BABRI MASJID

Abir Padhy on Collaboration between

Hindutva and State, The People's Reporter, 1-15 December, 1996

Sixth December, 1992 saw the barbaric dance of Hindu fascist organisations over the ruins of the Babari Masjid, while the state, like an accomplice watched and waited for the destruction to be complete. What followed were some of the most violent and widespread riots ever witnessed in the country since Partition in 1947 in well every two hundred places, in 15 out of our 25 states, killing thousands of people

The recent twelve years will go down in history as the period when communalism took a new and ugly turn. The riot became more and more planned and more barbaric, often ending as carnages directed against the minority communities. The Hindu communal organizations grew in strength and influence. The state became increasingly linked to Hindu communalism. Its machinery, especially the police, the para-military, the executive and often even the press, playing a covert or overt role ... From the British tactics of "divide and rule" to the caste and religious arithmetic that our ruling class politicians regularly use, communalism is nothing new for us. But what we have been seeing in recent years is something quite different - it is the conscious and systematic attempt to unite the majority community under a common ideological banner. And in the variety of political and pseudo-nationalist organisations that are involved, in the systematic and planned programme against the Muslims, in the deliberate fabrication and propagation of various "big lies" and distortions of history as well as an economic nationalist rhetoric with a pro-monopolly capitalist position, one cannot fail to see parallels to Hitlerite Germany (despite the obviously vast differences in context). For, the Hindu communal organisations have a clearly fascistic programme of capturing power and creating a theocratic and fascist state.

It is now clear that the present wave of communalism has its roots in a structural response of the ruling classes to their material crisis and in the fact of the patterns of deprivations and frustrations engendered in society by the specific nature of India's development path. It cannot be identified solely with the BJP and the Sangh Parivar or even minority fundamentalist outfits. And the struggle against it, needs, therefore, to be a real struggle – a struggle to change those social conditions which breed communalism.

Therefore, the attempts to seek a solution within the present political framework by relying on the supposed secular credentials of one or the other ruling class party like Congress, JD, CPI, CPM will not only be just in vain, but also be positively harmful for the democratic movement.

Also harmful is the apologist stand which many of our secularists are now adopting towards the rights of minorities. Protection of minority rights, while cautioning them against and exposing the minority fundamentalist forces, must be an essential component of the anti-communal democratic programme. The events since sixth December, 1992 in particular have clearly shown the complicity of the state in fomenting communalism – the unchecked acts of direct abetment to the communal forces; the numerous acts of covert assistance through errors of omission, compromises etc. and the utter farce of its actions like ban against. Hindu communal organisations like the RSS etc. fully expose the state's own role in this process. Only the assertion of independent democratic forces ... can provide lasting solution to the problem of communalism.

AIMPLB-BMC, BMMCC & AIBMAC

Joint Statement on 11th Anniversary of

Unlocking of Babari Masjid, 1 February, 97

On 1 February, 1997 falls the 11th Anniversary of the Unlocking of the Babari Masjid under the Orders of the District Judge of Faizabad which unleashed the chain of events leading to the destruction of the Babari Masjid on 6 December, 1992, by the Hindutva forces. The Sangh Parivar which organised the movement throughout the eleven years maintained that their claim and demand were beyond the law of the land and that the judicial process was not relevant to the status of the dispute. However, by fits and starts, those who believed in the rule of law have been plodding the judicial path. The title suit is now before the Special Bench of the Allahabad High Court. It is time to recall, in the interest of the rule of law, the legal course that the Babari Masjid dispute has taken since the unlawful and surreptitious introduction of idols in the Babari Masjid on 21-22 December, 1949.

The Babari Masjid Movement suggests and appeals to all secular forces, to societies, organisations, groups and institutions, political, legal or academic, to commemorate the occasion by holding discussion on 1.2.1997 on the Legal Course of the Babari Masjid Dispute 1949-1997, as a public service to awaken the nation to the perils when a society forsakes law and tries to resolve disputes by recourse to violence.                                  

20 January, 1997

Government Statement on Referring Babari Masjid Question to Supreme Court

The proposal to refer the Babari Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi dispute to the Supreme Court under Article 138(2) of the Constitution is in the "Common Minimum Programme" of the Government. The proposal involves intricate legal aspects which are being analysed in detail in consultation with the Ministry of Law.