BABRI MASJID

Demolition: No Solution to Communal Problem

Shahabuddin's Letter to The Times of India, 27 October, 1997

Shri K.R. Malkani in his article on the demolition of Babari Masjid in Ayodhya on 6 December, 1992 has done history a great favour by admitting that a Standing ancient Masjid was demolished in broad daylight on 6 December, 1992 and by identifying Pakistan's ISI and P.V. Narasimha Rao and his kitchen Cabinet as the demolition squad. Perhaps the Kar Sevaks brought by the Sangh Parivar were there on that day in such numbers merely for singing bhajans and sprinkling Saryu water over the site! Gracefully, he also regrets the "disorderly manner" of demolition!

But his entire article is full of misrepresentation and distortion. He says that Nehru Cabinet overlooked the Hindu demands relating to Ayodhya, Mathura and Varanasi. There were no such demands.

He compares Hindu-Muslim relations to Russia-Poland relations. Are Hindus and Muslims two sovereign nations? Did the Turks, the Pathans and the Mughals rule India from Bukharia or Kabul? The Muslim Indians today are as much Indians, as much sons of the soil as Hindu Indians. Both Hindus and Muslim Indian struggled for freedom. On 15 August, 1947 the British did not hand over power to Hindu Indians but to all Indians. So how does the question of "balancing the account" arises on independence if indeed there was an account to be balanced?

He quotes Toynbee, Nirad Chaudhuri and V.S. Naipaul, I feel all of them are committing the same error - of identifying India with Hinduism, which is at the very root of Hindu communalism, revanchism and chauvinism.

He mentions a Memorandum of Understanding, drafted by Rajiv Gandhi for shifting the Babari Masjid (as suggested so graciously by the Sangh Parivar) and states that Muslim leaders failed to sign it. This is the first time I have heard of this MOU. Will Mr. Malkani publish the text? Will he name the Muslim leaders consulted by Rajiv Gandhi?

He mentions the promulgation and withdrawal of an Ordinance by V.P. Singh. This Ordinance was promulgated at the height of Advani's Yatra and with the approval of Vajpayee. His own Law Minister Goswami was not happy. The Babari Masjid Movement smelled a rat and prevailed upon V.P. Singh and his Cabinet (with the help of Goswami) to withdraw it. But the Ordinance did not say that the acquired land was to be used for constructing the proposed Ram Janambhoomi Mandir.

Chandra Shekhar initiated talks between the VHP and the AIBMAC (the dissident section of the Babari Masjid Movement). What his intention was God knows but why didn't the VHP agree to place all its evidence before the Special Bench, already functioning, instead of placing it before the Prime Minister and his advisers? As anticipated the talks failed. The P.M. is not the Chief Justice of India.

P.V. Narasimha Rao gave a long rope to the Sangh Parivar, allowed acquisition of land around the Masjid, its excavation, the construction of a boundary wall and of a concrete platform 20' thick to serve as the foundation of the proposed Mandir. He rejected the advice of all his senior colleagues to dismiss the Kalyan Singh Government during July-December, 1992, gave orders to the Central forces not to move to save the Masjid under demolition or remove the Karsevaks till it was completely demolished. He also allowed the debris to be levelled, a make-shift mandir constructed and the idols restored, all under the President's Rule, before giving the green signal to the security forces. Did he wish to snatch credit from the Sangh Parivar for building the mandir and creating a new reality? The fact is that he wished the Masjid to be demolished, by the Kar Sevaks and the blame to fall on Kalyan Singh and a Mandir to be constructed on its site and get the credit for it.

He says that the Sangh Parivar wanted the Masjid 'shifted legally'. This is a contradiction in itself. The Masjid is the site not the structure. A Masjid cannot be shifted legally for building a Mandir! The Babari Masjid Movement was prepared to consider the Hindu claim if it was found by a judicial authority that a Ram Janamsthan Mandir stood on the site in 1528 and was demolished to build Babari Masjid there. As it is, the Babari Masjid Movement was always prepared from February 1986 itself to give the disputed land, next to the Masjid, including its compound, where Ram Chabootra stood, for the construction of the Mandir. But it was not and is not prepared to sign away the site of the Masjid because it belongs to Allah, unless the Masjid was, ab initio, not found to be a Masjid, having been built on the site of a standing Mandir after demolishing the latter.

The rest of Mr. Malkani's article is a reiteration of the political line of his party. But I would like to add that if 'appeasement' means denial of worship and demolition of places of worship, Malkani must have a dictionary of his own.

The Hindu Muslim problem will continue to haunt our motherland so long as Muslim Indians face inequality, injustice, indignity and deprivation and the threat of assimilation, and so long as Sangh Parivar considers the Hindus - only as Indians and the non-Hindus as foreigners and aliens!

I am really surprised at Malkani's reference to Bombay bomb blasts, since there was large scale violence after 6 December all over the country, according to Malkani, it stopped only after the March, 1993 blasts. Do we have to have bomb blasts to have communal peace?