Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani must feel a liberated man indeed, after the special court at Rae Bareli discharged him in the Ayodhya demolition case. For over a decade he has had to carry the burden of that moment which witnessed the demolition of the mosque at Ayodhya. December 6, 1992, was — as he had written in this newspaper shortly after the demolition — one of the most depressing days in his life and he regretted the manner in which the demolition took place. Indeed from that point onwards the Ayodhya movement, which he had helped build as the president of the BJP through the late eighties and early years of the nineties, rapidly lost its fire despite the exertions of some of the more strident members of the sangh parivar to stoke its dying embers. They continue to do so to this very day.The Rae Bareli ruling then presents the deputy prime minister with a rare and valuable chance to put that contentious history behind him and move onward along the governance curve rather than the rath track. The question, of course, is whether he will be allowed to do so by the radical elements within the parivar who would like nothing more than to re-enact the glory days of yore when cries like “Mandir wahin banayenge” rent Ayodhya’s air and the country was riven by riots and mayhem. Already individuals like Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Vinay Katiyar — livid at being chargesheeted by the Rae Bareli court — are beating their breasts and vowing to made “any sacrifice” to construct the temple. It is a language and legacy that a politician who may well preside over the destiny of this nation in the future should firmly resist, all the more so because the rest of the nation has clearly demonstrated in election after election that emotive and backward-looking agendas like Ayodhya have lost their appeal.Rae Bareli also signals that the law must take its course. Those who have been chargesheeted, if they occupy public office, must step down and plead their case unencumbered by their office. BJP President Venkaiah Naidu may argue until he is blue in the face that the charges against Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati, Sadhvi Ritambra et al, are political ones and hence free of the stigma of moral turpitude. The argument does not wash. It would behove a party that is an important constituent of the ruling coalition to observe the decorum of public life rather than choose to brazen it out, as Venkaiah Naidu seems to want to do. Murli Manohar Joshi has, in fact, done the correct thing and handed over his resignation. The prime minister must now accept it.
