By Krishna Jha
The sinister episodes of how a masjid was turned into a temple is still fresh in the memory of people. The forced placing of the idols of Ram under the high dome of the main hall prohibited any Namaz, a practice that was continuing since ages. It was the night of December 22-23, 1949. Muslims were totally barred from entering the masjid, Hindus had a limited access and thus context was prepared. The courts did not restore the possession of the Mosque to its rightful owners. They froze the situation created by force and deceit, though official assistance was also extended.
Then came the second stage. On February 1, 1986, court ordered the opening of the locks of the gates to permit Hindus to worship the idols. Muslims were not made party to the application though they had been party to the legal proceedings all along. Their application itself requesting a hearing was rejected. In the third stage, on November 9, 1989, just before the Lok Sabha elections, Shilanyas was performed at a site near the Mosque by the VHP with the official sanction from state and Central governments.
There was written agreement between the government of Uttar Pradesh and leaders of VHP, signed at Lucknow, on September 27, 1989. The bricks were sanctified in all the corners of the country and brought to Ayodhya for laying the foundation of the temple building on November 9, 1989. Litigation on title to the mosque was pending before the court. The move should have been banned. But it was encouraged. The late CPI leader Com Satyapal Dang perceptively noted that while the foundation stone of the new temple would be some distance away from the Mosque, “There is no undertaking that Babri Masjid would not be sought to be demolished subsequently”.
After three years, on December 6, 1992, the VHP construction plans were revealed in public by its secretary general Ashok Singhal. Deciphering the details, Ashok Singhal had said, ”The sanctum sanctorum or the Garbha Griha of the proposed temple will remain at the same place,” and the puja of the idol was to be performed there only. The judiciary should have been more observant and prevented the Shilanyas on November 9, 1989. The Supreme Court declined to intervene on October 27, 1989. The Allahabad high court had made orders for the preservation of the status quo in the specific context of the Shila Pujan on August 14, and on November 7, 1989, two days before the Shilanyas. The orders covered not only the mosque but the adjoining area also.
Home minister Buta Singh rushed to Lucknow on November 8 to meet the VHP leaders, and asked them to shift the site on which foundation stone was to be laid. They simply refused to listen. Suddenly a shift came in the situation when the Advocate General Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar made a ‘sudden discovery’ saying the space for shilanyas was clearly outside the site plan and told the court so. The high court could have prohibited the foundation stone laying at the particular space, and not in the proximity of the mosque itself. But it did not.
The court dismissed the fears about the destruction of the mosque. The high court had in its knowledge that one of the parties who signed the agreement had openly discussed its commitment to destroy the mosque. The court dismissed these fears of demolition expressed by petitioners as ‘Ipse dixit’. The day after the Shilanyas, the distinguished Justice V R Krishna Iyer had made a remark that shows his deep anguish in this statement, ‘’The judiciary will be described as the villain of the piece.” In fact the enormity of the surrender could not be exaggerated.
In fact the official support and judicial apathy were the running trends in the entire scene till the last moment, that was the demolition of the Mosque on December 6, 1992. The issue was facilitated by the chief justice Venkatachaliah, as he was actively supporting the move. Attorney General Milon Banerjee was aware of the consequences of the heinous act, and issued repeated warnings but to no avail.
For thirty six- years, beginning from December 22, 1949, to February 1, 1986, there was a change in the situation that was forced on Ayodhya episode. The Mosque was demolished on December 6, 1992. Prior to it on November 9, 1989, there was Shilanyas, (the burying act of first brick), near the mosque ushering in a new stage. Thus proceeded the final ‘Horror’ act. It was a clear attempt to make ours a fractured society. The Supreme Court‘s majority judgment on October 24, 1994, on the president’s reference to the court for an advisory opinion, upheld a provision and that was Section 7 (2) in the law enacted in the wake of the demolitions, which was Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act, 1993, which implied that the idols which were placed in the disputed site, after the demolition, must be retained where they are and the puja must be continued as before.
In the years following the post Shilanyas in 1989, up to the demolition in 1992, no government made any attempt to restrain the tide of the Ram temple movement and it had to pay the price for it. The demolition sent shockwaves through the nation, making India a victim of the Hindutva’ machinations. It revealed how the nation could be made vulnerable to Hindu communalists’ attempt to thrust a majoritarian identity on it – an identity that is inimical to the secular democracy India is. (IPA Service)
