31 JANUARY 2003
Will CBI ever catch Advani?
The country had all but forgotten that Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani is a suspect in a criminal case which the Central Bureau of Investigation is probing, in the same manner in which it is after other suspects ranging from Dawood Ibrahim to the businessmen involved in the many scandals that have marked the Atal Behari Vajpayee government’s four years in office. The momentary transfer of the CBI to the Deputy Prime Minister’s Home ministry, and the quick change back to the control of the Cabinet Secretariat which reports directly to the Prime minister, has in a way once again reopened the debate on whether persons facing a CBI enquiry should continue to hold high office. The other question, on when will judicial retribution finally catch up with the guilty of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 – the charge that Advani faces together with Uma Bharati and other stalwarts of the BJP government, will remain unanswered till the BJP remains in power. Advani had wriggled out of the Hawala racket case – and the judge who exonerated him has since gone on from one lucrative assignment to another.
Kya, Babri Masjid ka kalank nahin mit sakta?" (Can the Babri Mosque stigma ever be erased?) Advani reportedly asked Vinay Katiyar – now President of the Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata party and then head of the Bajrang Dal -- in a meeting just before leaving for the rath yatra. "Hum to aapke aadesh ka intezar kar rahein hain, aur agar aap bole to Masjid ka namo-nishan mita de (we are awaiting your orders. If you say, we will eradicate all signs of the mosque)” - Vinay Katiyar to L. K. Advani when they met on December 1, 1992, just before the start of the rath yatra to Ayodhya, as quoted by Advani’s daughter in law Gauri Advani. `Babri demolition will unite Hindu vote bank', Advani said. "Iska kaam kar do.”
By John Dayal
This one embarrassed Prime miser Atal Behari Vajpayee, one of the few things that ever did. Earlier in the evening of Wednesday, 29th January 2003, he had reshuffled his cabinet, bringing in once again the smooth talking spin doctor Arun Jaitely, and giving former World Bank economist and one time Editor Arun Shourie some of the meatiest ministries available in the cabinet. Later in the evening, in what would have been a routine redefining of responsibilities, he asked President APJ Abdul Kalam to issue orders transferring the Central Bureau of Investigations, India’s ace criminal detection agency in charge of major fraud probes, to the Ministry of Home Affairs, controlled by Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani. The President signed the orders. There the matter rested for a few hours.
It is not clear who first noticed that a situation could arise putting Vajpayee and his government in a spot. Perhaps it was the President’s Information Officer, Khan, who had earlier been the Public relations officer of the Central Bureau of Investigations for almost a decade. Anyway, whoever it was, both prime minister Vajpayee and President Kalam were told that there was a impropriety in Advani controlling the CBI, as the honourable home Union home minister, in his capacity as a former President of the Bharatiya Janata party, was facing a criminal investigation in which the CBI was probing his role in the demolition of the Babri Mosque on 6th de ember 1992 by a gang of Sangh parivar activists headed by Advani, Vinay Katiyar, Um Bharati, current union HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi and others. Their gleeful photographs - specially the one of Uma embracing Joshi, had made the front pages of world newspapers. As had indeed Advani’s statements, and allegations made by his estranged daughter in law, Gauri.
Government wheels moved fast, and within twenty-four hours, Rashtrapati Bhawan issued another communication saying that the CBI had been taken out of the purview of the Home ministry and had been entrusted to the Cabinet secretariat, under the charge of the ;rime minister.
In fact, the morning newspapers pointed out, the CBI had for a long time been under the Prime minister, ever since Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi made their PMO and Cabinet secretariats the main repository of political power. The CBI, nominally controlled by the Department of Personnel, obeyed Prime ministerial orders conveyed to its directors through the Cabinet secretary, much as was he case with the Research and Analysis Wing, the espionage and government’s dirty tricks department together with a clutch of other top secret organisations going under various aliases.
The CBI, for all its political misuse, remains with the Supreme Court one of then most publicly trusted organisations in the eyes of the general public. There have been exposures of its fallibility, and the ease with which it allows itself to become a pawn in the hands of the government of the day, or the political powers that be. There is all too much evidence that it has been repeatedly misused by the ruling party to target political foes and inconvenient politicians – be they Laloo Yadav or some bureaucrat not toeing the official line.
But the fact remains that in a country with very few honest institutions that the public can trust, the Supreme Court and the CBI rise head and shoulders above the rest. The Supreme Court has in fact taken measures in response to several public interest litigations to try to make the CBI more honest and more powerful, and to insulate it from routine political interference. It has also enjoined on the CBI director, the second most senior posting for a police officer after that if the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, that certain guidelines of speed and integrity are demanded of CBI officials and of the institution as a whole.
Whenever there is a major scandal or crime, the popular demand is for a judicial enquiry or a CBI enquiry in the hope that the apex bodies would ensure a fair probe and ensure some modicum of justice.
Needless to say, the Special Police Establishment of 1941, which is the formal name of the Central Bureau of Investigations, is investigating cases against former Prime ministers POV Narasimha Rao and Rajiv Gandhi (the Bofors case) as also cases against a host of chief ministers and central ministers, their children, and some of the top businessmen of the country.
The CBI is also investigating the demolition of the Babri masjid at the hands of the Sangh parivar, though in this case, its wonted speed has not really been seen. Fourteen years after the event, the CBI and other ck missions are yet to complete their work against Advani and his political gangsters.
Needless to say, the Prime minister has been spared of a grave embarrassment. And thankfully for Civil Society, the incident has again focussed the glare of publicity on the Babri Case, the Advani’s involvement in it.
In fact, Advani is also involved in several other cases by association, most of them elating to his infamous Rath yatra in whose wake occurred dozens of communal riots across the length and breadth of the country in which hundreds of people, most of them from the minority community, were killed as the BJP marched forward to hone its Hindutva card.
Question are bound to be asked now by the Opposition now and in the forthcoming Budget session of Parliament as to the course of investigations, and the proceedings in the Commission of enquiry where Advani has himself deposed, and has been grilled by the counsel. Advani’s statement of his sorrow at the events of 2nd December 1992 has not been accepted by the public at large, and his political regret has not been borne out by his subsequent political conduct, including his recent defence of Narendra Modi’s single minded pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat on the run up to the State assembly elections in 2002.
Advani’s political pronouncements have repeatedly short circuited free and fair enquiry into major incidents of communal violence.
The public will remember his statements, as those of Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee after the destruction of three dozen churches in the Dangs district of Gujarat after Christmas of 1998. Vajpayee called for a debate on conversions and Advani though these were isolated incidents with which the Sangh had nothing to do.
When Graham Stuart Staines and his sons Timothy and Phillips were burnt alive by Dara Singh’s Bajrang Dal hordes in Manouherpur in Orissa in January 1999, Advani was he first to give the Bajrang Dal a clean bill of health, his certificate officially lifting suspicion from that killer organisation. Incidentally, three years on, the CBI through an Inspector now says the Bajrang Dal is not involved in the murder of the Staines. The CBI does not say how it came to a conclusion, or whether it has a comprehensive list of the Bajrang Dal, its members, followers, supporters and hangers on in Orissa and in the country. (For that matter, does the CBI have a comprehensive list of the membership of the RSS an the Shiv Sena, organisations involved in cases ranging from the murders of Mahatma Gandhi to the mass murder of Muslims in Mumbai in 1992 and in Gujarat in 2002?)
Advani was also the one who dismissed the anti Christian violence as isolated incidents, though he is quick to see an ISI hand in any incident in any part of the country even before the local police has collected the first shred of evidence from the ground.
As Union Home Minister and chief policeman of the country, Advani is possibly the most powerful and feared person in the country. His agencies have dossiers on all living politicians, information that comes in useful when taming a BJP chief minister or even an Opposition Member of parliament. No one actually believes he will ever be brought to book, or even indicted.
It is a tragedy in Indian politics that the CBI incident will not reopen the fist public debate that it should – Is it proper for a man facing a CBI probe to be a minister in the central Cabinet at all? Even if he is not directly in charge of the CBI, the CBI director and his staff know who is boss.
Morality would say it is grossly improper for Advani to be in office at all.
But there is little morality in politics.
And if this moral code were to be honestly implemented, most chief ministers, central ministers and senior bureaucrats would have to resign.
Even the Opposition is not going to back such transparency.
That is the real tragedy of the Republic of India.
o o o
Box Item with John Dayal’s Article
The Mumbai based MID DAY, in its edition of Saturday January 12, 2002 dropped a bombshell when it quoted Advani's estranged London-based lawyer daughter-in-law Gauri Advani telling the Liberhan Commission that the BJP leader plotted demolition of Ayodhya mosque with Vinay Katiyar in her presence.
Gauri, daughter of a journalist, got married to Lal Krishna Advani’s son Jayant in October 1991. Right from November 1989 till her wedding in October 1991, she had worked as Special Assistant with Advani and was looking after the New Delhi constituency from where he had contested and won the election.
On 28 November 1992, an application was moved in the Supreme Court seeking permission to carry out symbolic kar seva in Ayodhya. Anticipating favourable orders from the Court, Advani decided to start another rath yatra from Varanasi in eastern UP to mobilize kar sevaks for the kar seva. Gauri and her mother in law Kamla Advani accompanied. Advani to Lucknow on 30 November 1992 morning when all of them left for Varanasi by North East Express from Delhi. Advani started his rath yatra on 1.12.1992 from Varanasi. Before the start of the Rath Yatra, Vinay Katiyar came to meet L. K. Advani.
In her application filed before the commission, Gauri claimed she was present at the meeting when the two leaders allegedly discussed plans for the Babri demolition, Gauri requested she be made a witness before the commission to bring out the truth about the demolition. In her 10-page application, the estranged daughter-in-law derided Advani's statement before the commission that he was anguished by the Babri demolition and that he had nothing to do with it.
Gauri, a practising solicitor in London, said, "This is nothing but bundle of lies based upon concocted and false facts." She is embroiled in a divorce case with Advani's son, Jayant. Gauri said in her application that as Advani's special assistant she had looked after his New Delhi constituency from where he contested and won election to the Lok Sabha. Gauri said "The applicant (Gauri) at that time had deep faith in the ideology which Shri L. K. Advani used to propagate and bonafidely believed whatever Advani used to tell her as gospel truth".
According to her, on or around November 28, 1991, an application was moved in the Supreme Court seeking permission to carry out a symbolic kar seva in Ayodhya. Anticipating favourable orders from the Supreme Court, Advani decided to start another rath yatra from Varanasi to mobilise kar sevaks, Gauri said she and Advani's wife Kamala accompanied Advani to Lucknow on the morning of November 30, 1992, when all of them left for Varanasi. "Before the start of the rath yatra (on December 1, 1992), Shri Vinay Katiyar came to meet Shri L. K. Advani. The applicant (Gauri) was also present in this meeting. It was in this meeting Shri L. K. Advani and Shri Vinay Katiyar, in the presence of the applicant, conspired to demolish the Babri mosque. Shri L. K. Advani told Shri Vinay Katiyar that the ultimate aim of the Rath yatra... is not only to do kar seva and appease Hindu sentiment but also to garner votes and come to power at the Centre," Gauri said in her application, alleging that Advani told Katiyar that, "the movement to build the Ram Temple at Babri mosque had to be taken to its logical end, i.e. coming to power at the Centre, and that would not be possible without demolishing the Babri mosque as that will unite the Hindu vote bank in favour of the BJP."
Gauri goes on to say: "The applicant remembers that Shri L. K. Advani said, `Iska kaam kar do,' and again said, 'Kya, Babri Masjid ka kalank nahin mit sakta?' Shri Vinay Katiyar looked at the applicant and then said to Shri L. K. Advani that, `Hum to aapke aadesh ka intizaar kar rahen hain aur agar aap bole to masjid ka namo-nishaan mita de.' Shri L. K. Advani at that time smiled and then said, `To intizaar kis baat ka? Kaam kar do, ghulaami ke nishaan kab tak rahenge. Masjid ko dhawasth karke dikhao - sahi samay aa gaya hai.'
Gauri claimed she was not surprised at Advani's "outpourings" as "even at home the family members used to say that the kar seva in Ayodhya would not remain restricted to bhajan or kirtan". "It was the common refrain during discussions at home that the BJP can only come to power by playing the religion card," she said.
Gauri alleged that after the Babri demolition, Advani exulted on returning home: "Jo karne gaye the, wob kar aye".