expressbuzz.com, 30 November 2009
by Tahir Mahmood
Who demolished the historic mosque in the holy city of Ayodhya, and who all had been preparing the ground for it since long? What strategies were adopted for achieving this goal? The setting up of a derisory one-man enquiry and assigning for it a short period of three months was indicative of the ground reality that to answer these and other related questions no Gordian knot was to be untied. And this was quite understandable.
Answers to the questions to be probed were, thanks to a well-developed electronic media in the country, already in public domain. The heinous crime openly committed in broad-daylight had been witnessed by millions of television viewers across the globe. Unleashing of provocative religious politics in the years preceding the commission of the crime — and indeed culminating into it — was also common knowledge. But official recognition of these well-known facts required authentication by a quasi-judicial body, and hence the Liberhan Commission. What went wrong with that quick-enquiry mechanism compelling it to get its tenure gradually multiplied by 66, remains a mystery uncovered. At last, at a whopping cost of eight crore rupees a report was produced in June this year. While it was yet being kept a closely guarded secret, someone let the cat out of the bag. It had then to be made public in a hurry, with a so-called action-taken report.
Our leaders have since been more concerned about who had ‘leaked’ the report than about what it has to say. Those indicted in it are annoyed and intend to use this opportunity to reunite their warring factions with a view to re-gaining the paradise lost, by whipping up religious sentiments once again. Those expected to act on the report are in a quandary: what to do with the inordinately delayed report while the nation has in the meanwhile buried the bitter past and revived its secular polity? The hurriedly produced ATR promises, besides some cosmetic rhetoric, to get expedited the court cases already pending against those blamed in the report for the 17-year old catastrophe. Later, reacting to the furore over the superficiality of ATR the government reportedly referred the Liberhan findings to the CBI.
In 1991, in the wake of the growing trend of exploiting for petty political gains and religious sensitivities relating to ancient shrines, the government of the day had enacted a law called Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act declaring that in respect of every place of worship in the country its ‘religious character’ existing on August 15, 1947 shall be strictly maintained.
It was further laid down in it that any attempt to convert a place of worship belonging to one religion into that belonging to another religious community would be a punishable offence. Section 3 of the Act however declared: “nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the place of worship commonly known as Ram Janma Bhoomi-Babri Masjid situated in Ayodhya in the State of Uttar Pradesh and to any suit, appeal or other proceeding relating to the said place of worship”. The law of the country had thus shut its eyes to the clear signs of what was going to happen in Ayodhya. While in the terminology of this Act the 450-year-old building always shown in municipal records as a mosque had become ‘Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid’, in the politicians’ jargon of later months it graduated to a vivadit dhancha (disputed structure). The rival claims to the ancient shrine having thus been given legislative and political recognition, who could have stopped what people saw happening on that fateful day through the eyes of television cameras worldwide? The judicial system of the country too was not able either to prevent the dastardly act or to make room for any reversal of the unfortunate event. No headway had been made in the title suit relating to the mosque site pending since long, thus leaving sentimentally agitated and politically impatient people to settle scores.
When before the demolition of the mosque some temple-construction material was being transported to Ayodhya by the socalled karsevaks, the apex court of the country ruled that this was an ‘essential practice’ of their religion. Prosecuted for the offence, one of the chief culprits was sentenced to a mere token punishment of a day’s imprisonment. And when State acquisition of the demolished mosque’s site was challenged pleading the Islamic belief that a mosque once built always remains a mosque, the apex court agreed with an old ruling of the British era that ‘this is not the Mohammedan law of India approved by the courts’ — adding a rather startling observation that praying in a mosque is not even an essential practice in Islam.
What national interest has the Liberhan Commission report served, one may legitimately ask, by reiterating the obvious? Recording the fact that the demolition of the mosque had been skilfully planned and identifying who all were responsible for that melodrama of national shame cannot be seen as a discovery or revelation. The real worth of the 17-year long and extremely costly exercise lies in its forceful admonition that politics of religion must be abjured once and for all, by all concerned.
So, what next? Must not all stakeholders now ensure that the nation is not pushed back into the frenzy of communal politics of yesteryear? Instead of questioning the report and claiming ‘we did not do it’ those indicted in it should pledge they would never do it again. Have not the past votaries of communal politics already seen that, being against the conscience and social ethos of the nation, it does not even help in the long run? Within a few months after the Ayodhya disaster two legislative proposals of a deterrent nature aimed at preventing misuse of religion for electoral gains were brought before Parliament — the Constitution (Eightieth Amendment) Bill and the Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, both of 1993. Sixteen years later both are lying in the dustbin of history. The Liberhan report should prompt the government of the day to revive and duly enact both the proposals forthwith.
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