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Advani and the truth
By S Ubaidur Rahman
 One
of the most important accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case LK
Advani appeared before the Liberhan Commission of Inquiry on 10 April. LK
Advani who is among 41 people charge-sheeted by the Central Bureau of
Investigation (CBI) on 5 October 1993 in the Babri demolition case,
deposed before the commission set up years ago. What he said before the
commission can best be described as a bundle of lies unbelievable to even
people who have not been able to keep track of the demolition development.
If a single person who could be credited with spoiling India's secular
fabric and bringing the two major communities of the country at loggerhead
it is LK Advani who led the Babri demolition from front. Not only he
headed the Rath Yatra in 1990 that led the country to the greatest
communal divide and caused lot of bloodshed in the whole country, but also
participated and led the hooligans (Karsevaks) in Ayodhya in December 1992
to demolish the historical Babri Masjid. Now this very same person talks
of deepest sorrow on the demolition of the Babri Masjid and goes on to say
that it was the saddest day of his life.
The man who occupies most important seat in the central government behind
only the prime minister has been fooling around not only the common
populace but also the government and our courts.
Testifying for the first time before the MS Liberhan Commission on 10
April, Advani said that the demolition of the Babri Masjid on 6 December
was 'unfortunate and painful' and that 'seldom felt as dejected and
downcast as I felt that day.' Advani also said that the demolition was
unfortunate 'even from the point of view of the cause which my party, BJP,
was promoting when it supported the Ayodhaya movement.'
The very next day, LK Advani made a new revelation. The home minister on
11 April said that a de jure temple already existed at the disputed site
as a consequence of the 6 December 1992 demolition and the court's
direction to maintain the status quo. He also said on his next appearance
before the Liberhan Commission that a de facto temple had existed on the
site covered by the 'disputed structure' before the demolition. He added
that the courts’ order to maintain the status quo, after the
construction of the makeshift temple has made the de facto temple de jure.
He went on to say, 'nothing but a temple exists at the place. And the
court's direction to maintain the status quo have accorded de jure
recognition to a de facto temple'.
 LK Advani
speaks in different tones at different times. The man who lobbied all
these years for destruction of the Babri Masjid and went on to organize
Rath Yatras and then presided over the demolition in Ayodhya is now
showing regret for the demolition. The same man writing in September
16-30, 1997 edition of his party's organ BJP Today, the prime mover of the
anti-Babri Masjid campaign expressed regret not for the mosque
demolition-which he actually justified-but for the manner in which this
happened.
He in the same article had written that 'The mosque at Ayodhya without
doubt was a continuous ocular demonstration against Hindus. Now that the
ocular provocation is no longer there, it is not a matter of regret.'
Speaking at a public meeting in Ranchi on 24 February 1990, Advani said
that 'no one could stop the construction of the temple at Ayodhya at the
site chosen by the VHP.' If Ram Janambhoomi temple is not allowed to be
constructed at Ayodhya, where will it be constructed-in London? Advani
added.
Justifying the Babri demolition, Advani, while addressing a gathering to
release a book on 22 October 1993 said that 'the Ayodhya movement
signifies the awakening of India's national ethos', adding that 'he had
predicted that government's failure to solve the dispute would turn it
into the biggest mass movement in the history of India.'
Merely a week before the demolition of the historical mosque, taking a dig
at the government and the judiciary alike, a statement drafted by Advani
on 29 November 1992 said, 'All the time required by the government and the
judiciary has been and is being given, only because of the responsibility
that weighs heavily on the Hindus, the movement and its leadership. But
this shall not deter or detract us from the objective of the movement.'
The statement added that, 'the BJP is committed to construct the temple.
Court wranglings can delay and New Delhi can obstruct but no one can deny
ultimately.'
The party whose government in UP after giving assurance to the apex court
that no harm will be made to the mosque, destroyed it by hooligans it had
gathered in Ayodhya has no regard for judiciary. Saffron organizations
have always made it amply clear that they have no regards for court and do
not believe in the judicial system of the country. LK Advani in a press
conference organized on 30 November 1992 amply showed that he does not
believe in the courts when he said, ' The recent judicial proceedings on
Ayodhya have sent an unambiguous message to Ram Janambhoomi movement that
the courts are inadequate forum for the purpose.' He further said that 'I
am convinced that it is only the people who can assert in this manner-and
provide the lead.' Advani on the same occasion said that 'the worse aspect
of it all has been the pressuring and signaling to courts to delay
decision and put up hurdles for kar seva.'
Advani made it amply clear that the courts are not capable to solve the
issue when he took a dig at the government for drawing the judiciary at
the highest level 'into what is essentially a political issue and besides
a matter of religious faith'. He blamed the courts for wittingly delaying
the issue when he said in the very same press conference that 'there were
two clear trends in the judicial orders on Ayodhya - an attempt to delay
the decision that would clear the legal hurdles to construct the temple
and a discernible anxiety to expedite injunctions that would stifle kar
seva.' 'If the judiciary today is seen as an instrument to grant what the
government wants the responsibility for that is largely on the government'
Advani added.
Advani should have been tried for contempt of court when he rejected a
proposal by former prime minister Chandra Shekhar who proposed that 'there
be no temple construction until the court passes its judgement.' Advani
said on July 1992, six months after demolition, that 'Mr. Speaker, sir,
Shri Chandra Shekhar might be knowing that I did not agree to this
proposal when it was raised in the National Integration Council meeting
because the case is there in the courts for 45 years and I do believe
there will be no judgement in the case even in 45 years to come as so many
issues are involved in it.'
The home minister who said while deposing before the commission that he
did not play any role in the white paper on the Babri demolition brought
out by the BJP after the demolition, but the facts indicate that it was he
who played most important role in drafting the white paper that is nothing
but a distortion of the facts on the Babri issue. It was Advani who
released the paper on 18 April 1993 and also briefed the media on the
occasion.
The greatest lie that Advani spoke on the occasion was to say that not a
single person was killed for the demolition. Nothing could be farther from
the truth than this statement. Not only the demolition set off innumerable
riots in the whole country but his earlier Rath Yatras had also resulted
in hundreds of deaths in the width and breadth of the country. Thousands
of unarmed Muslims were butchered by rampaging saffron activists, their
properties worth billions of rupees were set in flames, their women
dishonored in remotest as well as in as central parts of the country as
Delhi Mewat and Meerut.
If Advani does not know of the people killed during these riots he himself
instigated and sparked off in the whole country first by organizing his
infamous Rath Yatra and then getting the mosque demolished for which he
himself collected tens of thousands of frenzied people in Ayodhaya, let us
inform him of what happened only the very next day of the demolition
across the country. 'At least 225 people were killed and about 1000
wounded across the country today in unabated widespread violence and
police firing sparked by the destruction of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya (TOI,
8 December 1992). In Mumbai alone more than forty people were killed and
hundreds others wounded in riots that broke out just after the demolition
news spread. In other parts of Maharashtra an equally large number of
people were killed. 41 people were killed in Gujarat out of which 27
people lynched in Ahmadabad alone.
Around three dozen lives were lost in Uttar Pradesh in the communal riots
that broke out with the spread of news of Babri demolition. In Babupurwa
area of Kanpur six people were burnt alive. In Jaipur, Rajashtan alone
death toll went up to 22. In Bhopal more than twenty people were killed on
the same day, while ten people were killed in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, four
were killed in Ujjain, three in Burhanpur and one in Jabalpur. In
Hyderabad around ten people were killed on the same day. In down south too
there were a number of deaths in the riots that broke out following the
demolition. In Bangalore alone 22 lives were lost while 9 people were
killed in Bidar whereas five people were killed in Gulbarga. These are not
the full statistics even of the day one of the violence following the
demolition, a number of people were killed in cities like Calcutta, Surat,
Patna, Rampur, Saharanpur, Ghaziabad and other parts of the country. The
heinous crimes committed against Muslims in Surat remained more or less
unreported. Though several times more people were killed in Bombay in post
demolition riots but what happened in Surat was no less gruesome. In some
respect Surat riots were a degree worse than those of Bombay. Here many
women were raped under searchlights and then burnt.
Official figures released by the interior ministry, Government of India
show that in the year 1992 alone 1601 people were killed in riots that
broke out all over the country. 10417 people were injured according to the
official figures. The report shows that the very next year 952 people were
killed in communal flare ups caused by the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
During the same year 2989 people were injured during those clashes. In
post demolition riots in Bombay alone around one thousand people were
killed.
The immediate beneficiary of all these bouts of riots as well as riots
that occurred before the Demolition benefitted none but the party
represented by Advani. A party that had just a handful seats in early
nineties in the Lok Sabha is now governing the country thanks to the riots
and communal divide that took place during its unholy campaign for the
demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Ye tune Hind ki hurmat ke
aaine ko toda hai
khabar bhi hai tujhe masjid ka
gumbad todne wale
ye masjid aaj bhi zinda hai
ahle dil ke sine men
khabar bhi hai tujhe masjid ka
paikar todne wale
abhi yeh sarzamin khali nahin
hai nek bandon se
abhi maujud hain tute hue dil
jodne wale
(Jagannath Azad on hearing the incident of the Babri demolition).
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