Ayodhya, frame by frame

The terrorists got into the Tata Sumo at Akbarpur, which is near Kichaucha village, where lots of Muslims live. Since lots of Muslims live i...

The terrorists got into the Tata Sumo at Akbarpur, which is near Kichaucha village, where lots of Muslims live. Since lots of Muslims live in Kichaucha they must be 8220;fundamentalists8221;.

At Faizabad, they abandoned the Sumo and hired a jeep driven by Rehan Alam who drove them past a temple 8212; indeed they guided him to the temple 8212; where they 8220;prayed8221;. Muslim fundamentalists praying at a temple? Let us not forget they were pretending to be pilgrims. But where was the audience for the benefit of whom this drama was being enacted? The audience was Rehan Alam, the driver. But the driver was only to drive them up to a point, after which he was to be forced out of the jeep. After getting rid of the driver, the 8220;terrorists8221; would enter the Ramjanmabhoomi campus.

If this indeed was the predetermined script, the driver would live to tell the story 8212; as indeed he did 8212; including the detour he was forced to make to visit the temple where the terrorists 8220;prayed8221;, making them out to be Hindus. Does not quite add up. Conspiracy theorists smack their lips like they have seen jam. To enter the compound the 8220;terrorists8221; bang the jeep against railings protecting the sensitive area where the Babri masjid, the 8220;disputed structure8221;, once stood, the spot now adorned by Ram Lala idols.

When the jeep is detonated to create a passage in the railing, one of the terrorists is blown to bits. Next day the dead man8217;s family recognise the watch-strap and chappals as belonging to Ramesh Pandey. What was Pandey doing with 8220;terrorists8221;? Pandey was some sort of freelance panda, a guide for pilgrims. Seeing a jeep full of 8220;pilgrims8221; moving towards the holy place, he presumably trailed it, soliciting custom. One Mohammad Sharief, a part-time undertaker, buried the five terrorists. The day after the burial there was an official 8220;leak8221; that all four were circumcised. They were separated from Pandey who was cremated.

Meanwhile, Rehan Alam has been detained in the Ramjanmabhoomi area. He is being taken to places on the route the 8220;terrorists8221; travelled. His passport indicates he once worked in Dammam, an oil-rich region of Saudi Arabia. I suppose Saudi intelligence will furnish details on his contacts in Dammam.

So the breakthrough on the identity of the terrorists officials claim to be in possession of, is that they were circumcised. For this detail, too, they have presumably fallen back on data furnished by Sharief, the undertaker.

The media8217;s imagination fills in details officials cannot furnish. No official has yet given an indication of the identities of the 8220;terrorists8221;. But every channel, including DD, has conducted ponderous discussions on Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish. Graphic routes were drawn from Nepal.

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The winners in all of this confusion, have been the people of India who have kept their calm. TV screens were filled with baton charges, tear gas, the pushing of barricades 8212; but only for a day. That the events at Ayodhya coincided with the last day of the RSS conclave in Surat is about as significant as Shankarsinh Vaghela8217;s allegation that it was a set-up job.

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who should be busy managing floods in the state, chipped in with his clarion call: the terrorist attack was as important as 9/11. That the embattled BJP president L.K. Advani referred to Modi8217;s speech in his protest meeting at Jantar Mantar may be a pointer to his quest for allies in the intra-BJP battles ahead.

The BJP8217;s attitude towards the Ayodhya incident brings into sharp focus the party8217;s desperate search for an issue. Clearly, reverting to the Ram Janmabhoomi movement is not seen by the party as a political booster. The party has therefore confined itself to attacking the Centre and Mulayam Singh Yadav for security lapses. Advani alone has picked up the refrain, 8220;Mandir wahin banega8221; Ram temple will be built on the exact spot but with a caveat. His ideological U-turn in Pakistan earned him the wrath of the RSS-VHP. Since the Ayodhya incident has brought the issue into focus very temporarily, in my view, he has extended a hand to the conclave in Surat by pitching in for the temple.

Since a full blown temple movement appears now to be out of the question, he has left room for his new secular avatar. He says he will reach out to the Muslim ulema to let him build the temple 8220;on the spot8221;. He probably imagines the Muslim ulema will entertain his plea because of the new garb he acquired in Pakistan. The flaw in this approach is that there are no Muslim ulema the 150 million Indian Muslims listen to, except in bits and pieces, here and there. The good news may be that the Muslim community may, through repeated trial and error, have moved ahead of communal politics.