How much Congress party, Rao and S B Chavan were responsible for Babri demolition?

By Nirendra Dev 

On Dec 5 1992; which leader said, “We will make BJP sing Bhajans ? It was none other than the then Union Home Minister S B Chavan, who on Dec 5, 1992 said, “We will make the BJP sing Bhajans”.

Another quote from a popular leader also on Dec 5, 1992 will be relevant to refer to. 
# “I will tell you the arth (meaning) of the Supreme Court verdict. It does not mean we have to stop kar seva. Actually, the Supreme Court has given us the right to continue kar seva. Rokne ka to sawal hi nahin hai (There is no question of stopping us). Tomorrow we will not be violating any court order if we perform kar seva)”. – Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Dec 5, 1992

In retrospect it may be easily stated that P V Narasimha Rao as the Prime Minister had failed to frame his own plans to ‘protect’ Babri masjid. Moreover, a lacklustre Home Minister S B Chavan too did not help much. “The shattering denouement occurred because in the end it amounted to a judgement call in which he (Rao) was left playing by the rules of an indoor game, while the Sangh took to the battlefield,” wrote Zafar Agha in ‘India Today’ in December 1992.

Among Rao’s associates and colleagues – Sharad Pawar (then Defence Minister) and the then HRD Minister Arjun Singh hardly had faith in the RSS’s words of assurances.
 Some years later Subodh Kant Sahay told me that on the advice of Pawar, he had met Prime Minister Rao and  “warned” him that the Kalyan Singh government could hardly be trusted with. 

The Congress government had lost all initiatives to checkmate Sangh Parivar from bringing down the Masjid or the structure when it declined to act against Kalyan Singh government in UP. 

At a later stage, several Congress leaders including from north east like Late P A Sangma had said: “S B Chavan acted fast in sending fax notes to UP Chief Minister. In one such belated letter to Kalyan Singh, our Home Minister had specifically mentioned that Kar Sewaks were buying Trishuls which could be used for offensive and damaging purposes”.

However, only a week prior to December 6 mega episode, S B Chavan had dismissed L K Advani’s reported statement that Kar Sewa will be performed with bricks and shovels. 

Chavan perhaps surprised many members in the Rajya Sabha and chiefly his party colleagues when he had said: “…..I have checked with Advaniji and he has said he was misquoted by the media”.  

# “The Ram Janmabhoomi Movement had a propulsion and life with or without BJP….You may well say that Hindu bashing or denigrading the moral and the spiritual force of Hinduism as an allergy is secularism. But I do not agree equating Ram Janmabhoomi with the Babri Masjid”. – L K Advani 
The Congress leadership – especially the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and more particularly Sonia Gandhi certainly had complaints against Rao. 

Talk to Congress leaders, to this day many of them almost unhesitatingly hold him responsible for the erosion of the grand old party’s support base in the cow belt. Sonia Gandhi allegedly denied entry of Rao’s body to AICC head quarters. The party also denied Rao a funeral in Delhi, a place of party heroes.

Up to this day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi mocks at Congress leadership and the dynasty for denying ‘entry’ of P V Narasimha Rao’s body to the 24 Akbar Road AICC headquarters. 

True, a number of Congress leaders regard him as a ‘usurper’ to the Nehru-Gandhi throne and a conspirator who worked against the ‘dynasty’ and also for the destruction of the Babri Masjid. 
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Congress leaders such as Mani Shankar Aiyar in 2016 stole the limelight at a book release function especially because he made a blistering attack on the Congress Prime Minister of 1992. “Narasimha Rao was completely convinced that by talking to the Sadhus and Saints he could solve the problem (Ayodhya’s Ram temple issue),” Aiyar had said in presence of author Vinay Sitapati among others. 

Others also maintained that the former Prime Minister Rao’s “pro-Hindu mindset” had ultimately encouraged the destruction of the Babri Masjid. 

Speaking on the occasion many others, including former Congressman Natwar Singh who also worked closely with Rao, described the Babri Masjid demolition on December 6, 1992, as “the biggest failure” of the then Prime Minister Rao.

Aiyar went on to recall that on November 14, 1992, his “Ram-Rahim yatra” for peace and communal harmony was stalled at Faizabad and he was arrested by Uttar Pradesh Police. “I was summoned by Rao, he told me he had no problem with my yatra but he did not agree with my definition of secularism as India is a Hindu-majority country. I told Rao that’s exactly how the BJP argues,” Aiyar had said. 

However, author Sitapati, a product of National Law School at Bengaluru and Harvard University, maintained that Late Rao had actually only “erred” in judging the situation. Sitapati did not agree to Mani Aiyar’s contention that Rao was to be blamed for the demolition of the Masjid. “It was only the Congress creation that Rao conspired for the mosque’s demolition”.

Senior journalist Shekhar Gupta agreed that the ploy to “demonise” Rao on the Babri issue was a Congress attempt only to win over the Muslims. Gupta suggested the Congress wanted to give a big picture image – “….Look, Rao is responsible for the Babri demolition and not the party”. “The Muslims of UP are not fools; they knew pretty well who opened the locked gates of the disputed structure,” Gupta had said rather tersely in reference to a decision of the then Rajiv Gandhi government.

Aiyar, however, maintained that even after the mosque’s demolition, Rao told a Congress Parliamentary Party meeting in Delhi that “even kings in ancient India used to consult sages and Sadhus and so did I”.
 Aiyar still had problems with Rao and hence remarked rather rudely – “Was this a mindset of a 20th century Prime Minister or 12th century? This mindset actually encouraged the destruction of Babri Masjid”.

The Congress leader maintained that the then Prime Minister Rao could have dismissed the then Kalyan Singh government and impose President’s Rule in Uttar Pradesh. “In fact, there was a precedent of such President’s Rule. In apprehension that things can go out of control in Tamil Nadu, the then DMK government was dismissed and central rule imposed earlier without recommendation from the state Governor,” Aiyar had said in reference to the decision of the Chandrashekhar government in 1990. 

Nirendra Dev is a senior journalist. Views express in this article is his personal