In an accusation of sorts of PV Narasimha Rao, President Pranab Mukherjee said that the inability to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid was the former PM’s biggest failures as the head of the nation. In the second volume of his biography, The Turbulent Years: 1980-96, President Pranab Mukherjee shares an insider’s account of several significant events during the 1980s and early 1990s. In this extract, he talks about the inability to prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid was one of PV Narasimha Rao’s biggest failures as the prime minister. He also talks about how the incident “deeply wounded the sentiments of the Muslim community in India and abroad.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid was an act of absolute perfidy, which should make all Indians hang their heads in shame. It was the senseless, wanton destruction of a religious structure, purely to serve political ends. It destroyed India’s image as a tolerant, pluralistic nation where all religions have co-existed in peace and harmony. In fact, the Foreign Minister of an important Islamic country later pointed out to Pranab Da that such damage had not been inflicted on a mosque even in Jerusalem, which has seen religious conflicts for centuries.
In the late 1980s, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) brought the Ram Janmabhoomi issue to the centrestage of national politics, and the BJP and VHP began organising larger protests in Ayodhya and around the country. Members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) demolished the Babri Mosque (which was constructed by India’s first Mughal emperor, Babar) in Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. The site is the supposed birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama. The destruction of the disputed structure, which was widely reported in the international media, unleashed large scale communal violence, the most extensive since the Partition of India. Hindus and Muslims had indulged in massive rioting across the country, and almost every major city including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bhopal struggled to control the unrest.
Later Liberhan Commission, after extensive hearing and investigation, exonerated PV Narasimha Rao. It pointed out that Rao was heading a minority government, the Commission accepted the centre’s submission that central forces could neither be deployed by the Union in the totality of facts and circumstances then prevailing, nor could President’s Rule be imposed “on the basis of rumours or media reports”. Taking such a step would have created “bad precedent” damaging the federal structure and would have “amounted to interference” in the state administration, it said. The state “deliberately and consciously understated” the risk to the disputed structure and general law and order. It also said that the Governor’s assessment of the situation was either badly flawed or overly optimistic and was thus a major impediment for the central government. The Commission further said, “… knowing fully well that its facetious undertakings before the Supreme Court had bought it sufficient breathing space, it (state government) proceeded with the planning for the destruction of the disputed structure. The Supreme Court’s own observer failed to alert it to the sinister undercurrents. The Governor and its intelligence agencies, charged with acting as the eyes and ears of the central government also failed in their task. Without substantive procedural prerequisites, neither the Supreme Court, nor the Union of India was able to take any meaningful steps.
In yet another discussion with journalist, Rao had answered several of the questions on the demolition. He had said that he was wary of the impact of hundreds of deaths on the nation, and it could have been far worse. And also he had to consider the scenario in which some of the troops might have turned around and joined the mobs instead. Regarding dismissal of Kalyan Singh (government), he had said, “Mere dismissal does not mean you can take control. It takes a day or so appointing advisers, sending them to Lucknow, taking control of the state. Meanwhile, what had to happen would have happened and there would have been no Kalyan Singh to blame either.”
P.V.R.K. Prasad, Narasimha Rao’s confidant, had known Rao since 1971 when he was Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. He reveals unwittingly why Narasimha Rao was inactive in the face of the threatened, rather imminent, demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, and why he was inaccessible while the crime was being perpetrated. He had no heart to stop it. His heart was set on the constructing of a Ram temple, ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party and thus takes the wind out of its sails. When he began to swim with the tide of popular wrath after the demolition, L.K. Advani, who had formerly called him “fantastic”, poured on him the vitriol reserved for a turncoat.
Yet another book too had earlier levelled an allegation against P V Narasimha Rao that he had connived at the demolition of Babri Masjid claiming that the late Prime Minister had sat in a ‘puja’ (prayers) when the ‘kar sevaks’ began pulling it down and rose only when it was over. The charge relating to the demolition on December 6, 1992 has been made by eminent journalist Kuldip Nayar in his autobiography “Beyond the Lines”. Kalyan Singh, who was heading the BJP government in U P then, made statements which indicated that he had no intention of protecting the Masjid, although the Supreme Court had ordered maintenance of status quo and his government had given an undertaking that it would do so. The climax came when the Masjid was demolished to the last stone on that fateful day by thousands of ‘kar sevaks’, egged on by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leadership. Congress cauldron was boiling, not because of the Masjid demolition, but because of internal conflicts. Sonia Gandhi never liked Narasimha Rao, particularly when he assumed leadership of both the Congress party and its government. Many authors especially the one served in Congress party are aggressively attacking Late PV Narasimha Rao for his role in Babri demolition. Everyone wants to shine their political career through this.
