Author: Kuldip Nayar
Publication: Dawn
Date: February 15, 2003
URL: http://www.dawn.com/2003/02/15/op.htm#3
It is always difficult to reconcile
religious passions with the discipline of legal judgments. Still, organizations
and individuals do so for sordid motives. But when the governments go the
same way, they betray their political leanings.
The BJP-led government at the centre
does not seem to be even embarrassed about it. That it has wanted to build
a temple at the disputed Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid site is not something
that it has hidden ever. But when it kept the issue out of the agenda of
the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) - the 24-party conglomerate - the
BJP made it clear that it would not mix its intention with the consensus
of the NDA to have the temple issue aside.
The Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP),
the BJPs Taliban, was never reconciled to it because it wanted three sites
- the Babri masjid and the mosques standing alongside at Varanasi and Mathura.
The VHP's entire activity, in fact, revolved around what would polarize
society. And now it wants the possession of the Trisul (trident), to be
legalized, because it thrives on the success it gets in an atmosphere of
force, not the law of the land.
Apparently under pressure from the
VHP, the BJP has made the NDA government approach the Supreme Court to
vacate the stay on construction of any structure on the land the centre
had acquired around the demolished Babri masjid site. Prime Minister Atal
Behari Vajpayee has supported the reference on the ground that "when a
dispute cannot be resolved through negotiations, the verdict of the judiciary
has to be accepted."
This statement is unexceptionable.
But it suffers from two drawbacks. One, the VHP has declared that it would
not accept a verdict that goes against its stand. If that is the case,
then how does Vajpayee propose to implement the judgment if the masjid
site is given to the Muslims? By requesting the Supreme Court to vacate
the stay, his government has already yielded to the VHP's blackmail.
Its mentor and Ram Janambhoomi Nyas
chairman Mahant Ram Chandra Pramahans has already declared that the Ram
temple would be built "at any cost" within 18 months at the disputed site.
In other words, the VHP does not mean to respect the verdict of the judiciary
that Vajpayee holds so high.
Another drawback in his defence
is that the government has gone back on what it once considered was the
best way out. At that time, the VHP's threat was so real and so persistent
that acquisition of the 67 acres of land surrounding the disputed site
was considered the right move to stall any untoward incident. When the
Supreme Court upheld the government's step some nine years ago, it also
said that all the acquired land must remain with the government till the
decision to whom the site of the Babri masjid belonged. The centre's reference
runs counter to the Supreme Court's earlier observation.
The dispute is still pending before
the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court, although the proceedings
have picked up some speed. Some expect the verdict in a year's time. When
the centre has waited for decades, why hurry now and that too about the
land, which does not in any way settle the core issue: the disputed site
where the Babri masjid stood before demolition?
It is not difficult to guess why
the VHP is keen on getting the acquired land. It is undisputed. It belongs
to Hindu owners who can always be pressured in the name of religion or
otherwise to hand it over to the VHP. Once the land is in its possession,
the VHP will lose no time in building the temple - the walls, the pillars
and the doors of which have been carved elsewhere and kept ready.
Even if the disputed site is not
touched, the temple without the sanctum sanctorum will be ready. It will
be surrounding the disputed site. How will any government stop the VHP
from extending the temple to the disputed site?
A similar situation arose before
the demolition of the Babri masjid when lakhs of Kar Sevaks were allowed
to assemble at Ayodhya with shovels and baskets despite the Supreme Court's
order not to disturb the status quo.
Kalyan Singh of the BJP was the
state chief minister then. Now Mayawati's support is assured because the
BJP gives her majority in the UP assembly. When the centre under the Congress
government could not do anything to stop the demolition, how will it now
check the VHP when both the prime minister and the home minister are a
willing party? True, not all the NDA constituents are behind the BJP's
reference to the court.
But George Fernandes, the convener
of the alliance, is already working on smothering the differences. Even
Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, whose voice counts, may not be
willing to join issue with the BJP, knowing well that Mayawati's BSP has
counter-weighed his Telugu Desam on the strength in the Lok Sabha. Other
allies of the BJP have become more or less pieces of the party's furniture.
Nothing matters to them except berths in the council of ministers. They
may make noises to impress the people.
The voters will, however, avenge
the betrayal because they returned them on their secular credentials. The
BJP's allies may not worry about such a prospect because the general election
is still 20 months away. There is thinking in the Sangh parivar that it
has saffronized the country enough to face the polls any time. Two-thirds
of majority in the Gujarat assembly elections seem to have gone to the
party's head.
The BJP should realize, if it has
not already, that its strength is proportionate to the weakness of the
Congress. The latter has not been able to put its act together because
people like Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh are trying to
fight the BJP on a religious plank.
Some in the Congress believe that
it is a political fight. The party does not seem to realize that the real
problem is economic. The VHP is only diverting the nation's attention.
On its part, the BJP is trying to cover up its failures with emotive issues
like the Ram temple.
A Hindu card, played too often,
can evoke a feeling of disgust among the Hindus who have imbibed the spirit
of pluralism and accommodation for centuries.
The demolition of the Babri masjid
evoked a sense of disgust among them and they showed it during the state
elections in UP, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
It is an opportune moment for the
Liberhan commission to come out with its verdict. It has been sitting for
more than 10 years to find out who were responsible for the demolition
of the Babri masjid. Commissions, headed by retired judges or bureaucrats,
tend to extend themselves endlessly.
The verdict of the Liberhan commission
is very much needed at a time when the VHP has revived the temple issue
all over again. People want to know the names of those who destroyed the
masjid and why.
(The writer is a leading columnist
based in New Delhi.)
