teachers and students is the last in the section.

Asghar Ali Engineer’s Special Essay

Noted Islamic Scholar, social reformist and peace activist late Asghar Ali Engineer in a lengthy special essay notes that the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi controversy was one of the major controversies which was exploited politically to the hilt  in  post-independence  India. He also connects it to theShah Bano controversy during 1985-86, and feels that had the controversial Muslim Women’s Bill not been passed in early 1986, the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy would not have arisen. He criticizes not only BJP and Shiv Sena, but also Congress for the cynical exploitation of Babri issue for winning 1989 elections, in an attempt to capture ‘popular imagination’.

Engineer gives a summary of the history of the controversy and observes that the ‘historical’ accounts suggesting that Babar demolished a temple before erecting a mosque there are based on prejudices and guesswork. To quote from his essay, ~The translator of Babar’s Memoirs Mrs AF, Beveridge in a footnote suggests that Babar being a Muslim, and “impressed by the dignity and sanctity of the ancient Hindu shrine” would have displaced “at least in part” the temple to erect the mosque. She bases her inference on the fact that Babar being Muslim must have been intolerant of other faiths and thus demolished the temple which was supposedly in existence there. It is, at best, a very generalised inference..~

He adds that there is no doubt that the laying of the foundation stone of Ram Janmabhumi on 9 November, 1989 could not have been done without the connivance of the then Government led by Rajiv Gandhi, and how KK Nayar who was DM of Faizabad resisted all attempts to remove the idol when an idol first ‘appeared’ in those premises in 1949 and how Congress was helpless at that time. He feela that “if locking (the premises) was murder of justice and ideals of secularism, its unlocking (in 1986, opening it for Hindus to worship) was greater injustice and outright slaughter of ideals of secularism.” He concludes the essay with the most sane thing to say, that we should “do every thing possible to resolve this issue through constructive dialogue in the spirit of reconciliation” and it is “highly necessary to arrange a round-table dialogue between the religious and secular leaders of the two communities.”

Strengths, and what it lacks

The book is not by any means an apologetic one. Irfan Engineer does not mince his words when he says “Twenty-five years ago, Babri Masjid came crumbling down on 6 December 1992, amidst massive mobilisation by the Sangh Parivar — organisations affiliated to right-wing Hindu supremacist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh..” That itself is the major strength of the book.

Sameena Dalwai and Ramu Ramanathan do not see the demolition of the Babri mosque as an isolated incident, and they place it in a context. Reading from Sangh Parivar idol Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s book Six Epochs of Indian History, they observe that “In this, Savarkar admonishes Marathas for not taking revenge on Muslims in response to the atrocities committed around the year 1757 by Abdali. It seems, Savarkar would have liked the Marathas to not merely take revenge, but to annihilate Muslim religion (Mussalmani Dharma) and exterminate the Muslim “people” and make India Muslim-free.. According to Savarkar, the Maratha army should have exterminated ordinary Muslims (i.e. not just soldiers), destroyed their mosques and raped Muslim women.” This is particularly relevant in a time when BJP makes election promises of honoring Savarkar with Bharat Ratna, which can be seen as a token of gratitude for laying the foundation stones of a religious hatred on they have built their political empire.

They also take into account another major factor that has contributed heavily to the hatred against Muslims in this country, partition. They observe that “India’s partition is not documented very well. The blame can hardly be placed on the British as the main culprits, as that remains untold. So does the fact, that arson, murder and rape was done by both sides to the ‘other’. Now young authors and curators alike are trying to keep alive the history of partition through collecting stories that turn into artefacts from a dying generation into live narratives”. These narratives are crafted well in order to produce hatred. Connecting to more recent times, “Khairlanji happened. Gujarat Carnage happened. Mumbai riots happened. Otherwise our next generation will only be told to remember Godhra and Mumbai Bomb Blast, but not what happened before or after.”

Despite this clarity in thoughts and a good overall vision about the whole sequence of events that led to the demolition of the mosque and what happened after that, I think the book misses out on one aspect intentionally or unintentionally. It is the ‘bad Muslim’. The bad Muslim does appear in a couple of articles as an element to be calmed down, but the book fails to address the so called bad Muslims or the outfits that raise the Muslim political question. Be it AIMIM, SDPI or any such groups. Dalit / Ambedkarite perspectives are also missing in the book. Also I feel there is an excess of brahmin accounts. It wouldn’t do any harm even if a couple of such accounts were omitted. As Manaswini rightly points out in the book, there is a limit to the extent to which one can relate to another person’s feelings, how much ever one tries. That space could have been given to more Muslim writings.

Times of extraordinary stress and distress have not ended

In the Foreword to the book, Professor Upendra Baxi says ‘Dr Sameena Dalwai and Ramu Ramanathan collect here the reminiscences of living together in the times of some extraordinary stress and distress twenty-five years ago’, but it is not only about a time frame that is twenty-five or twenty-seven year old. It is about living together in the times of extraordinary stress and distress in the current India also. It is also about how we move forward from this point.

I will end with a poem that is quoted in the book, written by Zbigniew Herbert in a poem in 1956.

We stand on the border
We hold out our arms
For our brothers, for our sisters
We build a great rope of hope
Yes, we stand on the border
That is called reason
We gaze back at historical fires
And we marvel at death.

The post There stood a Mosque, and it was Demolished appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On April 4, 2000 an officer of the Shreevardhan police station visited the home of the Haspatels, a Muslim family from Walwat village on the Konkan coast in Maharashtra’s Raigad district, to hand over to them a cheque of Rs 5 lakh on behalf of the state government. The Maharashtra government was merely acting on the interim order of the chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission, Justice J.S. Verma, ruling that the Haspatels be compensated for the brutal violation of their human rights in 1993 by officers of the law.

Seven years ago, police officers from the same police station had claimed to recover ‘projectiles’ (rocket launchers) from the Haspatel house. They were alleged to be part of the conspiracy which led to Mumbai’s serial bomb blasts in March 1993. Ten days after Iqbal Haspatel and his son Mubeen had been arrested, it was established that the "mini-rocket launchers" the police claimed to have discovered from the house of the Haspatels were nothing more dangerous than spindles used in a local yarn factory! It was also evident by then that the family members had nothing whatsoever to do with the bomb blasts and were released.

But meanwhile the Haspatels had been badly battered and brutalised. The two male members of the family, Iqbal (65) and Mobeen (17) had been detained under the Indian Arms Act and tortured daily. Also illegally detained, verbally abused and humiliated for five days were two women from the family — Zubeida (55) and her daughter-in-law along with her 18-month-old baby.

Senior police officials, including officers Bal, DSP Daithankar and Kalamkar, assisted by a woman constable, beat the family, stripped the men naked and paraded them before the Haspatel women everyday. Mobeen had suffered epileptic attacks in the past but had been cured for over ten years. He started getting renewed attacks after being subjected to "parrot torture" for four hours every day. "You have to stop saying Allah. Or you will have to go back to Pakistan," was the most common refrain they heard form policemen in the lock-up.

As part of the investigation into the bomb blasts, scores of Muslims from Mumbai and from the coastal part of Raigad district were illegally detained, brutally tortured and humiliated – because they were Muslims. The mistreatment of the Haspatels was among the most brazen and shocking examples of such police misconduct. Coming as this did so soon after the experience of the December 1992-January 1993 riots, for the Muslims of Mumbai and Maharashtra, the torture and the humiliation were fresh proof of the anti-Muslim bias of the police force.

Aided by social activist-cum-businessman Ghulam Mohammed Peshimam, former chief minister of Maharashtra, A.R. Antulay, and others – one of the editors of Combat had video-taped the accounts of the Haspatels and other victims of police brutality in Mumbai and in Raigad on – the Haspatel family was determined to seek redressal of their grievance. They wanted the police officers guilty of criminal misconduct to be tried and punished and they wanted compensation from the state.

Justice Vermeer’s path-breaking interim order of January 21, 2000 directing the Maharashtra government to compensate innocent victims of police brutality bypassing pending criminal plaints before the High Court and lower courts introduces an important precedent in crimino-judicial study. His interim order is also noteworthy for the fact that while two previous chairpersons of the NHRC failed to respond to repeated pleas for justice, Justice Verma promptly ordered the reopening of the case on being informed of the findings of a CBI-inquiry into the case.

"If I don’t get justice, I will turn into a rebel," one victim of torture by the Sreevardhan police had raged during a video-taped interview in 1993 to one of the editors of Combat. For the Haspatel family and for other victims of torture and humiliation in 1993, Justice Verma’s order should go a long way in re-establishing their faith in the system.

"All echelons of the Indian State must be sensitive to the sufferings and human rights violations of all sections of society. But when the rights of our minorities are abused, as was clearly the case here, we need to be particularly sensitive. Because our creed is secularism and this must be manifest and re-inforced through our actions. We must genuinely assure our minorities that they will be protected and compensated adequately when such violations take place," Justice Verma told Communalism Combat in a telephonic interview.

"It is a very encouraging order for the victims of human rights violations," says senior counsel for the Haspatels, Majeed Memon, "It will serve as a powerful deterrent for power-wielding police officers". "This case is definitely a trend-setter and an important precedent from the NHRC," adds Manohar Shetty, junior counsel for the Haspatels, "It may or may not have any effect on the pending case before the courts because the judiciary takes its own course. But in terms of acting as a restraint on the law and order machinery against further such actions, it is sure to send out the right signals."

But the trial and punishment of the police personnel if found guilty for torturing is still pending.

Soon after his release Iqbal Haspatel had filed a private complaint against the police in 1993 at Shreevardhan. The chief judicial magistrate dismissed it on technical grounds citing section 195 of the CrPC, according to which prior permission of the government is necessary for the prosecution of any public servant, including a police officer.

Haspatel’s plaint was dismissed despite the existence of a Supreme Court judgement that government sanction for prosecution of a public servant is necessary only where the charge is that of dereliction of duty. Since the conduct for which police officers in this case were accused amount to clearly criminal acts that include beating, abuse, dacoity etc, no government sanction is in fact necessary.

Iqbal Haspatel’s complaint was dismissed on technical grounds. However, the provisions of both the CrPC and the Bombay High Court Criminal Manual, compel the chief judicial magistrate (in this case, one Sakhalkar) in all cases where there is any complaint of assault in police custody (in this case it was brutal torture) to send all the requisite papers accompanied by certified medical findings by doctors to the Sessions Judge.

In the case of the Haspatels, in April 1993 itself, severe injuries on the person of both detainees had been certified in detail soon after release: 17 on one person and 9 on the other. Hence, when Sakhalkar’s report was sent to the Sessions Judge at Alibag, he was bound to order a prima facie investigation on the basis of the findings of the medical report. As sufficient evidence of torture and abuse in police custody were established beyond doubt on the basis of these prima facie investigations, the Sessions Judge, again, compelled by the law, directed the chief judicial magistrate Sakhalkar to himself file a private prosecution on behalf of the government.

Statements of all accused police officers were recorded and treated as final version for the purposes of the prosecution on behalf of the government. This is a routine procedure. Police officers Bal and Daithankar, and Kalamkar are the chief policemen accused of gross misdemeanours. The criminal plaint is still pending in the district court. Meanwhile, the accused police officers have approached the Mumbai High Court, once again, seeking the shelter of no government sanction against their prosecution. This writ is still pending before the HC and is expected to come up soon.

Meanwhile, in 1993 itself, a parallel CID inquiry that had been ordered independently recorded and established positive evidence against the erring policemen. Former chief minister, A.R. Antulay had approached the NHRC on the basis of the CID investigation report submitted in April 1994.

Archived from Communalism Combat, April 2000, Year 7  No. 58, Special Report 2

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IThere was a brief reference made in Parliament to the tirade launched by the sangh parivar against the visit of 
 the Pope during its brief session in October. The Union home minister, L.K. Advani — a powerful ideologue of the sangh who is also regarded by many as the real power behind the throne — chose his words in Parliament carefully. Even while expressing his “disapproval” of the campaign launched against the arrival of the Pope, Advani appeared very uncomfortable and grudging while “disapproving” the protests.

Two short points need to be made in this regard. Firstly, Advani’s reason for disapproval was on grounds of the Pope being a state guest. By implication this means that if such a vicious campaign was run against a private individual, it may have been permissible in Advani’s worldview. Secondly, the home minister did not propose any remedial step against the hate campaign. 

Let us be clear – In a democratic country, demonstrations and protests should never be banned, but civil society must counter any hate campaign systematically launched.

Advani is a highly sophisticated person — his language is refined and courteous. The natural expectation is that his actions should match his outer refinement. Regrettably, they do not. 

We need to look back to cite a couple of examples. It seems hardly necessary to go as far back as the bloody rath yatra inspired and led by him which ignited communal killings of a kind that we thought we had left behind us. Advani, we are asked to believe, regrets, in retrospect, his thoughtless actions.

When four nuns in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh were raped in 1998, a number of Hindutvawaadi leaders maintained that Christian missionaries represent “anti–national forces working against Hindu interests in the country” and that the gang–rape was “a reaction to those anti–national activities”. 

Peace loving and law–abiding citizens of the country expected Advani to condemn this justification. He did not. When the then Shiv Sena–BJP government in Maharashtra rejected the Srikrishna Commission report (on the Mumbai riots in 1992–93 in which the Shiv Sena fuhrer, Bal Thackeray, among others, has been indicted), home minister Advani said that it is the prerogative of the Maharashtra government to reject it. 

Advani did not take any action against the fuhrer when he thundered, while addressing a Dussera rally in Mumbai in 1998, “If any government dares arrest me, the entire city will be go up in flames”. This threat was repeated this year, again during the Dussera rally on October 18, when Thackeray proclaimed that he is above the law: “Those who dare to arrest me will not remain alive”. 

One should have thought threatening to murder is a cognisable offence. The Union home minister, Advani, however, has chosen to keep his lips sealed. Which means he is defending a criminal. It is painful to recollect that he, as Union home minister, virtually prostrated before Bal Thackeray for allowing the Pakistan cricket team to play in India! When the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two children were brutally murdered, Advani (again as Union home minister) gave a good character certificate to the VHP and Bajrang Dal telling the nation that there were no “criminals among them”. How could a man of Advani’s learning defend criminals?
It was astounding to hear India’s home minister in this context say that he did not know who had organised the rally from Goa to Delhi protesting against the Pope’s visit. Mr. Advani is either an innocent saint who sees no evil, or he a thoroughly incompetent home minister. Or he is, at all times, in search of escape rotes. The truth is that he does not appear to be an upright man. Nor did he have the courage to state on record in Parliament that his colleague on the treasury benches, B.P. Singhal, belonged to the Sanskriti Raksha Manch, a branch of the VHP, and that it was this outfit that had master–minded the hate campaign.

It does not become a leader like Advani to protect his colleagues in the sangh parivar, whose primary source of inspiration is the philosophy of intolerance and anti-minorityism, a philosophy which has disturbed communal harmony in the past and continues to do so now. Proponents of this worldview are terribly upset over the presence of a hundred million citizens who happen to be Muslims. This philosophy appears to have found a fertile soil in our country. 

Advani, both as home minister and as the patron saint of the sangh parivar, should prevent the sowing of seeds of disharmony, dissension, and divisiveness. Again, how could a man who presides over the destiny of 1,000 million people allow disintegration of the country? 

Advani has not even expressed disgust at what one of his RSS followers (one Dr. Rastogi) recently declared. He was recently quoted saying with pride that he had shot dead a woman during the 1947 communal holocaust in which he was an active participant. 

This retired professor writes in his recently published autobiography: “As a strategy for our security, we decided that whenever we got information about Muslim attacks we should attack first. One such incident occurred (in a Muslim locality, Puran Kaliyar) between Hardwar and Roorkee. They were fully prepared to attack us… When we came to know of this we took 250 people, which included goons, and attacked the Muslim locality. Both sides fought and people from both sides died… A strange incident happened as the attackers (Hindus) started fighting with each other over a beautiful woman … claiming (her) … A solution came to my mind. I shot her dead”. 
Regarding Nathuram Godse, Dr. Rastogi writes: “The Partition of the country was based on the two-nation theory and all sort of inhuman treatment was meted out to the Hindus in Pakistan, but Gandhiji did not consider the ouster of Muslims from India as correct. Jinnah was even offered the prime ministership of undivided India by Gandhiji. Even after Partition, Pakistan was given crores of rupees for the canal, thanks to Gandhiji. Annoyed at all these acts of Gandhiji, Nathuram Godse silenced him for ever on January 30, 1948 (Source: Mainstream, October 30, 1999).

The appointment of such a man as expert for selecting the academic staff for NCERT could not have been done without a nod from Advani. How could Advani allow himself to be leader of a formation whose members have a criminal mindset like the one Dr. Rastogi exhibits?

The sangh parivar alleges that Christian missionaries have been converting Hindus, specially Adivasis, into Christianity, and that this should be stopped. The parivar wants a “national debate” on conversion. A couple of points need to be made here. 

One, should there be a “national debate” on conversion or on the divinely ordained hierarchical system in Hinduism? This oppressive system has been responsible for the conversion of Hindus, mostly of the Dalits, to Islam and Christianity. 

Why is it that the self–proclaimed protectors of Hinduism, the sangh parivar and its leaders L.K. Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee, are silent on this aspect? Why don’t they condemn the system which is opposed to social democracy and start a movement to demolish the hierarchical system which is responsible for conversion to Christianity and Islam? 

Two, why is it that Hinduism did not spread in the past nor is it attractive to non–Hindus even today? Where will they place an Adivasi or any other non–Hindu who may like to be converted to Hinduism, in the hierarchical system? Our society will benefit if Advani gives his whole attention to this aspect of Hinduism, joins and leads those who are striving to close the door on our horrendous system, which stands as an ugly relic of our past.    

Archived from Communalism Combat, November 1999. Year 7  No, 53, Opinion

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