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The Rediff Special

'One group of karsevaks blocked all entry points into Ayodhya to keep out central security forces, while another began to loot and burn Muslim homes'

Did the leaders know beforehand what was going to happen that afternoon? There can be no final answer to that question. Perhaps some did, others did not. Certainly one answer seems to emerge from our narrative, another from the likes of editor Chandan Mitra. Not that the leadership of the parivar comes off any better from Mitra's graphic description of their behaviour during that crucial period when the attack on the mosque was mounted -- the giggling political sanyasins, Uma Bharati and Ritambhara; Joshi overcome by the size of the mammoth crowd; Singhal, convinced that the karseva would go along expected lines and giving precise orders, to a crowd that could not care less, about how to wipe and clean the site of the projected temple; the moment of reckoning when the crowd goes berserk on seeing two karsevaks on the top of the domes of the mosque while the high command sat, 'tense', 'sombre-faced', 'hopelessly sullen', with faces like 'grim death'; the lament of Rajendra Singh, the de facto supremo of the RSS, 'the ministry is gone'; and finally the pathetic and belated attempts to calm down the crowd by the leaders taking turn in appealing to the karsevaks, while others like Acharya Dharmendra tried to interest an uninterested crowd in a bhajan.

The high command recovered soon enough, but for Advani who, perhaps sensing the long-term implications of what was happening, wore a 'worried, faraway expression on his face'.

At about 12.30 pm some half an hour after the mosque had been stormed, water began to be pumped into a small, crude, tank-like, brick-and-mud structure a little distance away from the mosque, just below Manas Bhavan. This was to mix the cement that was later used to build the platform and wall of the temple on the rubble of the mosque. VHP ambulances stood ready in all the nearby lanes to cart away injured karsevaks to the civil hospital in Faizabad where the former health minister in the BJP government in UP, Harish Chandra Shrivastava, was said to be in command.

Soon after the karsevaks started tearing the mosque down, journalists and cameramen covering the events came under a well-orchestrated attack. It was not difficult to single them out for this purpose, since all media persons present wore prominent pink identity badges issued to them by the VHP the day before. Most cameramen and photographers had their equipment smashed to pieces. Journalists were beaten up, in some cases seriously, their notebooks were torn and tape recorders broken. At least in one instance, there was an attempt to kill a young woman journalist.

One group of karsevaks blocked all entry points into Ayodhya to keep out central security forces, while another began to loot and burn the homes of the Muslims of the city and destroy Masjids and idgahs.

The low, continuous chant of Jai Shri Ram, coming over the loudspeakers since dawn, suddenly became more aggressive in both tone and content:

Jai Shri Ram, bolo Jai Shri Ram,

Jinnah bolo Jai Shri Ram,

Gandhi bolo Jai Shri Ram,

Mullah bolo Jai Shri Ram...

Initially, there were some hurried, panicky pleas to the karsevaks over the public address system to maintain discipline. These were followed by expressions of concern for their safety, as the 500- year-old mosque began to come apart slowly. After a while the karsevaks received only guidance and encouragement from the BJP leaders and the sants of the VHP's Marg Darshak Mandal assembled at the Ram Katha Kunj. Singhal grandly announced that the dawn of Hindu rebellion had arrived, while Vijaya Raje Scindia declared that she could now die without any regret, for she had seen her dream come true.

It was, however, the triumvirate of Uma Bharati, Ritambhara and Dharmendra who dominated the 'show'. Bharati in her several turns at the microphone gave the crowds two slogans, 'Ram nam satya hai, Babri Masjid dhvasth hai,' (True is the name of Ram; the Babri Masjid has been demolished) and 'Ek dhakka aur do, Babri masjid tod do' (Give one more push, and break the Babri Masjid). Both, along with the old favourite 'Jai Shri Ram', rent the air for hours afterwards. She also introduced to the crowd one Shiv Kumari Prachchanya of Meerut as 'the first woman ever to have climbed the dome of that structure,' and the parents of Sharad and Ram Kumar Kothari, two brothers killed in police firing on November 2, 1990, while trying to attack the mosque. 'There were tears in the eyes of their mother', Bharati told her audience, 'as she for the first time felt that her sons had not sacrificed their lives in vain, and that their murder at the hands of those nar pishachs (blood-sucking monsters), Mulayam and V P Singh, had been avenged.'

By the time the last of the domes of the Babri Masjid came crashing down at 5.45 pm, scattered spirals of smoke could be seen at a distance. Realising that Muslim houses in the city were being attacked by the karsevaks Ritambhara quickly began to urge the authorities on the public address system to stop the 'Mussalmans from burning their own homes'. She was joined by Dharmendra, who shouted that some 'outlaws' were setting fire to their own huts to make a fast buck and give the innocent karsevaks a bad name. Later, he changed his tune and said to the press that this was the only way in which Ayodhya could become a Vatican for the Hindus.

Excerpted from Creating a Nationality, by Ashis Nandy, Shikha Trivedy, Shail Mayaram and Achyut Yagnik, Oxford University Press, 1995, Rs 295, with the publisher's permission.

The Rediff Special

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