By VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN
The Liberhan Commission, which probed the Ayodhya demolition, slams the Sangh Parivar, but, surprisingly, exonerates the Narasimha Rao government.
DOUGLAS E CURRAN/FILES/AFP
December 6, 1992: Kar sevaks atop the Babri Masjid a few hours before many more joined them to demolish it.
An element of cynicism was always there as the central characteristic of the Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan Commission during the 17 long years that it took to probe the December 6, 1992, demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, perceptible in many ways – when the commission obtained 48 extensions from various Central governments, when allegations broke out of slow-pedalling of the inquiry against certain politicians, and when there was a rather public spat between the commission’s chief and its counsel.
Finally, the government tabled the report in Parliament on November 24 under tremendous pressure, after a newspaper published portions of it a day earlier. The government was left with no option but to forsake its six-month-long inertia since the submission of the report on June 30. This final sequence of events as well as the contents of the report have set in motion several debates and also controversies, in the political, legal and social realms.
Even so, the central conclusion of the four-volume report running into over 1,000 pages is by and large seen as a mere repetition of what has been common knowledge for long. It is that the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and its affiliates such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the Bajrang Dal and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which make up the Sangh Parivar, were responsible for the demolition.
The commission has also held that the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, led by Kalyan Singh, and some of its officers colluded with the Sangh Parivar in a “duplicitous and under-handed manner” “not worthy of a democratically elected government”.
The report further states:
“When push came to shove, the senior police officers were at hand to ensure their men toed the line and that the demolition of the disputed structure was allowed to go ahead with military precision as orchestrated by the leaders present at the spot and carried out by their henchmen whom they refused to identify even before me.
“By far the worst sin of omission of the State government was leaking into public domain the information that the police personnel had been hobbled and would not react or retaliate under any circumstances. Emboldened by the self-confessed handicap of the law enforcement agencies of the State, the kar sevaks enjoyed a free hand, aware that they were at zero risk from them. Even the forces demanded by the State government and sent by the Central government for security purposes were intentionally taken away from the scene and deployed at far away places under the garb of meeting the threat of terrorism.”
At the individual level, the commission has listed 68 persons, including Sangh Parivar leaders and officials of the then Uttar Pradesh government, as responsible “for leading the country to the brink of communal discord”. The Sangh Parivar leaders listed include BJP stalwarts such as former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former Deputy Prime Minister and Ayodhya Rath Yatra leader Lal Krishna Advani and former Union Human Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi.
The commission terms these leaders “pseudo moderates” who were controlled by the diktats of the RSS. It also says that RSS, Bajrang Dal and VHP leaders such as Ashok Singhal, K.S. Sudarshan and Vinay Katiyar formed a “complete cartel” supported by icons of the Hindutva movement such as Advani, Joshi and Vajpayee.
The overall conclusion of the report, holding the Sangh Parivar responsible for the demolition, has been received with near-total approval by the main political organisations. But the emphasis it gives to certain players within the Sangh Parivar, such as Vajpayee, and the clean chit given to the P.V. Narasimha Rao-led Congress government at the Centre have not received the same level of acceptance. Reservations have been expressed not only in the political but also in judicial terms. While the BJP is naturally in the forefront of opposing the inclusion of Vajpayee among those held guilty, the centrist and Left opposition parties question the clean chit given to the Narasimha Rao government.
Anupam Gupta, former counsel of the commission, who left his position in 2007 owing to differences with Justice Liberhan, told Frontline that the inclusion of Vajpayee in the list of people with individual culpability was not legally tenable. He pointed out that the commission passed a detailed order on July 22, 2003, rejecting an application to summon Vajpayee on the grounds that there was no evidence on record against him.
“At that time, the controversial speech made by Vajpayee on December 5 at Lucknow, suggesting the demolition of the Babri Masjid, had not come to the commission’s notice. Even when the story about a CD containing that speech was published, it was not taken notice of by the commission. The right thing to do would have been to summon Vajpayee at that time. Without doing that, how can the commission arrive at such an astonishing finding?” Gupta asked.
He maintained that the clean chit given to the Narasimha Rao administration could only mean that the commission had failed to consider carefully all the documents and reports of various security and intelligence agencies it had access to. “The exoneration of the Narasimha Rao government points only towards a sell-out,” Gupta told Frontline (see interview).
The commission, on its part, has analysed the standards of culpability and categorised them as primary, secondary and tertiary. Those who had the primary and greatest responsibility for the demolition are those that had the means to prevent the assault. Many in the top leadership of the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the Shiv Sena come in this group.
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