KANCHI SEER’S MOVE ON AYODHYA

BJP’s Deception Game Backfires

Harkishan Singh Surjeet

DEVELOPMENTS in the last two weeks or so are a clear enough indication that the BJP and the Sangh Parivar in general are at their deception game again. This is understandable. While elections to four state assemblies are fast approaching and the Lok Sabha polls too are not far away, the BJP, running the show at the centre, has nothing worthwhile to show to the people as its achievement.

STRANGE COINCIDENCE

AT the centre of the latest manipulations stands Jayendra Saraswati, the same Shankarachrya of Kanchi Kaamkotipeetham, who had made a similar attempt in March 2002 in the name of evolving a solution to the vexed Ayodhya problem. However, as was widely commented at that time in the media and also in these columns, the Shankaracharya failed to prove his bonafides as an impartial interlocutor and appeared inclined more towards the RSS-VHP. 

Incidentally, and as a strange coincidence, the Shankaracharya’s last attempt in that direction came at a time when the anti-Muslim pogrom was at its height in Gujarat. Moreover, the BJP was then toying with the idea of getting the Gujarat assembly prematurely dissolved and going in for snap polls there; it is another thing that it had to give up the idea at that time. And now he has resurfaced with a new set of proposals about how to solve the Ayodhya dispute --- at a time when elections to four assemblies are round the corner.

There is no doubt that this time the Kanchi seer’s proposals are more concrete than those he had advanced last time. Nothing has officially been stated about these proposals that are still inside a sealed envelope that was sent to Maulana M Rabey-Hasani Nadwi, rector of Dar-ul-Uloom, Nadwa, who is also the president of All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), and will be opened only on July 6 when the 51-member AIMPLB Majlis-e-Amila (working committee) meets to discuss these proposals. Yet from the statements made by certain leaders and from the leaks to media, it seems the following are the main proposals the Shankaracharya has made ---

1) The Muslims must give up their claim on the Babir Masjid and hand over the site to the Hindus. (This ignores the fact that such blanket terms as “Hindus” and “Muslims” mean little in view of their internal diversities. Cf The Hindu editorial on June 24: “replete as both the Hindu and Muslim communities are with sects and sub-sects professing allegiance to one ‘spiritual’ leader or another, there can be no single spiritual authority, however eminent or venerable, whose writ may be said to run through the entire community and across the country. For this reason, the seemingly salutary suggestion that ‘Ayodhya’ be sorted out by spiritual leaders of the two communities seems wholly unrealistic.”)

2) In return, according to the original proposal, Muslims would be allowed to rebuild the Babri Masjid anywhere outside the 10-km radius from the disputed site. Later, the proposal was modified to say that a Ram temple can be built and the Babri Masjid rebuilt side by side.

3) “Hindu” organisations would also desist from raising the “mandir-masjid” disputes in Kashi and Mathura.

4) Muslims would be allowed to offer namaz in 50 of the mosques currently under control of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

MURKY AFFAIR

ON the face of it, this package --- and its real initiator, the prime minister A B Vajpayee --- may seem reasonable to some people. But what makes it suspect is that it has come after long, behind-the-scene parleys involving the prime minister’s office (PMO), the Shankaracharya and some AIMPLB members as well as some Muslim intellectuals. As The Hindu editorial complained, “for an issue that has assumed such major proportions, there is a general lack of transparency not just about the components of the ‘compromise formula’ mooted but also the identity of various personalities (among the stakeholders on both sides) the Kanchi seer has been consulting and confiding in” (emphasis added).

Yet by now, it is established beyond doubt that some AIMPLB members and Muslim intellectuals have been acting at the PMO’s behest for the last one year or more. Going by the Urdu press, one such prominent member of the AIMPLB is Manzoor Ahmed while Sayeed Naqvi, Mrs Syeda Hameed, Javed Akhtar and Asghar Ali Engineer are among the Muslim intellectuals involved in this whole affair. Another prominent name is of Kalb-e-Saadiq, a spiritual leader of Shia Muslims, whom these people have been in contact with. Former president R Venkataraman, former UP governor Romesh Bhandari and spiritual leader Shri Shri Ravi Shankar are said to be involved on behalf of the ‘Hindus.’ Sudheendra Kulkarani, Pramod Mahajan and Vijay Goyal are reportedly involved on behalf of the PMO.

That the PMO has involved these persons is not denied by anyone now. Writing in RSS mouthpiece Organiser (June 22), Muzaffar Hussain, an old columnist of the weekly, obliquely admits it: “It is a welcome development that these 38 gentlemen are endeavouring to solve the Ram Mandir controversy.”

That the affair is indeed murky is by now more than confirmed. Newspapers recently published the story of how the government tried, though in vain, to involve a member of the Jardonian royal family who had been a student at Aligarh. It was also alleged that Shia clerics tried to get an edict issued from Iran to the effect that a mosque could be put to any other use if the circumstances warrant so. It is another thing that the Iranian clergy refused to oblige their Indian co-religionists, saying that the Babri Masjid did not come down on its own; rather it was demolished. It was also said that Shri Kalb-e-Saadiq was involved in a bid to cut off Shia Muslims from the whole Babri controversy. There are also allegations that the PMO has with it files ready about some AIMPLB members and that the latter may be put behind bars if they fail to do the PMO’s bidding.

GOVT’S MOTIVE

IT is probably this murky character of the whole affair that prompted some AIMPLB members, other Muslims and also secular people to say that the content of the Shankaracharya’s letter to Maulana Rabey-Hasani Nadwi must be disclosed. They wonder whether waiting till July 6 is really necessary if there is nothing suspicious in that letter. As The Asian Age (June 24) said: “Maulana Nadwi has come in for some off-the-record criticism for not sharing the contents of the letter, with a senior member saying: It concerns the public, so why should it be kept secret?”

In the meantime, minions also tried to use the Urdu press to convey to the Muslims that surrendering their claims on the Babri Masjid is in their own interest. However, they were rebuffed very soon.

Thus the situation is that these dubious AIMPLB members and intellectuals have failed to dupe the minority people. To quote The Asian Age again: “Meanwhile, a group of Muslim intellectuals sought to carry on parallel discussions on the Kanchi seer’s proposal. However, the meeting came to nought as the predominant view of the journalists, former diplomats, academics and others who had attended was that the Ayodhya issue should be left to the courts. It was largely felt that the current negotiations were tricky, and placed the onus on the Muslim community that would be branded as the “villain of the piece” in case the negotiations failed and the proposals were rejected. The Urdu press too has been largely opposing an out-of-court settlement.”

It is clear that what the government seeks to do in the name of a “negotiated settlement of the Ayodhya issue” and that too in an “unseemly hurry” (The Hindu) is just to ensure an undeserved victory for one party to the dispute.

THE MOVE BACKFIRES

THIS move by the Shankaracharya at the government’s behest, comes at a time when it is amply clear that if the whole issue is left to the court, the VHP and the Sangh Parivar in general do not have any chance to win the case. It was not long ago when the Vajpayee government approached the Supreme Court to get vacated the stay on any activity on 67 acres of land of and around the disputed site, and the court flatly refused to oblige the government. And now that the ASI has already completed its diggings at the disputed site, as was ordered by the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court, it has not found any evidence that a temple ever existed below the demolished Babri structure. (See People’s Democracy, June 22 for details of ASI diggings.) So much so that even the Kanchi seer seems to have accepted the VHP’s defeat on this score. According to Hindustan Times, June 23, “He said it was possible that nothing would come out of the excavations being carried out by the Archeological Survey of India at the disputed site.” This is also what The Hindu editorially said when it commented that the Kanchi seer’s latest move “has come at a time when excavation work at the disputed site, undertaken by the Archaeological Survey of India under court orders for any evidence of a temple having existed prior to the building of the demolished Babri Masjid, is proceeding apace…..”

Interestingly, even before the ASI had submitted its interim report to the High Court on its excavations, the VHP has restarted talking about the Ramjanambhoomi issue being a matter of “faith” for the Hindus.

Be that as it may, the government’s move through the Kanchi seer seems to have backfired even if its fate will be finally known only after the AIMPLB working committee meets on July 6. Nay, even the BJP leaders seem to have realised this point, as is evident from their latest statement that VHP leaders would have to be involved at some later stage. It is noteworthy that the VHP has all along refused to honour the proposal that it must stop raking up the Kashi and Muthra disputes after the Muslims give up their claims on the Babri site. The BJP’s latest idea about involving the VHP is against the Kanchi seer’s idea of keeping this outfit out of the picture, and signifies that the party has fallen in line with the RSS view, expressed by its supremo K S Sudarshan, who is backing the VHP in the latest episode.   

BLAME GAME STARTS

THAT the government’s move has backfired is also clear from the way the Parivar has started the second part of the exercise --- of blaming the Muslims’ ‘adamant’ attitude for the failure of the Kanchi seer’s efforts that were, in any case, bound to fail because of their own flawed character. This was what The Asian Age report, quoted above, apprehended.

In Organiser, for instance, if Muzaffar Hussain lauded the efforts by “38 gentlemen” to solve the “Ram Mandir (sic!) controversy,” exactly on the opposite page, Shyam Khosla, another regular columnist of the paper, started his write-up by saying that “Muslim obstinacy is the root-cause of the delay in an amicable settlement of the Ayodhya dispute.” The RSS mouthpiece has already declared that an early resolution of the dispute is not in sight. 

Needless to say, this is a part of the BJP game plan for the coming polls. They sought to push down a so-called solution down the Muslim community’s throat and, now that it is not likely to be swallowed, they want to ascribe the failure to “Muslim obstinacy” in a bid to malign the community, rouse the Hindus’ passions and thereby garner votes. This was precisely the game Modi played in Gujarat, and the BJP hopes it would work in the coming polls too.

Whether the BJP game succeeds or not, only time will tell. But there is no doubt that while some NDA parties are not at ease with the big boss and while the opposition is trying to close ranks, there are bickerings within the BJP itself and between the BJP and VHP. All this is giving the party leaders sleepless nights, despite their craftily cobbled show of unity and confidence at their recent chintan baithak.

The coming days appear crucial in this light. Even if the BJP loses the next round of polls as some reports go to indicate, its efforts to save itself from this fate will no doubt deal heavy blows to our national unity, composite culture and communal harmony. This prospect requires determined intervention by all the secular, democratic and Left forces, inside political parties and outside, in order to save our very existence as a secular, pluralistic nation. No amount of mutual difference on other issues can be allowed to stand in the way of this united fight to save the nation’s destiny from barbarism.