Who is to blame for Babri demolition?

“A lot of consultation was going on. The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs must have informally discussed the Ayodhya situation a dozen times in the course of three weeks,” Godbole recalls. “However, opinion was divided on howthe crisis should be handled. The Cabinet Secretary, S. Rajagopal, said the centre should not interfere in the matter and Naresh Chandra, who was heading the Ayodhya cell in the PMO said he did not expect the Uttar Pradesh Government would take any precipitating action.”

Those involved in the process of decision-making, either formally or informally, say the fault for the conflagration at Ayodhya must also lie with the courts, which did not allow the Central Government to intervene in time as well as with the Intelligence Bureau which did not get whiff of the “conspiracy’ afoot to bring the shrine down. The prime minister is said to have had seven separate briefings with the Director of the Intelligence Bureau in the days preceding December 6.

Godbole says that when the situation took a sensitive turn, a team headed by a Joint Director of the IB was dispatched to Ayodhya and they were sending daily reports to New Delhi. “But the IB reports merely talked about the congregation of kar sevaks and how thesituation was looking volatile. They never said anything about attempts to bring the structure down.”

Others involved in the discussions point out that the importance of the IB inputs had been stressed upon by Cabinet Secretary Rajagopal before the full Cabinet meeting. He had informed the Cabinet that IB reports had been extremely specific and detailed on the assembly of large number of kar sevaks and had also mentioned the fact that some groups of the Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sena had been seen “practising” on rubble mounds with pick-axes. Despite this, the IB had ruled out any damage to the Babri Masjid.

The one person who appears to have taken cudgels against “victimisation” of former prime minister Rao for the demolition drama is O.P. Sharma, the Supreme Court advocate who was the first to approach the apex court for intervention in the matter.

Says Sharma now, “If persons like S.B. Chavan and Arjun Singh are seeking to put the blame squarely on Rao’s shoulders I would like to tell them that theytoo are guilty of the same offence. As Home Minister, Chavan was in charge of law and order and should have stopped the drift in Ayodhya. And Arjun Singh had himself visited Ayodhya on November 3-4 and had returned to report that he was fully satisfied that the State Government was equipped to handle the situation. Shouldn’t they also share the blame?”

Sharma recalls that he had filed the first public interest litigation on the Ayodhya issue in 1991 after the BJP Government in Uttar Pradesh acquired 2.7 acre in the vicinity of the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid area. By November 1992, the apex court was hearing the matter on a day-to-day basis and the prime minister had closely been monitoring the progress of the case. Rao, he said, was anxious that the Central Government be made “receiver” in Ayodhya and was obviously relying heavily upon the decision of the court.

Sharma says: “They (the court) believed everything the lawyers of the Uttar Pradesh Government were telling them. When the Babri Masjidfell, like everyone else, the judges too were shocked and stunned.” Sharma has now sent notices to 34 leaders of the Congress, including party president Sitaram Kesri and its office-bearers, saying they were guilty of contempt of court since they had gone public about the Babri Masjid case which was still being heard by the Supreme Court.

Yet another “extenuating” circumstance that is oft-quoted in connection with the Ayodhya demolition is the report sent by then Uttar Pradesh Governor Satyanarayan Reddy on December 1. In the report, the Governor had stated that the “law and order situation specially on the communal front was satisfactory and peaceful. There are reports that a large number of kar sevaks are reaching Ayodhya but they are peaceful.”

In the report, the Governor had also emphasised the fact that the dismissal of the Kalyan Singh Government was not advisable. “The time is not ripe for taking any drastic step like the dismissal of the UP Government or the dissolution of the Statemachinery or the imposition of President’s Rule. If it is done it may have far-reaching consequences. It may also lead to large-scale violence in this State and also in other parts of the country.”

As against such advice, the mandarins of the Home Ministry led by S.B. Chavan and Godbole were pressing for Central intervention. Chavan had later spoken about this in a television interview in which he reportedly said that “he could not save the Babri Masjid because the then Prime Minister did not allow him to dismiss the Kalyan Singh Government even four days before the demolition.”

A blow-by-blow account of the events preceding the demolition is also provided in the Government’s white paper on Ayodhya published in February 1993. It states that as a measure of “abundant caution” the Centre had stationed 195 companies of para-military forces near Ayodhya in November 1992 itself so that they could be rushed to the spot at a short notice. But not only did the Uttar Pradesh Government resist the contingencyplan, they later even complained to the Home Ministry about the “misbehaviour” of the troops.

By December 4, as the kar sevaks began pouring into Ayodhya, the hot lines and RAX phones in North and South Block were abuzz. There was a heated exchange of correspondence between New Delhi and Lucknow. In one letter to Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, written on December 3, Chavan pointed out that despite the large deployment of para-military forces, only about 23 companies had been used. “The possibility of some mischievous elements using explosives to damage the RJB-BM structure cannot be ruled out…” the letter warned.

It was at 12 noon on December 6 that the IB contingent in Ayodhya, finally, informed the Home Ministry that about 150 kar sevaks had stormed the shrine. The IB reported that the local authorities had done nothing to intervene. The prime minister and the home minister were informed about the developments. The home secretary was immediately on the phone, shooting orders but even at that latehour, the movement of troops was bogged because of procedural delay of getting “sanction” from magistrates.

By 3.30 p.m. New Delhi had been informed that communal violence had begun in Ayodhya. The home secretary was informed that the movement of Central troops towards Ayodhya was being resisted. It was finally at 6 p.m. that the Cabinet met to recommend proclamation of President’s Rule. The White Paper says: “In view of the presence of the kar sevaks in an aggressive and militant mood, the decision of the timing of entry of the Central Forces was left to the forces themselves”.

The disaster management in New Delhi is described by Sharma in a pamphlet he published about the “real version” of events in Ayodhya. He says, he had informed Rao about the coverage of the demolition being shown on BBC TV. Rao, he says, was “ upset, stunned and shocked” and said that Attorney General, Milon Banerjee should accompany him to the special sitting of the Supreme Court being held in the house of Justice M.N.Venkatchalliah.It was there that the judges noted the demolition was an “unprecedented attack on the secular foundation of democracy, the authority and dignity of this Court. The Court stands betrayed as never before…”