3 min readNew DelhiDec 25, 2004 12:00 AM IST
First published on: Dec 25, 2004 at 01:11 AM IST
While open violation or defiance could be detected and dealt with, covert sabotage with a lawful face is by its very nature undetectable.’’
P V Narasimha Rao said this in a 12-page testimony on what is widely considered the biggest blot on his record as Prime Minister, the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
A hitherto unpublished document, it consists of the answers that Rao specially chose to give in writing on February 15, 2002 to the Liberhan Commission supplementing his oral deposition over several sittings.
Citing Supreme Court judgments and expert reports, Rao took pains to offer a constitutional justification for the Centre’s failure to take any pre-emptive action against the Kalyan Singh Government and prevent the breakdown of December 6, 1992.
At the same time, in a covering letter to the testimony, Rao put in a modest disclaimer: ‘‘I am not a Constitutional expert. I am an ordinary political worker entrusted for some time with governmental duties, who is expected to know the Constitution to the extent of running his administration in accordance with it and avoid violations of that sacred document. My understanding of the Constitution is therefore bound to be more on the operational and less on the theoretical side.’’
Responding to the suggestion that he was blaming the Constitution for his own failure, Rao said: ‘‘It would be incorrect to assert, in a bald manner, that the Constitution, as such, failed the nation in this case.’’ Passing the buck to the UP Government, Rao said it had defied ‘‘the normal presumption that … a Government that owes its existence to the Constitution would honour its own Maker and Mother, the Constitution.’’
As for his failure to foresee the Kalyan Singh Government’s complicity in the demolition, Rao pleaded that ‘‘no law devised by human beings of limited calibre can anticipate ALL the covert methods of subversion resorted to by those wielding Governmental power.’’
As a corollary, he said that the first attempt at such a covert sabotage was ‘‘likely to succeed because of the sheer element of surprise, if nothing else.’’
On the question why he could not use the Central forces stationed near Ayodhya to check the demolition, Rao quoted judicial authorities to submit that he had no authority to give directions to ‘‘Union forces in aid of civil power in the State.’’
Therefore, in the run-up to December 6, all that the Centre could do, in Rao’s opinion, ‘‘was the stationing of the Union armed forces in aid of the civil power, for deployment with its cooperation.’’
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