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Babri demolition: Advani blames Rao
Says ‘kar sevaks’ took wrong course
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 10
Appearing for the first time before the Liberahan Commission, the Union Home Minister, Mr Lal Krishan Advani, today blamed the then Narasimha Rao government at the Centre for the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992.

The Centre was responsible as it had failed to move the Allahabad High Court to persuade the judiciary to deliver an early verdict on the 2.77 acres of land around the disputed structure, he told the commission, which is probing the events leading to the demolition of the disputed structure in Ayodhya.

“They have done it unwittingly in order to discredit the (BJP) leadership,” Mr Advani said, in his four-hour deposition before Justice M.S. Liberahan.

The then Prime Minister, Mr Narasimha Rao, had blamed the Uttar Pradesh Government for its failure to abide by the Supreme Court order and utilise the central forces which resulted in the demolition of the disputed structure.

The former BJP president, who led the Ayodhya rath yatra for mass mobilisation on the issue, however, said the kar sevaks, impatient over delays by the due process of law in the construction of Ram Temple, took a “wrongful course” to demolish Babri Masjid in Ayodhya which he described as “unfortunate”. Stating that December 6 had been one of the depressing days in his life, Mr Advani said, “many felt ecstatic, a mood I just could not share”.

“I have seldom felt as dejected and downcast as I felt that day,” he said and termed the demolition as “unfortunate and painful”.

“May be the kar sevaks in Ayodhya felt that the leaders of the moment, who hoped to get the Ram Temple built by the due process of law, would not be able to do so and in their impatience took a wrongful course,” he said.

He said the kar seva would have been performed in the 2.77 acres around the disputed structure had the court verdict gone in favour of the UP Government or the VHP.

Taking a dig at the slow judicial process, Mr Advani said the Allahabad High Court in 1955 had expressed regret that this particular issue had been dragging along for so many years and had directed the matter to be decided forthwith.

Mr Advani said “the word ‘forthwith’ was used by judiciary in 1995 and the fact is that even in 2001, the issue which arose from the first petition or motion, remained unresolved so far as the court of law is concerned.”

“Therefore, the BJP kept telling the government and people that there are only two ways in which this issue can be sorted out — negotiated settlement failing which by appropriate legislation.”

The Union Home Minister endorsed the views expressed by the Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in his musings written on January 2 during his holidays at Kumarakom in Kerala, that the wrongs of a medieval past could not be righted by a similar wrong in modern times.

“If medieval wrongs are to be corrected, that too would have to be done by due process of law, which is precisely what we had committed to people, when we spoke about constructing Ram Temple at Ramjanmabhoomi in Ayodhya,” he said.

Mr Advani explained how the first government after Independence constructed the Somnath Temple and also the insight the rath yatra had provided in him in understanding the society.

Recalling the statement of Vivekananda “religion is the soul of India”, Mr Advani said the response of the people to the yatra was astounding and beyond wildest expectation.

He also denied the allegations that riots occurred where ever the rath yatra passed by.