Ganesh has often wondered whether it was necessary for the Babri Masjid to be demolished; couldn’t the politicians have built the Ram temple next to it? Similar thoughts besiege those who line the benches in court as accused in the 92-93 riot cases that are still going on. Attending court for the last 16 years, they’ve seen magistrates come and go, policemen fail to turn up, their own lawyers seek repeated adjournments. Witnesses have died, migrated to their own community havens, or relocated as part of the redevelopment mania that has hit the city. Some refuse to lose a day’s wages to travel to court to testify against their assailants, who exercise clout in their area even 16 years later. Some of these accused were dragged from their homes and mosques, charged with crimes they never committed by policemen later indicted for murder by a judicial commission of inquiry. But 16 years later, they remain accused.

Then there are those accused, now greying, who cringe at the memory of those days when, swayed by the frenzied slogans of their leaders, they had poured into the streets and turned against their neighbours. Their actions propelled these leaders to power, but when it came to finding lawyers, paying their fees and convincing employers to let them take leave repeatedly for court appearances, the leaders turned inaccessible.

For all these Mumbaikars, the 17 years that Justice M.S. Liberhan has taken to submit his findings don’t seem very long. December 6, 1992 might have been just yesterday, for their lives still bear the scars inflicted then. The demolition of the Babri Masjid shaped their lives; and though they know who was responsible for it, they need official confirmation from a judge who has sifted through reams of evidence. Exactly which politicians had a role to play; whose was the greater culpability — these have remained issues only of polemics and vote-grabbing. They see that no leader has suffered the way they have in the last 17 years. Instead, all went on to greater political heights, using them as stepping stones.

... contd.