This piece was first
published in the Indian Express, 27 December 1992. While some of the assertions
in the article have not fructified, it does provide a good insight on the
salience of the Ramjanmabhoomi issue to the BJP leadership.At the same time, the continued relevance of quite a few issues highlighted by Shri Advani more than two decades back is a sad reflection on the ineffectualness of the Hindutva movement in India.
Extract
from L.K. Advani, ‘The Ayodhya Movement’
Last year, a Calcutta daily
asked me to identify a day or moment in my life which I regarded as my
happiest. I named 30 October 1990, and more specifically, the moment I heard
the BBC broadcast that kar sevaks had
overcome all obstacles and broken all barriers put up by the Mulayam Singh
government, penetrated into Ayodhya and performed kar seva. Ironically, this year’s kar seva day at Ayodhya, 6 December, turned out to be one of the
most depressing days in my life. Of course, most others there were ecstatic
with joy, a mood I just could not share. I have seldom felt as dejected and
downcast as I felt that day. My sadness, however, did not stem from any
disenchantment with the Ayodhya movement, or with the path the party had chosen
for itself, or, as the trite phrase goes, that we had been riding a tiger which
we could not dismount. In fact, the post-demolition developments have fully
vindicated our misgivings about the opponents of this movement, and have
reinforced our resolve to pursue the path more vigorously. There were three
very specific reasons for my distress. Firstly, I felt sad that the 6 December
happenings had impaired the BJP’s and RSS’s reputation as organisations capable
of enforcing discipline. True, a very large percentage of the over two lakhs
assembled at Ayodhya were not members either of the BJP or of the RSS. But that
did not absolve us of our responsibility.
Secondly, I felt sad that a
meticulously drawn up plan of action where under the UP government was steadily
marching forward towards discharging its mandate regarding temple-construction,
without violating any law or disregarding any court order, had gone awry.
Delinking
Move
The BJP’s action plan
contemplated delinking the dispute about the structure from commencing
construction at the shilanyas site
(within the 2.77 acres of acquired land), negotiating about the structure while
the construction work proceeded apace, and, if negotiations failed, resorting
to legislation. If State legislation was blocked by the Centre, we intended to
seek a national mandate. We were thus working towards achieving our objective
peacefully, and by the due process of law. Not only the BJP, but the RSS, the
VHP and the sants were all agreed on
this approach. If the exercise contemplated has now been short-circuited in a
totally unforeseen manner, the above organisations can certainly be blamed for
not being able to judge the impatience of the people participating in the
movement. No one can deny that the manner in which courts had been dragging
their feet on all issues relating to Ayodhya, and the obstructive and obtuse
role of the Central Government had tried the patience of the people to the utmost
limit. The third and most important reason for my unhappiness that day was
that, in my perception the day’s incidents would affect the BJP’s overall image
(not electoral prospects) adversely, and, to that extent, our cause would
suffer a temporary setback. When I speak of a setback I am not at all thinking
in political terms. In fact, politically, these events have boosted the BJP’s
poll prospects no end. The Congress, the JD, the Communists all are frantically
exerting to ensure that no elections are held for at least a year. After the three
State Assemblies controlled by the BJP were dissolved, Congress spokesman V.N.
Gadgil said that elections would be held within six months. It did not take Mr
Arjun Singh even 24 hours to come forth with a contradiction, saying that polls
in these three states would be held after one year! In a recent article (The
Hindustan Times, 17 December 1992), Mr S. Sahay, former editor, The Statesman, has
noted: ‘The feedback is that were elections to be held today in Uttar Pradesh, Congress
candidates would find it difficult to retain their deposits.’ Reports pouring
in from other parts of the country are no different.
Despite what our adversaries
have been saying about us day in and day out, we have never regarded Ayodhya as
a ladder to power. Through this movement the BJP has only intensified its
ongoing crusade against the politics of vote-banks, and the politics of
minorityism, which we believe is gravely undermining the fabric of national
unity.
A
Mass Movement
The Ayodhya movement,
according to the BJP, is not just for building a temple. It is a mass
movement—the biggest since independence—to reaffirm the nation’s cultural
identity. This reaffirmation alone, we hold, can provide an enduring basis for
national unity, and besides, the dynamo for a resurgent, resolute and modern India.
It is slanderous to say that the Ayodhya movement is an assault on secularism.
It is wrong to describe even the demolition of the Babri structure as negation
of secularism. The demolition is more related to lack of a firm commitment in
the general masses to the Rule of Law, and an exasperation with the frustrating
sluggishness of the judicial process.I remember very well the Bhagalpur episode
of some years back. The whole country felt outraged that undertrial
prisoners—they may have been notorious dacoits—should be so cruelly blinded by
police-men. But when I visited Bhagalpur I was surprised to find that among the
people at large there was little disapproval of what the police had done. Many
lawyers of Bhagalpur actually came out in defence of the police action! The BJP
is unequivocally committed to secularism. As conceived by our Constitution
makers, secularism meant sarvapantha sama
bhava, that is, equal respect for all religions. Secularism as embedded
into the Indian Constitution has three important ingredients, namely (i) rejection
of theocracy; (ii) equality of all citizens, irrespective of their faith; and
(iii) full freedom of faith and worship. We also believe that India is secular
because it is predominantly Hindu. Theocracy is alien to our history and
tradition. Indian nationalism is rooted, as was India’s freedom struggle
against colonialism, in a Hindu ethos. It was Gandhiji who projected RamaRajya as the goal of the freedom
movement. He was criticised by the Muslim League as being an exponent of Hindu
Raj. The League did not relish the chanting of Ram Dhun at Gandhiji’s meetings or his insistence on Goraksha (cow-protection). The Muslim
League at one of its annual sessions passed a formal resolution denouncing Vande Mataram as ‘idolatrous’. All this
never made leaders of the freedom struggle apologetic about the fountainhead of
their inspiration. Unfortunately, for four decades now, in the name of
secularism, politicians have been wanting the nation to disown its essential
personality. For the left inclined, secularism has become a euphemism to cloak
their intense allergy to religion, and more particularly, to Hinduism.
Pseudo-Secularism
It is this attitude which
the BJP characterises as pseudo-secularism. This attitude is wrong and
unscientific. Coupled with the weakness of political parties for vote banks, it
becomes perverse and baneful. In October 1990, the day Mr V.P. Singh stopped
the Rath Yatra, and put me and my colleagues in the Yatra behind bars, Mr
A.B.Vajpayee called on the Rashtrapati, and informed him that the BJP had
withdrawn support to the National Front Government. It was obvious to all that VP’s
Government had been reduced to a hopeless minority. But VP did not resign.
Instead, he convened a special session of Parliament to vote on a confidence
motion tabled by him. He said he was doing so mainly to precipitate a debate on
secularism and communalism. We welcomed the debate, and challenged VP not to
confine it to the four walls of Parliament, but to take it to the people. VP
was defeated in Parliament that day. But he shied away from accepting our
challenge. Events nevertheless moved inexorably towards the trial of strength
we had asked for. Seven months later people went to the polls to elect the
country’s Tenth Lok Sabha. Unlike as in 1989, when we were part of an
opposition combine, the BJP fought the election all on its own and emerged the
principal opposition party in the Lok Sabha. What has gratified us all along is
not merely that our numerical strength in Parliament and the State Legislature
has been growing at a rapid pace, but that acceptance of our ideology in all
sections of society and at all levels has been simultaneously growing. A silent
minority even among the Muslims has been building up which appreciates that the
BJP is not anti-Muslim as its enemies have been trying to depict it, and more
importantly, the BJP leadership means
what it says, and says what it means, and is not hypocritical like other
political parties. The BJP Government’s track record in the matter of
preserving communal peace in their respective States has added considerably to
the BJP’s credibility in this regard. It is the process of widening acceptability
of the BJP’s ideology within the country, and also among people of Indian
origin overseas, which has upset our opponents the most. It is this process
precisely which may be somewhat decelerated by the 6 December events. I have little
doubt, however, that the party can, with proper planning and effort, soon get
over this phase. It is sad that over one thousand persons have lost their lives
in the aftermath of Ayodhya. It is certainly a matter of anguish. But when one
compares this time’s fallout with what has been happening in earlier years over
incidents which can be considered trifling, this time’s has been a contained
one. And in most cases the deaths that have occurred have been the consequence
not of any clash between communities but of security forces trying to quell the
violence and vandalism of frenzied mobs. I wonder how many in Government, in
politics and in the media realise that their stubborn insistence on calling
this old structure (which was abandoned by Muslims 56 years back and which for
43 years has been a de facto temple) a ‘mosque’ has made no mean contribution towards
building up this frenzy. Even so, there is little doubt that the 6 December
happenings have given our opponents a handle to malign the Ayodhya movement as
fundamentalist and fanatic.
Voices
of Reason
Amidst the hysterical
breast-beating that has been going on for over a fortnight now, there have been
in the media voices of reason, a few distinguished journalists who have tried
to put the events in proper perspective, and to emphasise that the happenings
are unfortunate, but that it is no occasion either for gloating or for
self-condemnation. In an excellent article written for the Free Journal, Bombay
(17 December 1992), Mr M.V. Kamath, former editor of The Illustrated Weekly
India, has written: ‘Let it be said even if it hurts many secularists: in the
last five years, several temples have been demolished in Kashmir without our
hearing one word of protest from them. There has been no hue and cry made about
such wanton destruction...We are lectured to by Iran and some other Muslim
countries on our duties. Has Iran ever been ruled by Hindu monarchs, and had
its masjids pulled down to make place for temples to Shiva or Vishnu?...We
should not bear the burden of history. But neither should we be constantly
pilloried. There has to be some way to heal past wounds, but reviling the BJP
or the VHP is not the best way. The anger of the kar sevaks has to be understood in this context. They have not gone
around demolishing every mosque in sight. It might even be said that they were
led down the garden path by Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao who kept promising that a
solution was near, even while he was trying to pass the buck onto the
judiciary.’
Feeble
Voices
For four decades, the
pseudo-secularists have commanded undisputed supremacy in Indian politics. Jana
Sangh’s and BJP’s was, at best, a feeble voice of dissent. Ayodhya has enabled
our viewpoint to become a formidable challenge. Unable to meet this challenge
at the ideological and political level through discussion and debate, the
Government has pulled out of its armoury all the usual weapons used in such
situations by repressive regimes—arrests, ban on associations, ban on meetings
etc. Demolition of the Babri structure is only an excuse to carry out what they
have been itching to do for quite some time. After all, all this talk about the
need to have BJP derecognised or deregistered has not started now. Mr Arjun Singh
had formally petitioned the Election Commission in this regard more than a year
back. The Election Commission rejected his plea. Ever since, the ruling party
has been toying with the idea of amending the Representation of the Peoples Act
to achieve this objective. Without naming either the BJP or the RSS, Mr
Narasimha Rao himself, in his Presidential address to the Congress Session at Tirupati,
had endorsed the idea. When I met him and registered my protest, he tried to
backtrack, and maintained that he had in mind only organisations like the
Majilis (of Owaisi)! Elementary political prudence should have restrained the
Prime Minister from taking the series of unwise steps he has taken after 6
December: banning the RSS and VHP, dismissing BJP Governments of Rajasthan, HP
and MP and promising to rebuild the demolished ‘mosque’. But then, history
keeps repeating itself in a quaint fashion. Left to himself Shri V.P. Singh may
not have obstructed the RathYatra of 1990. But the internal politics of Janata
Dal forced his hand. To prove himself a greater patron of the minorities than
Mulayam Singh, VP asked Laloo Prasad to take action before the UP Chief Minister
did so. Laloo did as he was told, and became instrumental for terminating VP’s
tenure. This time it has been Mr Arjun Singh who has played Mulayam Singh to
P.V. Narasimha Rao. The denouement may well be the same.
Prime
Target
In Parliament, as well as
outside, a prime target of attack for our critics has been Mr Kalyan Singh. He
is being accused of betrayal, of ‘deceit’, of ‘conspiracy’ and what not. The
general refrain is: Kalyan Singh promised to the courts, to the National
Integration Council, to the Central Government, that he would protect the structure,
New Delhi trusted his word; he has betrayed the trust. None of these
Kalyan-baiters even mentions that along with every assurance, there was an
invariable addendum: that he would not use force against the kar sevaks, because he would not like to
see any repetition of the traumatic happenings which took place in 1990 during
Mulayam Singh’s tenure. This has been stated even in the affidavit given to the
Supreme Court by the UP Government. On 6 December, Mr Kalyan Singh stuck to
this stand. When in-formed that all efforts at persuading the kar sevaks to desist from demolishing
the structure had failed, and that protection of the structure had become
impossible except by resort to firing, he forthwith resigned. When political
leaders have been driven into such difficult corners, they have been generally
inclined to issue oral orders. Bureaucrats have often had to pay the price for
such deviousness. In contrast, MrKalyan Singh acted in an exemplary manner. He
put down his orders about not using force in writing so that the officers were
not punished for what was entirely a political decision. I shudder to think
what would have happened that day at Ayodhya if firing had taken place.
Jallianwala Bagh would have been re-enacted many times over. There would have
been a holocaust not only in Ayodhya but in the whole country. Mr Kalyan Singh
acted wisely in refusing to use force. It is significant that the last phase of
the demolition, the clearing of the debris, installation of the Ram Lalla idols with due ceremony, and erection
of a temporary temple to house the idols, all this happened after New Delhi had
taken over the State administration. Yet, wisely again, the Narasimha Rao
Government made no attempt to use force to prevent this happening. No doubt, it
was Mr Kalyan Singh’s duty to protect the Babri structure. He failed to do so;
so he resigned. Protection of the country’s Prime Minister is the
responsibility of the Union Home Minister. The country should not forget that
Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao was the Home Minister when Mrs Gandhi was brutally
killed. It can be said that P.V. failed to protect more than 3,000 Sikhs who
were killed in the wake of Mrs Gandhi’s death. Today, I am not arraigning him
for failing to resign on that score. I am only trying to point out how outraged
he would have felt if, say, in 1984 he had been accused not just of a failure to
protect, but of actual complicity in the perpetration of those horrendous
crimes! Political observers who have been feeling baffled by the abrupt change
of mood of the BJP-RSS-VHP combine from one of regret on6 December to one of
‘determined belligerence’ from 8 December onward, must appreciate that it is a
similar sense of outrage over all that the Government and our other opponents
have been saying and doing that fully accounts for it. Let it also be realised
that once you start circulating conspiracy charges with irresponsible levity,
the distrust generated will ultimately boomerang, and get back to its source. I
was really amused to read a column by Tavleen Singh in which she summed up the
attitude of Congressmen towards Mr Narasimha Rao in these words: ‘Those who are
still with him charge him only with being indecisive and weak. Those who are
against him are saying much more. Even ministers are admitting, albeit
privately, that the Prime Minister had adequate information, before 6 December,
to be prepared for what eventually happened. Some go so far as to charge him
with collusion with the BJP on the grounds that he is not interested in a
Congress revival in North India as this would make it harder for a Prime
Minister from the South.’ (The Observer, Dec. 18.) Some of our critics have
been comparing the demolition of the Babri structure with the assassination of
Mahatma Gandhi. The comparison is ludicrous. But from a purely personal angle,
I can establish a nexus. I was 20 years old at that time, and an RSS pracharak in
Rajasthan. Mahatmaji’s murder also was followed by a ban on the RSS. I was
among the tens of thousands of RSS activists jailed at that time. I recall that
the accusations and calumny heaped on us then were far more vile and vicious
than we are having to face today. The trial of Godse and the Commission of
Inquiry set up later nailed all the lies circulated, and completely exonerated
the RSS from the libelous charges hurled at it. The RSS emerged from that first
major crisis in its life purer and stronger. It is not without significance
that one of those who was spearheading the anti-RSS campaign in 1948, Mr
Jayaprakash Narayan, later became one of its most ardent admirers and
protagonists. When the RSS was banned the second time in 1975, JP and RSS became
comrades-in-arms waging an unrelenting battle for the defence of democracy. In
one of his speeches in 1977, the Loknayak observed: ‘RSS is a revolutionary
organisation. No other organisation in the country comes anywhere near it. It
alone has the capacity to transform society, end casteism, and wipe the tears
from the eyes of the poor. May God give you strength and may you live up to
such expectations.’
Lemming
Complex
Self-preservation is a basic
instinct of all living beings. Only a human being can think of, and commit,
suicide. There is, however, a rodent found in Scandinavian countries, called
Lemming, which in this context is supposed to be unique among animals, and behaves
unnaturally. The Concise Oxford Dictionary describes Lemming as a ‘small arctic
rodent of the genus Lemmus...which is reputed to rush headlong into the sea and
drown during migration.’ To me, it seems the Congress Party these days is in
the grip of a terrible Lemming complex! Let the Congress do with itself what it
wishes. For the BJP, the situation poses a challenge which, if tackled wisely,
with determination and readiness, if need be, to wage a protracted struggle,
can become a watershed in the history of independent India. Let us also realise
that intolerance and fanaticism are traits which may appear to give a cutting edge
to a movement but which actually causes great damage to the movement. They have
to be consciously eschewed. Once that happens, even our Muslim brethren would
appreciate that in India there can be no firmer foundation for communal harmony
than cultural nationalism. The present situation presents to the country a
unique opportunity. Let us grab it by the forelock. December 6 did not turn out
to be as we expected; we did not want it to happen that way. But then, as the
famous essayist Sir Arthur Helps has said: ‘Fortune does not stoop often to
take anyone up. Favourable opportunities will not happen precisely in the way
that you imagined. Nothing does.’
Or, as Goswami Tulsidas has put it in a
somewhat different vein: ‘Hoi
hai soi jo Rama rachi rakha!
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