The Babri Masjid demolition was symptom of a larger breakdown

The Babri Masjid demolition was symptom of a larger breakdown but Indians have rejected agendas of hate

by Mahesh Rangarajan
Mail Today, 7 December 2009

THE RUMPUS over the report of the MS Liberhan commission will occupy centre- stage in the coming weeks. Much of the debate has focused on what the Sangh Parivar and its associate outfits did or did not do on that fateful day. There has been equal emphasis and rightly so on how the then Congress government in New Delhi failed to act in time to prevent the demolition.

But these issues, vital as they are, do not help answer a pricklier question. What is it about the political contours of India in the decade prior to the demolition that led to the virtually unchallenged assault not so much on a mosque but on the very idea of the rule of law in this open manner? Ayodhya on 6th December 1992 was a challenge to the idea of India as a country founded on respect for law as a means to settle disputes.

In common with other extremist movements and currents of whatever creed or community, stripe of colour, the movement sought to remake political India. The movement to demolish the mosque — make no mistake that is what it was — succeeded in its first task.

It played, most of all its prime spokesman LK Advani did, on the sense of “Hindu hurt” and “Hindu pride”. The rath yatra of 1990 involved more than a fringe and struck a chord in many with no previous sympathies with his party or faction.

‘Hum Mandir wahin banayenge’, the twin slogan of a temple and on that very spot, gave the Hindutva idea a wider base than any symbol in its decades long past

Backdrop

Many factors fuelled its rise. Terrorism in Punjab gave Congress the handle to play on Hindu sentiment.

Insurgency in Kashmir seemed poised to prise the Valley away from India.

Economic crises of 1989- 91 set the stage for middle class angst with the older economic order. The defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan also looked like signal that religion based politics was the wave of the future.

Yet, in the first set of byelections held after the demolition, a new combine of Mulayam and Kanshi Ram trounced the party. A year after the tragic event, the coalition of the Backward Class and Dalit parties actually came to power.

Party workers chanted another slogan and no one could stop them from doing so. ‘ Mile Mulayam Kanshi Ram, Hava main ud jaye Jai Shri Ram.’ The joint forces of the two leaders of the lower social orders would rout those rallying behind the temple movement. The latter, it might be pointed out, dissipated in energy and focus after the demolition.

It was almost as if in being a success, it sowed the seeds of its own downfall.

There is little doubt it was the failure of centrist politics that enabled the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and then its political partner to mount such a successful mobilisation. Few of the major parties come out in flying colours.

The Congress government facilitated the cause at every key stage, right from opening the locks of the masjid till the foundation ceremony in November 1989. Its challenger VP Singh, despite his old roots in the Lal Bahadur Shastri era, preferred to ally with rather than oppose in a principled manner the politics of Advani.

And, as a prescient observer noted at the time, the meeting of the National Integration Council in Madras in November 1992 did little to strengthen the PM’s hands. It simply said it stood by whatever he felt was necessary. In other words they washed their hands of the case and let him face the music. It may have been good party politics but it did not serve the country.

Congress

Yet, it is the decade of the Eighties, a time of Congress dominance in the polity, that saw the ground slip under the pluralist cause. Not just once and not merely in one arena of political life, the country’s oldest party played the communal card. Indians might divide but if enough could vote for it, the party saw no reason not to play the role of agent and handmaiden to sectarianism.

This was in contrast to its record in the past. The early years of independence now under increasing historical scrutiny saw leaders divided on a host of issues unify in containing sectarian currents that could undermine a fragile unity. Both Nehru and Patel were one on using state machinery to ban Hindu extremist groups after Gandhiji’s assassination.

It was Home Minister Sardar Patel and not Nehru who saw to it that the dispute at Ayodhya was frozen and locks placed on the structure. It was the breaking of the locks on magisterial order in 1986 that was a symbol of the Congress’ wafer thin commitment to pluralism.

The magistrate claimed ‘ heavens will not fall’. He was right. It was hell that broke loose.

The backdrop to the opening of the locks lay in a steady and unremitting retreat of the forces of law and order when riots and massacres occurred especially in north India. Aligarh, Moradabad, Hashimpura and Maliana set the stage for Delhi 1984 and the post demolition massacres.

In this, there was a sharp contrast with the long Nehru and early Indira periods.

It is true that the Congress since its return to power in 2004 and well before that has taken note of this record. Distancing itself from the Rao period is easy, given that he does not figure in its pantheon of icons. And there is little reason to doubt the demolition was for him a colossal failure.

But to go further and make pluralism more than mere slogan, justice is a must. Justice has to come in the form of criminal proceedings against those who broke the law. In this respect, the Liberhan report does little to show the way.

Harmony

It also requires deeper attention to the kinds of social fissures and educational droughts that underlie tensions. The Sachar Report did a first class job in pointing the way forward in the latter regard.

Unlike in the time the demolition took place, the larger situation bodes well for such sustained efforts at giving peace a firm foundation.

The appeal of militant Islamism is on the wane in the Valley; terrorism in Punjab has given way to the routine of party based democracy. Even the special powers of the armed forces are being scrutinised afresh with curbs on the anvil. Identity politics has given way to daal and roti based issues.

The demolition was a symptom of a larger breakdown of the political order.

It is a tribute to the maturity of the Indian voter that hate agendas have been short lived and unable to effect larger changes in the body politic. But the task of creating the basis for harmony is still an unfinished one. It is a pity that the Liberhan Commission did not do more to aid this historic endeavour.

The writer teaches history in Delhi University