Commentary/ Saisuresh Sivaswamy

'Arre bhai, wahan masjid hai hi kahan?'

It's not very often that words from the past come back to haunt, but in the case of the erstwhile Babri Masjid, there are so many things that are out-of-the-ordinary that former prime minister V P Singh's famous words, uttered at a meeting with the Hindu delegation leading the Ram Janambhoomi movement, come ringing in one's head as the news of the CBI charges against Shiv Sena and BJP leaders filters in.

Really, it has been five years since the dilapidated structure that held the unique record of vitiating relations between Hindus and Muslims to pre-1947 levels was pulled down by hordes of frenzied mobs who, incidentally, happened to be Hindus.

And I use the world 'incidentally' with great deliberation. It was certainly not -- unlike the British Broadcasting Corporation reported -- as if 800 million Hindus across India put their collective shoulder behind the hands that wielded pickaxes that cold December morning. If anything, a majority of that number was repulsed by that sudden turn of events, by that open display of brute strength, by that unequivocal sacrilege that went against the nation's governing ethos of tolerance and inclusion.

The BJP certainly lost its moral edge with that single act; there was a serious erosion in its support base, if not voter base, and it was able to recoup from that setback only because of an effete opposition it faced. If, as reports suggest, its anti-Babri Masjid movement had been so successful, the party definitely would not have put Kashi and Mathura on the backburner -- if anything, those too would have gone the Ayodhya way before you could say, well, 'Ram'.

The BJP has realised the impact of the absence of a hate object, something tangible you could point to and arouse primeval sentiments. The excessive focus on one issue leaves you toothless when that single point is removed, as the then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao demonstrated with his passivity in letting the mosque crumble. How can you drive home the point of slavery to Islam when a putative symbol of the slavery has been pulled down?

The point I am trying to make is that whether it was the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi, the Janata Dal/National Front under V P Singh, (Chandra Shekhar being too insignificant to deserve a mention) the Congress under Rao, or the JD/United Front under I K Gujral, the masjid/mandir controversy had only been treated as a political football, to score goals against one's opponents. But somewhere down the line, the Muslims, for whose benefit this elaborate game is being played out, have seen through the game, have realised the entire thing is a charade. They also learnt that those who are supposedly playing for their team, have long ago succumbed to match-fixing.

Looking back, Rajiv Gandhi, of course, was a political sophomore who thought he was a Ph D. His solution to the nation's anger at the blatant overturning of a Supreme Court ruling favouring Muslim women was to appease the irate Hindus by doing something equally stupid and antediluvian. By opening the doors of a disputed place of worship in Ayodhya, which the nationhood long ago relegated to the innermost recesses of its memory, he opened the doors to a controversy that very nearly took the nation to the brink of a civil war.

Regardless of whose advice he took, as the chief executive of the nation the buck stopped with him. In the din over Bofors, which was a pettifogging offense compared to what Ayodhya did to the nation's innards, his culpability here was overlooked -- but in hindsight, it is very clear that the blame for stoking the Ayodhya fires has to be placed at the doorstep of 10, Janpath.

If Rajiv proved to be politically incompetent, his one-time confidant and friend-turned-foe V P Singh was a little worse. Gandhi merely sought to balance the scale he had tipped against one side by doing something stupid. But Singh, in his characteristic way, tried to hunt with the hounds and run with the hares, with the result that he became pariah to both sides. All it took was for one side to blow the whistle for the scales to fall from the nation's eyes, for 'Arre bhai, wahan masjid hai hi kahan?' (Brother, is there a masjid there?) to became part of the nation's political folklore.

But poor Narasimha Rao! He got the lion's share of the blame, when all he thought he was doing was defanging the BJP. After all, there was no namaaz being offered there for years, and even by Muslim theological yardsticks the Masjid was so only in name. This is not to say he merited the Bharat Ratna for doing what he did; but at least, part of the opprobrium that has come his way belonged elsewhere, to those who had covered themselves so well in sheep's clothing.

And thus we have the sight of the I K Gujral government deciding to file charges against the main accused in the conspiracy to pull down the Babri Masjid, almost five years after the act. While certainly the rule of the law must prevail, regardless of who is in the dock, the very timing of this move makes it highly suspicious even in the eyes of those spectators for whom the game is intended.

It certainly makes for a lot of piquancy. The saffron brigade's votebank will see this manoeuvre as a ploy to, first, destablise the BJP's alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh and, two, to put out of circulation the brigade's top vote-catches -- which ought to be a clear indication that general elections are not very far away.

But the Muslims will not remain silent anymore. They are still emerging from the cul-de-sac up which they were led by the so-called leaders only because they chose to keep shut -- they will not repeat the same mistake again.

In short, then, the run-up to the next elections promise to be riveting. Book your seats right away!

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