Supreme Court of India issues notices to LK Advani, others over Babri Mosque conspiracy!

-Dr. Abdul Ruff

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On 1992 December 06 the fateful day when Hindutva fascist forces with weapons pounced on haplessly looking historic Babri Mosque, in fact, Indian secularism and system became a victim of majority’s arrogance.  

The Babri Masjid (Mosque of Emperor Babur) was a mosque in Ayodhya, a city in the Faizabad district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It was destroyed in 1992 when a political rally developed into a riot involving 150,000 people, despite a commitment to the Indian Supreme Court by the rally organizers that the mosque would not be harmed. More than 2,000 people were killed in ensuing riots in many major cities in India including Mumbai and Delhi.

The mosque was constructed in 1527 on the orders of Babur, the first Mughal emperor of India, and was named after him The Babri Mosque was one of the largest mosques in Uttar Pradesh, a state in India with some 31 million Muslims. Numerous petitions by Hindus to Indian courts with Hindutva minded judges resulted in Hindu worshippers of Rama gaining access to the site.

Since there are no credible evidences for a temple having existed at the site where the Babri Mosque stood, the Hindu leaders and even political class decided to first destroy the Babri mosque so that they could argue that there wasn’t any mosque at all. They want the courts to prolong the proceedings for decades so that a temple structure would come up there. 

Already Hon Allahabad Court had made fun of Indian secularism and Babri Mosque in its fanatic judgment.

Thus a deep rooted conspiracy was hatched by Indian government and political class that aid the Hindutva forces in the country, to demolish the historic Babri Mosque. They hope destruction of evidence can help their fanatically political case.

The dome that was demolished in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992 was not a mosque’s alone. What had fallen to the simulated fury of political Hinduism’s foot soldiers was the fragile edifice of secular India. It’s like a piece of history of independent India— its triumphs and tragedies. Babri Masjid demolition finds a prominent place under the heading “Ayodhya: Profanity of Faith”. The role of Hindu nationalist parties like BJP is summed up in these pithy words: “…Ayodhya, for so long a frenzied slogan of desperate Hindu nationalists became the site of a monumental shame. In the name of God, they raised the pickaxe. It was the demon of hate they had let loose.

India has been home to some of the worst communal riots in the world. Infact in some instances, the state machinery has been very much involved in facilitating the killings of innocents.  Just how well the demolition plan was executed without any interference by the law enforcing agencies goes on to show the weakness of the Indian state in the face of communal frenzy. Ten years after the Babri Masjid demolition, the ‘profanity of faith’ was once again on display in Gujarat. Then what was termed the Gujarat riots of 2002 became one of the worst chapters in secular India written in Muslim blood.  It was the Hindu rage, shielded by the state, against the Muslims. It was a battle that went on in streets and minds, creating a powerful Hindutva leader PM Modi..

Back to the demolition of Babri Masjid, the flames stoked in 1992 have still not died down. Similarly, in the case of 2002 Gujarat riots, the flames may have gone out of the streets, but they still linger in the minds of the beleaguered minority across the country.

Today, Ayodhya is still a dispute, a source of energy to the loony fringe of the Sangh Parivar, and an abiding motif in the divisive politics of the republic. India as a nation may have outgrown the mandir-masjid bipolarity, but the political class hasn’t.

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The Babri Masjid demolition is indeed one of the most glaring examples of the divisive politics of Hindu nationalist parties like BJP. With the historic mosque, they also demolished secular credentials of India.. The Liberhan Commission was formed on 16 December 1992 to investigate the destruction of Babri Masjid. The one-man commission submitted the report in June 2009. It was tabled in Parliament in November 2009. It took seventeen long years for the Liberhan Commission to indict the Hindu rightwing groups in the case. That really was a long wait indeed. However, the wait could just have been worth it if the guilty people were held accountable. Clearly, the Indian commission supports Hindutva forces.

BJP leader Uma Bharti volunteered to own responsibility for the demolition of Babri mosque committed by RSS, Siva Sena, military, police and BJP leaders and Hindutva frenzied criminals plus Hindu media lords, said she would have no problem even if she was hanged on the issue. Among the prominent faces indicted by the report was former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, now Bharat Ratna who was otherwise hailed a moderate leader in BJP. The report termed him as “pseudo-moderate” condemning his role in the demolition. Other BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi were also exposed as being the main figures behind the demolition.

Indian Constitution became silent so  is Indian judiciary, not knowing what to do with  such  fascist forces among majority people who attacked Indian Constitution that guaranteed full protection  of minorities and their properties, including mosques.

It was not an army of foreign invaders who invaded the Babri mosque zone and attacked it mercilessly with lethal arms for political purposes, keeping the owners of the mosque, the Muslims out of bound from the site of state sponsored Hindutva crimes. The military and police forces aided the Hindu criminals to achieve their Hindutva objective in hours and put in place a Hindutva structure where the Babri Mosque stood as a witness to communal developments in the state. 

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The Supreme Court on March 31 issued a notice to senior BJP leader LK Advani, 19 others based on a plea filed by Haji Mehboob, a petitioner in the title suit representing the Muslim community, challenging the Allahabad HC order which acquitted them of criminal conspiracy in the Babri Masjid demolition case. Apart from Advani, notices have been issued to senior BJP leader and former Human resource minister Murli Manohar Joshi and Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh.

Senior BJP leaders including LK Advani have been asked to respond to a petition that asks for conspiracy charges against them in the Babri mosque demolition case. Advani and the others - MM Joshi, Uma Bharti and Kalyan Singh - have been given four weeks to respond to a notice by the Supreme Court. The Allahabad High Court had earlier dropped conspiracy charges against these leaders for the 1992 razing of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya by Hindu activists. A petition by Mehboob Ahmed, a surviving defendant in the Ayodhya lawsuit, wanted those charges to be restored.

The court has also issued notice to the CBI, which has asked for more time to come up with its arguments against the high court order. The investigating agency had filed an appeal against the dropping of conspiracy charges against Mr Advani and 20 others.

The apex court granted four weeks time to the Central Bureau of Investigation and others to respond to the plea in the case.  The petition claims that CBI may not make adequate efforts to get conspiracy charges restored against party leader L K Advani and others in the Babri Masjid demolition case. 

A bench of Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justice Arun Mishra heard the Central Bureau of Investigation's appeal which was last listed before the apex court February 5 when it was directed to be listed for final hearing on "1st April, 2014 before an appropriate bench".

Though the matter is pending before the apex court since March 3, 2011, for the first time it came up for hearing after formation of the Narendra Modi government triggering speculation whether there would be any shift in the stand of the government from the one taken by the UPA government.

According to a report in the Indian Express, Mehboob's fears stem from the fact that Rajnath Singh, an accused in the case, is now Home Minister and his ministry had administrative control over CBI. Also, another accused, Kalyan Singh, was now Governor of Rajasthan. His plea said that due to the change in political scenario, litigation policy of the Centre and statutory authorities had changed their stand. “There are reliable reports… CBI may not seriously press the said petition in its true intent and spirit,” it said. The matter was mentioned before Chief Justice H L Dattu for an urgent listing and he agreed to hear it with the main matter on 31st march.

The notice on the CBI plea was issued March 3, 2011 and the matter has been listed before the court 23 times. The CBI which had moved the apex court February 18, 2011, nearly nine months after the Allahabad High Court verdict May 20, 2010, has yet to persuade the court on the justification for delay in challenging the high court order.

The CBI in its appeal before the apex court has said that the verdict discharging Advani and others of the offence of criminal conspiracy "is inconsistent with the previous judgment rendered by the Allahabad High Court on February 12, 2001".

The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court by its February 12, 2001 order had held that the trial court committed no illegality in taking "cognizance of joint consolidated charge sheet and all the offences were committed in the course of the same transaction to accomplish the conspiracy".

The high court by its said order had noted that the "evidence for all the offences was almost the same".

 Advani had questioned the delay in the CBI's appeal and called it political agenda. The CBI told the court that the translation of documents took time. The BJP leaders face charges in cases arising out of two FIRs or First Information Reports. The first alleges a conspiracy by "lakhs of unknown kar sevaks (volunteers)." The second FIR, which specifically charged Mr. Advani and other leaders with making inflammatory speeches leading to activists tearing down the 16th century domes. The two cases were later merged and handed over to the CBI, which filed a composite charge sheet in October, 1993. In 2001, a lower court dropped the conspiracy charge against the leaders on the ground that the case related only to the kar sevaks. This was upheld by the High Court.

Meanwhile, extensive consultations are on at the highest level in BJP regarding the approach to take in the 22-year-old conspiracy case filed following the ghastly demolition of the Babri Masjid in a hard skinned conspiracy. Their main concern is to save the BJP leaders involved in the ghastly pulling down of Babri Mosque in broad day light.

The Babri Mosque case is being dragged for decades now as its destruction was an act of conspiracy in which Indian government, political classes, senior leaders and ministers and military had a part. It was coalition conspiracy against a mosque and the Hindutva treats to destroy other important mosques are not culture based. The threats to other mosques are meant to help the criminals who pulled down the Babri Mosque.

The Congress government, which ruled India for years thanks to Muslim votes, refused to deliver justice to Indian Muslims and BJP government may not be interested in that because that concerns their Hindu vote banks. In fact, Congress and BJP are two sides of the same Hindutva coin- only that one side looks slightly better than the other.

The Apex Court needs to step in and restore the Babri Mosque to Muslims for worshipping.

Only judiciary can save the fabrics of Indian secularism and Muslims.

Muslims can do nothing literally to get back their Babri mosque in India.

Save Babri Mosque!