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From
a reporter’s notebook
Is
a sincere, secular position possible on the Ayodhya dispute? Or,
let me amend my question. Is a public stance possible which will
be seen to be secular and which has the effect of harmonising divergent
strands?
Oppose
the temple, and you inflate the ranks of those whose purpose it
is to generate opinion in its favour. Support it and the opposite
mobilisation follows. When a debate has been revived with clear
partisan ends in view, any participation can only enhance its importance.
But the dilemma persists: does one run away from the issue?
I say
it with a degree of uncertainty but some light may be shed on the
debate if I pull out sheaves from my reporter’s notebook that
are related to Ayodhya even prior to the mosque demolition. I was
in Ayodhya on November 9, 1989, the day of the shilanyas, or the
brick-laying ceremony for the proposed Ram temple. A very helpful
district magistrate of Faizabad, Ram Sharan Srivastava, invited
me to a vacant chair near the site of the proposed shilanyas. Slogans
like “this is not the foundation of a temple but the Hindu
rashtra” by a large group of VHP and Bajrang Dal volunteers
were repeated without a break.
How
was he supervising the shilanyas on a disputed piece of land, I
asked. Srivastava handed me a copy of the Allahabad high court order.
“We clarify that this order dated August 14, 1989 was in respect
of the entire property mentioned in the suit including plot 586
in so far included within the boundary described by letters EFGH
in the site plan.” I would like to meet anyone who could understand
this quaint legalese without looking at the plan and without spending
days in this maze of temples and lanes with a measuring tape.
The
Babri Masjid Action Committee promptly called a press conference
and condemned the Congress for having joined the VHP and for violating
the court verdict. Its members then courted arrest in such large
numbers that the administration ran out of buses to carry them to
the police station.
The
government gave the impression that the foundation would neither
be laid on disputed land nor on nazul (or government) land but on
a spot contained in the legal mumbo-jumbo quoted above. In other
words, those involved in the masjid matter were given the impression
that high-level negotiations were on with the VHP to shift the shilanyas
to a less contentious site. But under large police bandobast, the
stone was laid at exactly the site selected by the VHP even prior
to the high court’s intervention.
The
official publicity said the foundation was being allowed “a
good 100 m from the disputed area”. But after the ceremony
a strong rejoinder was issued by Ashok Singhal, managing trustee,
Sri Rama Janmabhoomi Nyaas: “The shilanyas has taken place
on exactly the same spot previously marked out by the Samiti.”
And,
mind you, all of this happened days after Rajiv Gandhi had kicked
off his party’s election campaign from Ayodhya promising the
establishment of “Ram Rajya”. Syed Nasir Hussaini, who
looked after the main mosque in Faizabad and was senior vice-president
of the District Congress Committee, was in tears when I met him:
“Muslims have been taken for a ride.” Balbir Singh, president
of the City Congress Committee, nodded in agreement.
Frankly,
I was a little surprised at the general shock expressed at the Congress
duplicity in this instance. Anyone with ears close to the ground
knew that the party was out to secure the turf it thought was being
encroached upon by the BJP. Indeed, clear evidence was available
even in Faizabad that it was making adjustments with the BJP.
The
Congress candidate for the Faizabad parliamentary constituency,
Nirmal Kumar Khatri, was pitted against the CPI’s Mitr Sen
Yadav. In this situation the BJP candidate was withdrawn. You would
have to be a political moron to imagine that this withdrawal was
not designed to help the Congress candidate.
I have given this background because the Ayodhya chronicle is generally
pieced up in current discussions from the date of the demolition
of the Babri Masjid. The demolition was actually the culmination
of the more-saffron-than-thou competition initiated by Indira Gandhi
in the wake of the famous Jammu elections.
The
opening of the temple locks, the shilanyas, the famous cohabitation
with the Muslim League and the BJP at Beypore and Vadagara in Kerala,
and a host of such moves were only climaxed by Narasimha Rao’s
slumber on December 6, 1992.
Of
course, the Sangh Parivar must be chastised for raking up communal
and divisive issues but the Congress role in providing muscle to
the Parivar must not be overlooked either. The only secular stance
on Ayodhya, in the long run, is to call a spade a spade.
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