BABARI MASJID
A.G. Noorani
New Light on Babari Masjid Demolition – II
Rao went to Senegal for a G15 meeting from November 20-22, 1992. In the light of his later assertions that he could not impose President's rule, the author's (Madhav Godbole's) revelation is shocking: "He told S.B. Chavan, Arjun Singh and Sharad Pawar that they could meet during his absence and even take decision to impose President's rule in Uttar Pradesh and keep him informed. Obviously, none of the CCPA (Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs) members were prepared to take responsibility for or even advocate any such option during the Prime Minister's absence".
Article 356 did not require a report from Uttar Pradesh's Governor, B. Satyanarain Reddy. On November 26 he agreed to send his report that evening for taking action under Article 356. But later in the even he advised against such a course citing the proceedings in the Supreme Court as did Rao and some advisers despite the fact that on November 25 the Court had given the green signal.
This brings us to crucial meeting which was the subject of open debate between Arjun Singh and Rao's men. The author records that "an informal CCPA meeting was in progress on November 30. The Prime Minister requested Sharad Pawar to go and talk to the Chief Minister, who was waiting in five RCR next door which is also used selectively by the PM to meet visitors. After some time, the Prime Minister also went to meet the Chief Minister and requested the CCPA to continue the deliberations. After a short while, both the PM and Sharad Pawar returned to the meeting. The Prime Minister said that Chief Minister, Uttar Pradesh, was not agreeable to action under Article 138(2) (binding ruling by the Supreme Court) and was prepared only to accept a non-binding advisory reference under Article 143. The Prime Minister said that there was now no possibility of further progress in the matter and the other alternative of central intervention appeared inevitable. The Prime Minister said, "then let us go ahead with Article 356. Let Godbole prepared and bring up a Cabinet note". Rao's later apologies about lack of power under Article 356 were therefore just so many lies.
Arjun's Letter
Arjun Singh's letter of January 10, 1993 to the Cabinet Secretary, S. Rajagopal, differed from this version only on the date. On the substance, both versions are agreed: Arjun Singh providing corroborating details: "It may be recalled that Shri Kalyan Singh, the then Chief Minster of Uttar Pradesh came to meet the Prime Minister on November 28, 1992 even while the meeting of the CCPA was on. The Defense Minister was sent to talk to him till the Prime Minister could go. Subsequently the Prime Minister also joined the talks with him and other members of the CCPA waited for their return. On their return we were told that Shri Kalyan Singh finds himself totally unable to make others agree to what we were suggesting. I was not sure what we were suggesting. But this is a fact that a totally negative reply was given by the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. Subsequent to this it was more or less decided in the CCPA that there seemed to be no choice but to dismiss the Uttar Pradesh Government and take all subsequent steps. Prime Minister in fact directed the officers to keep all the relevant papers ready since he was going to Tamil Nadu on 29th and that after he returns, we would decide the matter. Meeting of the CCPA could not be held on November 29 and the issue again was not discussed in this light in the CCPA in the subsequent meeting. It is obvious that something transpired which gave us reason to further trust the bona fides of the BJP, VHP and RSS combine". Arjun Singh was complaining to the Cabinet Secretary about the suppression very in the draft White Paper on Ayodhya; most notably Rao's talks with the RSS and the sadhus.
The civil servant records the facts, the politician confirms the record and draws inferences which ring true. For, only a couple of pages away Dr. Godbole mentions that the Director of the Intelligence Bureau V.G. Vaidya was then holding talks with the RSS, Rajendra Singh and Moropant Pingle. The author asked Vaidya to secure from then "the plans for the whole temple" not merely the gate. The ones unofficially in circulation showed that the mosque was to be subsumed or taken over in the temple. The leaders refused to reveal the plans. Godbole spoke to Rao as well as Chavan. That Rao "did not appear to be keen on getting the whole plan and said that there might be no harm in permitting the construction of the sinhadwar (the gate)" reveals his own plans.
The fact remains that on two occasions, on November 19 or so, before the trip to Senegal, and on November 28, Rao was prepared to impose President's rule and saw no legal impediment to it contrary to his stand in Parliament on December 21. Referring to this speech, Godbole writes: "I must say that at no stage, in all the discussions before December 6, 1992, had the Prime Minister raised this point. Neither had the Law Ministry raised it at any time during the discussions in the CPA or elsewhere... the draft notifications for composition of President's rule in UP and dissolution of the legislature had been vetted by the Law Ministry on November 27. The question of invoking Article 356 had some up several times during the two or three weeks prior to December 6 in the context of implementation of e contingency plan."....
No November 20, the Supreme Court had asked the centre "to indicate its mind". The Home Ministry, therefore, prepared a set of submissions. Their core was the explicit exclusion of the mosque and disputed lands from UP's plans which it was to be asked to disclose in ll. Read what the Home Secretary records: "The backgrounder which was intended to be given to the Law Ministry and the Attorney General was faxed to the Prime Minister at Senegal. On his return to India on November. 1992, when I met the Prime Minister at the airport, Rajagopal and me to the VIP lounge at the airport self. He was obviously very upset with the approach and contents of the backgrounder and said that he could not agree to the approach suggested by me, as it went beyond e Congress (1) party manifesto and he had no authority agree to it without going to the AICC. I tried to explain the Prime Minister that there was no contradiction between what I had suggested and what the Congress (1) Manifesto had promised, but he was in no mood to ten".
After the demolition of the mosque Rao took the very course which the BJP had urged before the event conference to the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion under Article 143, not for a binding decision under article 138(2).
On one point the author was wrong; namely, in fusing to order the police in the early hours of December 8 to remove the idols placed in the makeshift temple set up after the demolition. Mr. Jyoti Basu's unseal, on December 9, was pre-eminently sound. It was elected by those who had demolished the mosque, "is an legal construction and the Government has every right demolish it".
The While Paper on Ayodhya, laid before Parliament February 1993, is in law a statement to Parliament and, therefore, covered by the law of parliamentary privilege. The author writes: "The Government White Paper did not discuss the contingency plans prepared for dealing with situation either in July 1992 or December 1992. It so did not discuss why they were not implemented by Government on either of the two occasions".
The implications of taking recourse to Articles 355 d 356 of the Constitution were also skirted, so as to be line with the Prime Minister's averments in Parliament. More than anything else, the White Paper was ambivalent about the course of negotiations held by the Prime Minister... It also fails to answer the important question of whether, given the circumstances, the demolition of the structure was unavoidable or whether it could have been prevented. Excessive concern for narrow personal and political gains resulted in many vital questions being left unanswered in the Government White Paper".
Five Issues
Arjun Singh had publicly raised five issues on which the Paper was silent. One was: "What happened in the meeting of the CCPA on November 27, 1992 and what was the resulting directive given to the Union Home Secretary Madhav Godbole?" Another was: "What was the Prime Minister doing between 12 noon and 6 p.m. on December 6, 1992?"
We shall never know the answers from Rao, the one best in a position to depose... But were it not for Madhav Godbole, a civil servant of rare mettle, the facts that we have now learnt would never have seen light of the day.
There are not many like him. There is a world of difference between a civil servant and a servitor.
The country has suffered a lot at the hands of venal and authoritarian politicians and the servitors who lent them their services. It owes a lot more to the upright civil servant than has been acknowledged. Madhav Godbole will rank high among them. A moving passage in the book serves to highlight the deep divide between devout Hindus and the charlatans who play the Hindutva card but whose practices of the Hindu faith have been their best kept secret.
Godbole is a devout Hindu like millions in India. He is careful to mention that he wrote his Preface on Ganesh Chaturthi. What he writes of his visit to Ayodhya serves to expose the monstrous fraud which the Sangh Parivar has perpetrated all these years at the cost of human lives on the innocent masses: "I visited Ayodhya on December 29, 1992 in connection with the proposed acquisition of land and to review the law-and-order arrangements in the light of the earlier decision to permit darshan. Unlike other visitors from Delhi in the past who took darshan at the Ram Lalla temple and offered pooja there, (Chavan and Naresh Chandra to wit - AGN) I did not do so, nor did I accept any prasad. Though a devout person myself, I believe that one's religion is a personal matter. In any case, I had enough of Ayodhya and sincerely believed that God could not reside in that temple, the construction of which was associated with so much deceit and wanton violence."
(Source: The Statesman, 11-13 June, 1996)
Aurangzeb and the Benares Temple
Pattabhi Sitaramayya: Feathers and Stones
There is a popular belief that Aurangzeb was a bigot in religion. This, however, is combated by a certain school. His bigotry is illustrated by one or two instances. the building of a mosque over the site of the original Kasi Visweswara Temple is one much. A story is told in extenuation of the first event. In the height of his glory, Aurangzeb like any foreign king in a country, had in his entourage a number of Hindu nobles. They all set at one day to see the sacred temple of Benares. Amongst them was the Rance of Cutch. When the party returned after visiting the Temple, the Rance of Cutch was missing. They searched for her in and out, East, North, West and South but no trace of her was noticeable. At last, a more diligent search revealed a Tah Khana or an underground storey of the temple which to all appearances had only two storeys. When the passage to it was found barred, they broke and open the doors and found inside the pale shadow of the Rance beneath of her jewelry. It turned out that the Mahants were in the habits of picking out wealthy and be-jeweled pilgrims and in guiding them to see the temple, decoying them to the underground cellar and robbing them of their jewelry! What exactly would have happened to their life one did not know. Anyhow in this case, there was no time for mischief as the search was diligent and prompt. On discovering the wickedness of the priests, Aurangzeb declared that such a scene of robbery could not be the House of God and ordered it to be forthwith demolished. And the ruins were left there. But the Ranee who was thus saved insisted on a Masjid being built ont he ruined and to please her, one was subsequently built. That is how Masjid has come to exist by the side of the Kasi Visweswara Temple which is no temple in the real sense of the term but a humble cottage in which the marble Siva Linga is housed. Nothing is known about the Mathura Temple. This story of the Benares Masjid was given in a rare manuscript in Lucknow which was in the possession of the respected Mulla who had read it in the Ms. and who though he promised to look it up and give the MS. to a friend, to whom he has narrated the story, died without fulfilling his promise. The story is little known and the prejudice, we are told, against Aurangzeb persists.
"I know of no nonviolent method of compelling the obedience of eight crores of Muslims to the will of the rest of India however, powerful a majority the rest may represent. We are at present a joint family. Any member may claim a division.
-Mahatma Gandhi (Harijan, April 6, 1940 Vol. VIII, P. 76
The Ayodhya Divides
As the most contentious issue of our times, the Ayodhya dispute gives an occasion for anxiety, and reasons for hope. Anxiety, because nearly four years after the demolition, the awareness about this dispute is extraordinarily high, the nation stands divided and so does every section of society, except obviously the Muslims, on whether the demolition was justified. Dalits and OBCs, who are often assumed to be the natural defenders of secularism, are also as divided as the rest. The differences now take the form of a dispute about what should be built. Although 'only temple' emerges as the largest single choice, those who prefer options other than this are in a clear majority.
But there is hope too, for the polarization is far from complete and is not strictly along Hindu-Muslim lines. A majority of Hindus who have an opinion on this matter disapprove of the demolition. A majority of those who want 'only mosque' to be rebuilt are in fact non-Muslims. More than one-fifth of the respondents want both temple and mosque to be built side by side.
Have you heard about Ayodhya demolition? South 63
All North South
Yes 72 76 63
No 28 24 37
Was demolition justified?
(Only those who have heard about it)
Yes 33 No 53
(Those who say no)
Hindu 45
Muslim 94
BJP Voters 33
Cong Voters 63
(Source: The India Today, 31 August, 1996)
BJP: Kalyan Singh's Views
There was no shrine in Ayodhya. It was a disputed structure.
Rama temple will always remain an issue till its construction. We will put the opposition parties in the dock on the temple issue demanding them to spell out their clear stand on it.
To take active part in the Kashi/Mathura Movements, BJP workers are bound by the party's line of action.
In a democratic setup, everybody has a right to launch their movements and campaigns but there should be no violence.
The BJP Government will not stop any peaceful agitation (by VHP or BMAC).
There are very few Muslim claimants- however al positive effort is being made to field them, but no quota has been fixed for any caste or community.
