Mandir kahan banayenge?

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the P.C. Sorkar of the spoken word, has done it again. Confronted with the demand that his three indicted ministers ...

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the P.C. Sorkar of the spoken word, has done it again. Confronted with the demand that his three indicted ministers resign, he has tried to leap out of that trap by fashioning another for his tormentors: Atilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3;mandir kahan baneyenge? An immaterial question because it is not for government or Parliament or the Congress to answer, but for the courts to decide. The property dispute over the ownership of the erstwhile 8220;disputed structure8221; is in the courts 8212; and till the courts decide whom it belongs to, no one can answer Vajpayee8217;s distracting question. None knows this better than Vajpayee himself. Which is why he has raised it. He must believe he is the captain of a ship of fools if he thinks this will take attention away from the only question he has no alternative to answering: why are Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti serving in his council of ministers? As a reward for rushing to Ayodhya to save the Babri Masjid?

The illegitimacy of these ministers continuing in office has been underlined by the peremptory order given to Harin Pathak to quit. Pathak had to leave the ministry of defence production because he was charged to stand trial in court under the criminal law of the land. So have Advani, Joshi and Bharti been charged to stand trial in court under the criminal law of the land. Vajpayee seeks to draw a distinction between the two cases on two grounds.

One, that a criminal revision petition has been filed before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court against the orders of the additional sessions judge Ayodhya Episode, Jagdish Prasad Srivastava. It is an irrelevant point. Until and unless the prayers in the criminal revision petition are accepted by the High Court, the findings of the sessions court stand. Would Vajpayee take back Pathak if he were to instruct his lawyers to file a criminal revision petition in the Gujarat High Court? For aught I know, Pathak he has already done so! Moreover, while 20 of the Babri Masjid demolishers have filed the criminal revision petition, the three ministers concerned are Atilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3;not parties to that petition. Implicitly, therefore, they have not challenged in the higher court the charges laid against them by the lower court. At the same time they have absconded from putting in an appearance before the trial court for the last three years.

Now they are ministers with collective responsibility in a government under which falls the agency prosecuting them in court, that is, the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI. Vajpayee protests that the CBI is an independent agency, pure and pristine and above political interference. Oh yeah? In which case why is he trotting out his second exculpation, that the criminal charges filed by the CBI are 8220;political8221; not 8220;criminal8221;? P.C. Sorkar could perhaps get away with such illusory magic, not the prime minister of India. Gillie, gillie.

In any case, neither the Constitution nor the Indian Penal Code nor the Criminal Law Amendment Act 8212; all of which are invoked in Judge Srivastava8217;s verdict 8212; recognise a category of 8220;political8221; crimes. Crimes are crimes, whether committed by politicians or for political reasons. If Advani amp; Co rushed to Ayodhya to protect the Masjid, the place to argue their defence is the sessions court. Instead, like criminals on the lam, not only are these three ministers shying away from the court, under the principle of collective government responsibility they are ruling over the very agency which has independently concluded that, however exalted these three might be politically, they are criminals deserving only of a fair trial in court. It is not for the accused to be the judge of their actions; they are free to say from the dock whatever they wish to in their defence; but it is not for them as ministers to defame the criminal investigation agency which has investigated their crimes or to direct the prosecutionon how to pursue their prosecution.

With law minister Arun Jaitley having grossly overstepped the bounds of propriety, and possibly even the law, by declaring as false a case already in the courts, and the minister in charge of the CBI, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, being the blood daughter of one of the 38 accused, and the prime minister devising by Atilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3;fatwa categories of crime politically/non-political which the law does not recognise, the chances of an honest prosecution already stand vitiated. And with a home minister in charge of law and order held a criminal prima facie, and a sports minister in charge of cricket match-fixing held a criminal prime facie, should Cabinet meetings not be held in Tihar jail?

Atal Bihari Vajpayee, our 21st century,Manu, says the law is irrelevant, what counts is 8220;national sentiment8221;. So, Muslim sentiment is no part of national sentiment? So, secular sentiment is no part of national sentiment? So, the views of the NDA partners are no part of national sentiment? What rubbish that Advani took out his Rath Yatra to save the Babri Masjid, what rubbish that Murli Manohar Joshi went on his Ekta Yatra to save the Babri Masjid, what rubbish that Uma Bharti sang Atilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3;8220;Ek dhakka aur do/Babri Masjid thod do8221; to save the Babri Masjid. There were only 30 activists who vaulted the barriers and only six who actually got to the Masjid. What were the lakhs of kar sevaks brought in by Advani amp; Co doing to stop them? Chanting kirtans and bhajans? And of what use were Advani8217;s feeble appeals to desist? What stopped him from going under the Atilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3;gumbaz and saying the next brick that fell would fall upon his head? That would have stopped them. But then Advani is no Mahatma.

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The ugly, inescapable truth is that stopping them was no part of Advani8217;s intention. After all, he had eaten the oath, Atilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3;8220;Ram ki saugand ham khaate hain/Mandir wahin baneyenge8221;. That is the moot point. The prime minister too says Atilde;sup2;f40Atilde;sup3;mandir wahin baneyenge. He will not wait for the courts to pronounce on whether he has any legal right to build a mandir where he wishes to build it. When it comes to gut communalism, there is no more difference between Vajpayee and Advani than a pot and a kettle.

Vajpayee, our 21st century Manu, says the law is irrelevant, what counts is 8220;national sentiment8221;. So, Muslim sentiment is no part of national sentiment?