POWER POLITICS BEHIND THE GAME OF DEMOLITION | Ayodhya by Hemant Sharma

The Kar Sevaks who demolished the structure were merely pawns in the entire movement. The central force was elsewhere. The ones controlling the whole movement belonged to a different world. Although it’s a different story that Kar Sevaks left their side at the time of demolition and wrote the story’s climax according to what they deemed right. On the other hand, there was an equally active world of politics that wanted to kill the movement. The important thing was that both parties had the same goal. Their destination was the same. Only the route was different. The fight was only for credit and ownership, and the benefits one got from it.

In the world of Ayodhya politics, there was Congress and the so-called secular people who wanted to break this BJP and RSS led movement and follow their plan to get the temple built. They wanted to take credit for building the temple and then reap the political benefits of the same.

The entire political arena from Delhi to Lucknow was hyperactive and overflowing with enthusiasm at the time when the Babri structure was attacked by the Kar Sevaks. While the Prime Minister was sitting in front of his television at 7 Race Course, his residence in Delhi, Chief Minister Kalyan Singh was basking in the sun on the roof of his government residence at Kalidas Marg in Lucknow.

The news of vandalism and destruction was conveyed from Ayodhya’s control room to the CM’s house in Lucknow. He was shocked. Kalyan Singh demanded the area to be vacated without the use of firing, at the same time he was angry because he felt that if the VHP had had any such plans, he should have been kept in the loop about it. In the meantime, violence had erupted in Ayodhya. The PM’s personal secretary P.V.R.K. Prasad called Faizabad’s commissioner and asked him to control the situation and use the central forces.

There is no doubt that during the first five hours of demolition, Chief Minister Kalyan Singh decided to believe that he had been cheated just the way Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had also agreed to believe. Kalyan Singh seemed as hurt and disturbed as Narasimha Rao. He felt that he had been given the wrong impression although he had received some kind of a hint about it. On Saturday night, the report sent by the district administration to the Home Secretary said that there was a segment of Kar Sevaks who were unhappy with the changed face of Kar Seva. It meant that the idea of a symbolic Kar Seva was not acceptable to them. Having understood the sensitivity of the situation, Kalyan Singh had sent BJP Chairman Murli Manohar Joshi and Lal Krishna Advani to Ayodhya on Saturday night itself. According to the programme planned earlier, they were actually supposed to go to Ayodhya on Sunday.

After the demolition, Kalyan Singh stayed away due to shock. He called a meeting with the Chief Secretary, Home Secretary, Director General of Police and other senior officials at his residence in Lucknow.

He had given orders in writing for ‘no firing’ so that no officer could be held responsible later on. Kalyan Singh created goodwill for himself within the bureaucracy through this meeting. After consulting with his officers and top ministers, he decided to resign.

Kalyan Singh wanted to meet the governor, B. Satyanarayan Reddy and resign. But the governor wasn’t giving him time because he wanted to talk to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao before meeting Kalyan Singh. He probably wanted to ask the Prime Minister whether Kalyan Singh’s resignation was to be accepted or whether he was to be terminated. But Narasimha Rao refused to speak to the governor. Narasimha Rao was upset with Governor B. Satyanarayan Reddy because when the entire nation was demanding the dismissal of the UP government, the governor was constantly sending reports in favour of the UP government to the centre.

Narasimha Rao felt that even the governor had had a role to play in misleading him in the matter. The last report that the governor had sent two days before the demolition, even stated that if the Kalyan Singh government was dismissed, the Babri structure could be in danger. The structure could become victim to anger against this decision.

Kalyan Singh reached Raj Bhavan and submitted his resignation to the governor at five thirty in the evening. In his one line resignation he wrote, ‘I am resigning. Kindly accept.’ He had not suggested that the legislative assembly be dismissed with his resignation.

It wasn’t just the Opposition that was trying to corner Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, but members of his own party were turning against him as well. He addressed the nation that very night under pressure from his colleagues. In his speech, Narasimha Rao referred to the demolished structure as ‘Babri Masjid’ many times. It was understood nationwide and globally that the demolished structure was a mosque. At no point in his speech did the PM mention that there had been idols kept in the structure for the last 44 years and that namaz was not being read there. The PM’s address aggravated the tension in the country. You can read the whole speech by the Prime Minister in this book’s ‘This Too is Important’ chapter.

As time went by, Kalyan Singh was gaining courage. At first, he was shocked and claimed that he had been cheated. But now, he had accepted the responsibility for the demolition. After his resignation, he announced that it was an outburst of Hindu feelings and emotions because all three—the administration, legislation and judiciary—were responsible for delaying action in the matter. He said that although it was true that he had taken the responsibility for the security of the structure, but he had also said that his government would not fire at saints and Kar Sevaks. He said that no officer was responsible for firing at the Kar Sevaks to get them off the structure. ‘The files have my signature on them. When I had found a way out, no one listened to me. I wanted to separate Kar Seva and the disputed site. My plan was to create a 2.77 acre zone between the disputed structure and the area where Kar Seva would be held. This was the “safety valve”. This could have avoided the 6 December 1992 violence. But no one listened to me. Non BJP parties created hurdles. They used judiciary to have their way.’

He said, ‘there is still time. The non BJP parties must understand the public emotion. There have been 76 fights over Ram Janmabhoomi now. More than three lakh people have been killed. We should not ignore this. What was the reason behind the Centre not acting forty hours after taking over. By not using any force against Kar Sevaks for forty hours after taking over, the Central government gave approval to my decision of not firing.’

I also met Kalyan Singh that day. He said to me, ‘people who are going mad at the demolition of Babri, where were they when 45 temples were razed in Anantnag (Kashmir)? If this is not hypocrisy, then what is it?’

The demolition of Babri had shaken up my editor, Prabhash Joshi. He wrote on the day after the demolition—‘Deceitful devils who praised Lord Ram blackened Maryada Purshottam Ram’s Raghukul’s tradition. That religious place was Babri Masjid as well as the temple of Ram Lalla. People who think they can demolish such a structure deceitfully and build a temple there don’t believe in Ram. They don’t know Ram. They don’t understand him. This is an offence. The deceitfulness in this is an attack to our democracy and our secular constitution’.

The Babri structure would not have crumbled on 6 December 1992 if the provocated Kar Sevaks had not turned violent. What happened was an eruption of a sleeping volcano of history. A lot of people were aware that a tragedy was imminent and they wanted to do something about it immediately. Jansatta’s editor Prabhash Joshi was also one of these and one such attempt was made by him as well. In this attempt, he and many other politicians hoped that nothing much would happen with a symbolic Kar Seva. So when the structure was demolished, it was also an attack on all the efforts made through talks.

If you look at the sequence of events that happened just before and after 6 December, you will realize that everyone including the Centre and the Prime Minister took the whole thing very lightly. Politicians only thought about political gains at every level.

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Ayodhya means the invincible. We all know the meaning of ‘yuddh’ or war. ‘Yodhya’ means the one worthy of a ‘yuddh’ or war. One engages in a war with whom they feel they can conquer. So Ayodhya spells out as ‘that which cannot be conquered’. But the memory of the demolished domes stands erect in the memory of the nation setting aside the literal meaning of the name. The memory of the domes creates a perception of ‘the ruler’ versus ‘the ruled’ in our subconscious.

For the last hundred years, the country’s politics has been revolving around these domes. The narrative has been lingering on for generations. Innumerable arguments, extensive discussions, yet no conclusion. Everything revolved around these domes. Even now it’s all about the domes even when they don’t exist. There hasn’t been an intellectual effort herculean enough to measure its depth, sharpness and truth, which can reclaim the cardinal connection of the present and the future with the history of the land.

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