When I visited the site of the Babri Masjid on December 1, 2002, nearly ten years after the destruction of the mosque by Sangh Parivar hordes, I was amazed to find that it has been turned into a Hindu site of worship. The Muslims, on whose wakf land this structure stands, have been totally excluded from it. Worse, I heard inflammatory cassettes about building the temple and glorifying the destruction of the mosque being played at the site from numerous shops. Also, photographs depicting the different stages of destruction were being sold as souvenirs. Clearly, this is not something that any government of secular India ought to allow.

Babri: Past, Present And Future

Suneet Chopra

DECEMBER 6, 2002 marks the tenth year of the destruction of Babri Masjid by well-trained units of the Sangh Parivar. That heinous act was committed under the cover of mob frenzy, coolly watched over by men and women leaders of the BJP like the present deputy prime minister L K Advani, human resource development minister Murli Manohar Joshi, and Uma Bharati, cabinet minister for sports and youth affairs. With guides like these present on the spot, who can believe that it was an act of mob frenzy?

PART OF A SERIES OF MISDEMEANOURS

It was not an act of spontaneous madness, however. The whole affair was planned by the Sangh Parivar’s top brass. Advani’s rathyatra was organised and masterminded to the smallest detail. Nothing was left to chance. Indeed, if the findings of the Sri Krishna commission’s report on the Mumbai riots are anything to go by, the Sangh Parivar has used its social, political and administrative power more than once to do what it did on December 6 and for the subsequent acts of “mob action.”

December 6, 1992 was also a part of a long series of misdemeanours. The role of the RSS during the partition of India, the murder of Mahatma Gandhi by a communal fanatic called Nathuram Godse, the Babri Masjid demolition, the Mumbai riots, the Gujarat riots and the suppression of democratic norms by the BJP in states it rules by hook or by crook, like Gujarat and UP --- all these are symptoms of the same disease that must be rooted out if an independent, secular and democratic India is to be kept alive. 

I visited the site of the Babri Masjid on December 01, 2002, with AIAWU general secretary A Vijayaraghavan, nearly ten years after the destruction of the mosque by Sangh Parivar hordes. I was amazed to find that it was clearly handed over to one community, reflecting the bias of the BJP. It has been turned into a Hindu site of worship while the Muslims, on whose wakf land this structure stands, have been totally excluded from it. Worse, I heard inflammatory cassettes about building the temple and glorifying the destruction of the mosque being played at the site from numerous shops. Also, photographs depicting the different stages of destruction were being sold as souvenirs. Clearly, this is not something that any government of secular India ought to allow.

IN SERVICE OF IMPERIALISM

The RSS and the BJP have nothing to do with secular India or with the national movement that created it. The RSS, like the Muslim League, was part of the twin strategy evolved by the British to keep India divided, so as to continue the British Raj as long as possible. That was why the British ambassador in Rome arranged for Dr Moonje’s meeting with Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy. (One will recall that this very Dr Moonje was the mentor of RSS’ founder, Dr K B Hegdewar.) Moonje had come to Rome to learn how to build a fascist organisation in India. Indeed, not only was the RSS given a fascist orientation and uniform, it played a leading role in the slaughter of Indian nationals to help the British divide the people on communal lines and British India into India and Pakistan.

The dismemberment of the country would have been even more devastating had the masses behind the national movement not shed their blood to keep this country united and secular. Imperialism wanted different states to go along separate lines under different Maharajas; it was the people who prevented this conspiracy. How Maharaja Hari Singh of Kashmir was instigated by the Hindu Mahasabha to remain independent of India, is quite well known. Indeed, it was the forces led by Sheikh Abdullah and the Communist Party who challenged the Maharaja, fought off the Pakistani raiders and integrated the state of Jammu and Kashmir into India.

At the same time, in Junagadh in Gujarat, where the Nawab opted for Pakistan under the influence of Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, an aarzi fauj (spontaneously formed militia) of Hindu and Muslim peasants unitedly revolted and forced the Nawab to flee, and Junagadh became part of India. This is how the map of India was drawn by Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians and Jews --- all fighting British imperialism and coming together to build a united, secular and democratic India, while Pakistan opted to be a theocratic state. The people of Pakistan have paid the price for their choice by inheriting a series of dictatorships while, despite all its difficulties, India has managed to preserve its democratic institutions by rejecting the doctrine of a ‘Hindu Rashtra.’

This is what never pleased the Sangh Parivar and barely a year after independence, when they saw that they had failed to win over the hearts of the Indian people in support of their scheme of a Hindu Rashtra, their desperation knew no bounds. In their frustration, the communal forces went to the extreme of murdering Mahatma Gandhi. Recently I attended the release of A G Noorani’s book Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection by former prime minister V P Singh; the book lays bare the Sangh Parivar conspiracy to murder Gandhi. This is something they have tried to hide all the while.

THREE-PRONGED STRATEGY

In his address at the book release function, V P Singh highlighted the three-pronged strategy of the RSS ---

(1) drive out the minorities and exclude them from social and economic life;

(2) bully the minorities into integrating with the spurious vision of Hindu Rashtra and its component called Hindutva; and, finally,

(3) force them into submission through fear and terror.

It is worth our while to look at the implementation of these strategies more carefully. The first element saw its most violent and extreme form in the partition of India. But it was defeated by the momentum of the mass movement whose backbone was a peasant upsurge. It united the people, irrespective of religion, caste, language or region. That is why Mewati Muslims returned to India even after fleeing to Pakistan and a large number of Bengali Hindus remained in what is now Bangladesh. So the Sangh Parivar’s strategy had to be put on the backburner as there was widespread anger against its violent and divisive acts, especially the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Then the ‘integrationist’ face of Hindutva was tried out. In 1976, the RSS-controlled Jan Sangh merged with the Janata Party and lost its independent existence. But it was the same Jan Sangh faction that paved the way for downfall of the Janata Party government (1977 to 1979) by insisting on keeping their dual membership. It was then that they came out of the Janata Party to form what is today known as the BJP. But this was also the time (the first half of the 1980s) when the BJP cynically opted for ‘Gandhian Socialism.’ In this period, the Sangh Parivar flirted with the coalition politics while single-mindedly pursuing its agenda of destroying the institutional structure of India’s secular democracy and replacing it with the authoritarian and theocratic structure of a Hindu Rashtra. That is why the Janata Dal broke up over the question of the RSS-affiliation of the erstwhile Jan Sangh faction, the one that later became the BJP.

This strategy too is doomed to failure in the face of the strength of our political institutions. Indeed, out of the 26 state elections that have been held since the coming of the BJP-led combine to power at the centre, the BJP and allies have lost 21. The last in this series was the Jammu & Kashmir poll, where the BJP lost all the 8 seats it held, winning just one seat elsewhere. The BJP lost even in the Hindu-majority Jammu region. In case of Gujarat too, it has failed to intimidate the Election Commission. This is a ray of hope for Indian democracy.

However, the third strategy --- that of enforcing its hegemony through fear and terror --- has broadened its threat to Indian democracy in all spheres of life. In the recent days, the ghastly murder of five young men engaged in leather business, of Duleena village in Jhajjar district of Haryana, is just one pointer to this trend. The traders, it would appear, were in conflict with the local police (who wanted bribes) and the gaushala that was selling hides regularly to them. In the process of arm-twisting, apparently one young Dalit died. Then the four others, who were witnesses to this lock-up murder, had to be done away with. So, to cover up the greed of gaushala committee members as well as the police corruption and excesses, what could be better than the accusation that a cow was being slaughtered? This is how the Sangh Parivar and the corrupt help each other under the cover of the people’s sentiments.

ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY

Thus, having failed on all fronts, the BJP and the Sangh Parivar have been reduced to using physical force to browbeat the minorities, Dalits, women and the helpless into submission. The Babri Masjid destruction was part of this very strategy. It is in the background of the Babri Masjid destruction that we can view the murders of missionaries, burning of churches, and the Modi government’s patronage to the slaughter of Indian citizens in Gujarat.

It is thus clear that the Babri Masjid episode was one in the series of attacks on India’s secular democratic institutions that emerged out of a successful struggle against imperialism. An outfit that was unmistakably pro-imperialist before independence and is so even today, the Sangh Parivar is still trying to subvert our independence, even after it failed to establish a Hindu Rashtra after the partition or even after the electoral defeat of Indira Gandhi. In its desperation, it has only exposed its ugly character as a force that relies on coercion, repression and division. Events like the Babri Masjid destruction, the Gujarat massacres, the continuance of killer Modi at the helm of BJP affairs in Gujarat, the continuation of Mayawati in UP even after losing her majority, and the attacks on innocent citizens as in Duleena expose the Sangh Parivar’s character as an enemy of Indian democracy and the Indian people. These events also show how the Parivar’s strategy works --- it starts by targeting one section and goes on to target the Indian masses as a whole. This lesson must be learnt and must form the basis of action if we are to save our country from the same kind of destruction fascism brought to Germany, Japan and Italy. We have to learn from others’ mistakes, so as not to repeat them.