Sunday, March 23, 2008
THE SORDID SAGA OF THE BABRI MASJID- A SYMBOL OF PERSECUTION LYING IN DILAPIDATED RUINS
Terrorism
The Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir faced increased terrorist activity during Rao's tenure. His government claimed that training camps in Pakistan administered Kashmir for these terrorists, previously directed at evicting the Soviet army from Afghanistan, were now producing the same fighters who were infiltrating Kashmir.[41] He directly charged Pakistan with sheltering, arming and supplying infiltrators. During this time Hindu pilgrims and Sikh settlers were attacked, and hundreds of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes in the Kashmir valley.[42] Violence rocked and shut down parts of Kashmir, which was heavily dependent on tourism, and also struck major cities like Delhi and Mumbai.[43][44] Similar terrorism spread into the northeastern states of Assam,[45] Tripura[46] and Nagaland.[47]
Rao's government introduced the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA),[48] India's first anti-terrorism legislation, and directed the Indian Army to eliminate the infiltrators.[49] Despite a heavy and largely successful Army campaign, the state descended into a security nightmare. Tourism and commerce were largely disrupted, and the people began living in fear of the terrorists. Special police units were often accused of committing atrocities against prisoners, including torture and excessive detention.[50] Rao was criticized but the state remained relatively secure and finally made to a return to demcoracy in 1996.[49]National security, foreign policy and crisis management
Rao energized the national nuclear security and ballistic missiles program, which ultimately resulted in the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests. It is speculated that the tests were actually planned in 1995, during Rao's term in office.[24] He increased military spending, and set the Indian Army on course to fight the emerging threat of terrorism and insurgencies, as well as Pakistan and China's nuclear potentials. It was during his term that terrorism in the Indian state of Punjab finally ended.[25] Also scenarios of plane hijackings, which occurred during Rao's time ended without the government conceding the terrorists' demands.[26] He also directed negotiations to secure the release of Doraiswamy, an Indian Oil executive, from Kashmiri terrorists who kidnapped him,[27] and Liviu Radu, a Romanian diplomat posted in New Delhi in October 1991, who was kidnapped by Sikh terrorists.[28] Rao also handled the Indian response to the occupation of the Hazratbal holy shrine in Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists in October 1993.[29] He brought the occupation to an end without damage to the shrine. Similarly, he dealt with the kidnapping of some foreign tourists by a terrorist group called Al Faran in Kashmir in 1995 effectively. Although he could not secure the release of the hostages, his policies ensured that the terrorists demands were not conceded to, and that the action was condemned internationally, even by Pakistan.[30]
Rao also made diplomatic overtures to Western Europe, the United States, and China.[31]
He decided in 1992 to bring into the open India's relations with Israel, which had been kept secret since they were first established under Indira Gandhi's orders in 1969 and permitted Israel to open an embassy in New Delhi.[32]
He ordered the intelligence community in 1992 to start a systematic drive to draw the international community's attention to alleged Pakistan's sponsorship of terrorism against India and not to be discouraged by US efforts to undermine the exercise.[33][34] Rao launched the Look East foreign policy, which brought India closer to ASEAN.[35] He decided to maintain a distance from the Dalai Lama in order to avoid aggravating Beijing's suspicions and concerns, and made successful overtures to Teheran. The 'cultivate Iran' policy was pushed through vigorously by him.[36] These policies paid rich dividends in March 1994, when Benazir Bhutto's efforts to have a resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir failed, with opposition by China and Iran.[37]
Rao's crisis management after the Mumbai blasts of March 12, 1993 was highly praised. He personally visited Mumbai after the blasts and after seeing evidence of Pakistani involvement in the blasts, ordered the intelligence community to invite the intelligence agencies of the US, UK and other West European countries to send their counter-terrorism experts to Mumbai to see things for themselves. He felt that if they were convinced about the Pakistani role, they would at least tell their leaders even if they did not admit it to India.[38]
Volume 23 - Issue 10 :: May. 20 - Jun. 02, 2006
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU
THE SORDID SAGA OF THE BABRI MASJID- A SYMBOL OF PERSECUTION LYING IN DILAPIDATED RUINS
 | See full-size image. content.answers.com/.../ 180 x 125 - 7k Image may be scaled down and subject to copyright. |
http://www.auroville.org/thecity/matrimandir/mm_conception.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._V._Narasimha_Rao
Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (Telugu: పాములపర్తి వెంకట నరసింహారావు) (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was the tenth Prime Minister of the Republic of India.[1] He led one of the most important administrations in India's modern history, overseeing a major economic transformation and several incidents affecting national security.[2] Rao, also called the "Father of Indian Economic Reforms,"[3] is best remembered for launching India's free market reforms that brought the nearly bankrupt nation back from the edge.[4] He was also commonly referred to as the Chanakya of modern India for his ability to steer tough economic and political legislation through the parliament at a time when he headed a minority government.[5][6]
Rao's term as Prime Minister was an eventful one in India's history. Besides marking a paradigm shift from the socialist-based style of economy propagated by Nehru to a market driven one, his years as Prime Minister also saw the emergence of the BJP, a major right-wing party, as an alternative to Rao's Congress, which had been governing India for most of its post-independence history. Rao's term also saw the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya which triggered one of the worst Hindu-Muslim riots in the country since its independence.[7]
Rao's later life was marked by political isolation due to his association with corruption charges. Rao was acquitted on all charges prior to his death in 2004 of a heart attack in New Delhi. He was cremated in Hyderabad.[8]
http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2310/stories/20060602000707900.htm
"Silent spectator
| P.V. Narasimha Rao's book on the Ayodhya demolition of December 1992 only confirms his own culpability in what happened. |
THIS is a truly unique memoir of a kind that has no precedent or parallel in the entire corpus of memoirs or autobiographies. They have been written over the centuries for the authors to tell the world what they knew of the events, how they interacted with others, what their contribution to the making of policy was and to refute versions they considered wrong and unjust. P.V. Narasimha Rao's book tells us nothing of the kind. Things just happened. He surveys the events without a word about his role or a word in refutation of precise, credible and damning charges made against him. His silence, wilful and deliberate, proves those charges to be true.
Two former Prime Ministers attacked him after the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on December 6, 1992. On December 9, V.P. Singh demanded that Narasimha Rao be put on trial for "criminal negligence" jointly with Kalyan Singh, then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. "His [Rao's] responsibility is no less." Chandra Shekhar said on December 12: "It does seem there was deliberate dereliction of duty" (The Statesman; December 13, 1992). He revealed that he had met Narasimha Rao on November 30 to convey "certain information" on the threat to the mosque. "I personally explained my apprehensions." They were ignored.
Jyoti Basu, then Chief Minister of West Bengal and one of the country's most respected leaders, testified to the M.S. Liberhan Commission in a prepared statement: "Two days before the demolition, i.e. on 4 December 1992, I rang up the Prime Minister to inform him that there was apprehension that the Babri Masjid may be attacked and hence something has to be done to protect it... . In the third week of December 1993, Harikishan Singh Surjeet and I met the Prime Minister and asked him why nothing was done. He said `How could I disbelieve a Chief Minister when he assured me that no harm will be done to the mosque?'" (People's Democracy; December 8, 2002).
Narasimha Rao preferred to believe a Kalyan Singh who had, on his appointment as Chief Minister in 1991, taken a vow to build a temple on the site of the mosque rather than a leader like Jyoti Basu, not to forget his own Cabinet colleague Arjun Singh and Union Home Secretary Madhav Godbole. Narasimha Rao blamed the split in the Congress for his loss of office in 1996 and denial of the party ticket in 1998 for all that befell him; including a place in the dock as an accused in a criminal trial.
What Lord Melbourne wrote to a friend after he lost office in 1841 is all too true of Narasimha Rao. "I have always considered complaints of ill-usage contemptible whether from a seduced disappointed girl or a turned out Prime Minister." The last paragraph of the book explains why it was written: "I tried to explain all these things to my colleagues, but on their side also political and vote-earning considerations definitely prevailed and they had already made up their minds that one person was to be made historically responsible for the tragedy, in case the issue ended up in tragedy. If there had been success (as there definitely seemed to be, in the initial months) they would of course have readily shared the credit or appropriated it to themselves." Did Narasimha Rao really imagine that his strategy might succeed?
But what was that strategy? That he kept entirely to himself. After the demolition, the Sangh Parivar's organ Organiser (December 13, 1992) spilled the beans: "A tacit understanding seems to have been hammered out after a series of meetings Shri P.V. Narasimha Rao had with Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee, Shri Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and Prof. Rajendra Singh, joint secretary of the RSS" (emphasis added throughout). That "understanding" was never disclosed.
This explains not only the Sangh Parivar's optimism and boldness but also Narasimha Rao's and Home Minister S.B. Chavan's suspension of disbelief, which had such tragic consequences. On December 4, Chavan said it would be wrong to disbelieve the Uttar Pradesh government's assurances to the court. He disbelieved the reports provided by his own Intelligence Bureau.
Organiser makes no secret of the fact that both Narasimha Rao and Chavan had been hoodwinked. "The Sangh Parivar played its cards well in this battle of wits with the Prime Minister... it was decided after prolonged discussions with various organisations of the Parivar to devise a strategy to confront the Centre while avoiding a clash with the judiciary. It was as part of this strategy that the U.P. government filed [an] affidavit in the Supreme Court assuring the latter that the government would not allow violation of the court's orders." Admittedly, the affidavit was a fraud on the Supreme Court.
Organiser described the Parivar's plans authoritatively and bluntly: "The game plan was not to allow the Centre to pre-empt the arrival of the kar sevaks at Ayodhya by dismissing the U.P. government and deploying paramilitary forces in and around Ayodhya." Organiser called the filing of affidavits a "tactical move". This explains BJP leader K.L. Sharma's reference on December 12 to Narasimha Rao's "final assurances to the BJP, VHP and RSS leaders on 3 and 4 December". The assurances were not revealed either. They were part of the "understanding".
Advani's threat at the Kanpur Central Railway Station on December 1 was published by the newspapers the next day in direct quotes: "Kar seva does not mean bhajans and kirtans. We will perform kar seva with shovels and bricks on the 2.77 acres of land acquired by the U.P. government."
The White Paper on Ayodhya published by Narasimha Rao's government in March 1993 summarised explicit threats of demolition by the highest leaders of the BJP (pages 90-92). BJP president M.M. Joshi, on December 1 at Mathura: "He appealed to the gathering to assemble at Ayodhya in large numbers for kar seva and to demolish the so-called Babri Masjid." Vice-president Vijaya Raje Scindia in Patna on November 23: "She said that the Babri Masjid will have to be demolished." Vishwa Hindu Parishad president V.H. Dalmia in Delhi on November 9: "Declared that `the RJB [Ram Janmabhoomi] temple would be constructed in the same way it was demolished by Babar'. Kar sevaks, he said, were pressurising the leadership that they should be called not to construct the RJB temple but to demolish the masjid." RSS leader Rajendra Singh publicly said that he had warned Narasimha Rao on December 3 that anything could happen at Ayodhya on December 6. Narasimha Rao chose to ignore all this because he had arrived at a "tacit understanding" with the Sangh Parivar behind the back of the Cabinet.
On February 7, 1997, a television channel telecast Chavan's interview in which he pinned the blame exclusively on Narasimha Rao. Two days later M.L. Fotedar, a man of even less credibility, jumped into the fray singing the same tune. Chavan said: "If the government in the State was dismissed well in advance, the demolition of the mosque would not have taken place." Oblivious of the contradictions, he added he could not have taken that step because of the sworn affidavits of the Uttar Pradesh government in the Supreme Court. This was Narasimha Rao's view, which he shared. Hence Chavan's enthusiastic defence in Parliament, on December 3, of L.K. Advani and Kalyan Singh.
Narasimha Rao claimed also that he could not act because the matter was before the Supreme Court. But on November 25 the court made an order in which it said: "The Central government is of course at liberty to make its own assessment of the matter and to take such action on its own as may appear to it proper and permissible." Narasimha Rao thus received a carte blanche from the National Integration Council (NIC) on November 23 and from the Supreme Court on November 25. It was the "tacit understanding" that inhibited him from acting.
Arjun Singh's letter
P.V. Narasimha Rao with A.B. Vajpayee in New Delhi in May 1996.
There were only 500 men near the mosque on November 25, two days after the NIC gave Narasimha Rao a carte blanche to "take whatever steps the Prime Minister considers essential in upholding the Constitution". The crowd swelled to 175,000 on November 30. A senior and retired police officer, N.S. Saxena, wrote: "The initial error at Ayodhya, deliberate or unforeseen, was to allow about 2,00,000 people to congregate. Once this was done, the security forces became helpless as they had specific orders not to fire. The huge unruly mob could not be stopped from vandalism without killing not tens but several hundreds. Obviously, no government in India would agree to kill several hundred of its citizens" (The Telegraph, January 6, 1993).
Documents annexed to Arjun Singh's letter of February 6, 1995, addressed to the Chairman of the All India Congress Committee's Disciplinary Action Committee, reveal much. He resigned from the Cabinet on December 24, 1994. On January 9, 1995, moves began for his expulsion from the Congress. His letter set out precise questions he had raised, about Narasimha Rao's parleys with the Sangh Parivar's leaders, while drafting the government's White Paper. The BJP's White Paper on Ayodhya recorded Narasimha Rao's parleys and more. In 1996 came Godbole's memoirs Unfinished Innings, a detailed first-hand account of Narasimha Rao's systematic deception and wilful inactivity from July to December 1992.
Not only does Narasimha Rao's book studiously ignore them all but refrains altogether from informing the reader of his role. There is nothing in it that is new. It is an abbreviated rehash of the official White Paper which any hack could have written for him.
"When any fact is especially within the knowledge of any person, the burden of proving that fact is upon him," says Section 106 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. This is not a technical rule. It is based on sound common sense and good morality. If a person charged with conspiracy with the Parivar does not reveal fully and convincingly what really transpired between them, he must be deemed to have accepted the charges. Section 114 embodies certain presumptions which the court may draw "regard being had to the common course of natural events, human conduct... ". One of the presumptions is that "evidence which could be and is not produced would, if produced, be unfavourable to the person who withholds it". Narasimha Rao's silence suffices to damn him. He makes flat assertions about events without even once revealing what he said or did.
Sample this vague narrative: "In the months prior to December 1992, strenuous efforts were made to find an amicable solution to the RJB-BM issue and avert the impending crisis." When and with whom were the talks held? What were the proposals each side made? Not a word of any of this.
He does not respond to the points Arjun Singh raised in his letter to the Cabinet Secretary, S. Rajgopal, dated January 10, 1993, and repeated in his letter to Narasimha Rao dated February 3, 1993 (for the text vide Frontline; February 26, 1993).
THE BABRI MASJID on December 6, 1992, hours before it was demolished.
Arjun Singh put them more tersely in a press interview. Godbole quotes it and also exposes the gaps: "Arjun Singh had raised the inconvenient but basic question of the purpose of the White Paper and whether it was not meant to set out all the facts for the people to judge the issues in their totality."
Arjun Singh argued (Sunday, February 14-20, 1993) that while the White Paper talked about the `history and geography of Ayodhya', it blacked out five main issues: 1. What happened in the period between the meeting of the NIC and December 6, 1992? 2. What happened in the meeting of the CCPA [Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs] on November 27, 1992, and what was the resulting directive given to the Union Home Secretary Madhav Godbole? 3. What transpired at the meeting between Vasant Sathe and Balasaheb Deoras on November 28, 1992? 4. What came out of the numerous meetings that the Prime Minister held with sadhus and Kalyan Singh? 5. What was the Prime Minister doing between 12 noon and 6 p.m. on December 6, 1992?
"The government White Paper did not discuss the contingency plans prepared for dealing with the situation either in July 1992 or December 1992. It also did not discuss why they were not implemented by the government on either of the two occasions.
"The implications of taking recourse to Articles 355 and 356 of the Constitution were also skirted, so as to be in line with the Prime Minister's averments in Parliament. More than anything else, the White Paper was ambivalent about the course of negotiations held by the Prime Minister. The implications of alternatives explored in making various submissions to the Supreme Court do not find any mention in it. It also fails to answer the important question of whether given the circumstances, the demolition of the structure was unavoidable or whether it could have been prevented. Excessive concern for narrow personal and political gains resulted in many vital questions being left unanswered in the government White Paper" (pages 342-343).
There is another episode which would have been comic were its consequences not so tragic, Godbole records. "After the draft was approved by the Prime Minister, it was given to the Ministry of Home Affairs to have it printed and placed before Parliament. After the White Paper had gone for printing, one day the Prime Minister phoned to me say that there was unnecessary criticism that he had been sleeping when the disputed structure was being brought down. He said the position should be explained in a sentence or two."
Significantly, in his own book, which is supposed to provide a personal defence, Narasimha Rao has not a word on this. He writes not a word about what he was doing during those fateful hours on December 6, 1992. What, indeed, was he doing? Sleeping? Watching TV? Playing Scrabble? Read this: "The chronology of the happenings of 6 December 1992 between 9-30 a.m. and 7-30 p.m. reveals that the Central government had maintained constant contact with the U.P. government" (page 154). This is a reference to the chronology in the White Paper.
Of the 317 pages of Narasimha Rao's book, appendices of already published documents take up pages 193-311. A perfunctory resume of history (pages 3-87) is followed by an equally perfunctory record of events in 1992. A chapter on why President's rule was not imposed and another on why it all happened make up the rest. His thesis is the same as the one he trotted out in 1992. Article 356 applies if a situation has arisen, not if it is likely to arise. This clever excuse was trotted out on December 21, 1992, with a suggestion for tightening up Article 356. It is worse than preposterous. It is dishonest. On November 30, Narasimha Rao said: "Then let us go ahead with Article 356. Let Godbole prepare and bring up a Cabinet note" (Godbole, page 372). That note "was kept ready every day", Godbole records (page 372). Even a notification was ready by November 27 (page 384). Of course, Narasimha Rao had no intention to act at all.
Referring to the spurious legal arguments for inaction he made in Parliament after the demolition, Godbole writes: "At the outset, I must say that at no stage, in all the discussions before 6 December 1992, had the Prime Minister raised this point. Neither had the Law Ministry raised it at any time during the discussions in the CCPA or elsewhere. As mentioned earlier, the draft notifications for imposition of President's rule in U.P. and dissolution of the legislature had been vetted by the Ministry of Law on 27 November. The question of invoking Article 356 had come up several times during the two to three weeks prior to 6 December in the context of implementation of the contingency plan.... The question of non-applicability of Article 356 never came up for discussion in the briefing in the manner in which it was presented in Parliament."
In an interview to India Today (January 15, 1993), Narasimha Rao compared the crowd at Ayodhya in December 1992 to the ones at the Boat Club in Delhi: "Five lakh people come here... they come and go and nobody notices."
The absurdity of this argument testifies to both arrogance and lack of honesty. He would have been less complacent if such a crowd had gathered in the vicinity of his home and shouted threatening slogans.
Godbole's remarks are withering. "The Prime Minister was also told that all his options would be closed once the kar sevaks congregated in large numbers at Ayodhya. At no stage had the Prime Minister said that the crowds in Ayodhya were no different from those which collect in rallies at the Boat Club. But if that was his real assessment, then all one can say is that here you have the answer as to why the highest political executive decided not to act but to sit back and let events take their own course." That is the point - Narasimha Rao did not want to act.
He goes so far as to black out his own chairmanship of a Group of Ministers set up by Rajiv Gandhi in April 1987 to work for a solution. This was mentioned in the BJP's White Paper (page 86) but was omitted in the official White Paper. The Group met at least twice ("A tale of two White Papers" by N. Ram; Frontline; May 31, 1993). It is the BJP's White Paper which tells at length about Narasimha Rao's parleys with the Parivar. Narasimha Rao suppressed that in his White Paper and in his book, despite Arjun Singh's pointed reminders. Nor does he tell us about the trusts he set up, about the deployment of Chandraswami or the activities of his aides Jitendra Prasada and P.V.R.K. Prasad as late as in 1994.
As for the law, suffice it only to say that, both the Administrative Reforms Commission and the Sarkaria Commission held that the Centre had a right to deploy its armed forces in a State even if the State government did not seek their help. The latter mentioned the possibility of a State "unwilling to suppress an internal disturbance" (the Ahmedabad riots, for example). It cites three instances of such deployment by the Centre against the wishes of the State and without imposing President's rule.
A careful reader will notice that, while he makes palpably false denials of his own fully documented culpability, Narasimha Rao makes innuendoes against his leaders in the "willing to wound afraid to strike" manner - against Rajiv Gandhi for opening the locks at the masjid's gates in 1986 and permitting the shilanyas in 1989, and against Indira Gandhi, too. She had "asked to prepare various plans for the development [sic.] of Ayodhya". Exquisite. The book begins with a suggestive remark: "Conquerors throughout history have treated the conquered humiliatingly." A few lines later he disavows any intent to suggest that Babar had demolished a temple ("authenticity is still to be established").
Narasimha Rao became Prime Minister in 1991 when there was a vacuum in leadership. Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated. The Janata Dal was split. Sonia Gandhi was in grief. The Ram temple movement was nearing its peak. Narasimha Rao reached out to the Sangh Parivar for two reasons. First, he belonged to the brand of Congressmen which Nehru described in his Autobiography - communalists under a secular garb - G.B. Pant, Ravi Shankar Shukla and P.D. Tandon. Secondly, he thought he could win over the Parivar and if it did not play his game, betray it with a kiss. The BJP's White Paper acknowledges that. The BJP which "had extended cooperation of an unprecedented kind from a principal opposition party to a ruling party, revised its views on the Prime Minister and began opposing him from October... L.K. Advani who had earlier praised Shri Narasimha Rao as the best Prime Minister after Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri revised his opinion... ." It falsely cites other episodes. The break came because Narasimha Rao could not openly support the Parivar. Advani, who had called him "fantastic", began denouncing Narasimha Rao from October 18, 1992.
The hour demanded an honest, courageous and far-sighted leadership. Narasimha Rao was a man of keen intelligence, but courage and integrity were not among his virtues. His forte was cleverness, using the word consciously in a pejorative sense. Also, he was vain as the clever are prone to be - he could bluff, manage and, if need be, buy anybody. With critical Cabinet colleagues on one side and demanding Parivar allies on the other, he fell ignominiously.
He was no Nehru to give the ideological war cry. He lacked all the qualities needed to give battle-courage, determination and conviction. He told the Lok Sabha on December 21, 1992: "If a party takes Ram as the spokesman of the party and affects the minds and hearts of people day in and day out, whereas the other party does not even utter this because it is a secular party, does not want to make use of that as an issue, now it is again an unequal fight, and the Constitution does not, in my view, allow unequal fights."
He felt he could not resist the BJP's appeal. He, therefore, chose to compete with it. The Muslim vote was lost to the Congress anyway. So ignore the Muslims and go for the Hindu vote exclusively.
In this he was unwise and ruinous. For, there is an alternative. No government can, indeed, come to power without the support of Hindus, but one must not lose one's respect for this great community and imagine it will not be receptive to counsel for decency. The Hindu vote must be wooed, not on the basis of the agenda set by the BJP, but the one set by the freedom movement. The RSS-BJP parivar is a parvenu that seeks to destroy that national consensus and impose its own fascist creed.
The last chapter of Narasimha Rao's book is in the same refrain as the speech of December 21, 1992. "To the BJP also goes the dubious credit of not only hijacking the political process right into the religious ambit, but to some extent dragging other parties along with itself on the same path, if only to counter the BJP attack. The net result, however, has been that the admissibility as well as the respectability of the communal card have both been accepted, at least by necessary implication, on both sides, obviously for opposite reasons. And once the admissibility of the issue was accepted, everyone was stopped to some extent from disowning it." An abject but very revealing confession.
The demolition of the Babri Masjid was a crime as grave as the assassination of Gandhi. With the allies he wooed but could not but betray (the Parivar), Narasimha Rao also betrayed the national credo.
The soft corner remained - he ordered that the RSS supremo Deoras should not be arrested after the demolition - but his capacity to deliver on his pledges to the Parivar was gone. Sad to say, this is a profoundly dishonest book. Understandably. It accurately reflects the personality of its author."
http://www.auroville.org/thecity/matrimandir/mm_conception.htm
JAGANATH YATRA OF 2ND JULY 1992
ISLAM CONVERTS MAKE WIVES YOUNGER THAN THEM BY 12 YEARS AS THEIR MOTHERS FOR FORSAKING THEM AND THEN ARYA SAMAJ USES THIS FOR THEIR OWN CONVERTS BY KILLING THESE WIVES ;REAPING THEIR ORGANS AND MONEY BY THE 1937 ARYA SAMAJ ACT AND DRINKING COW URINE.OLD MEN GET MARRIED TO YOUNG GIRLS FIT TO BE IN THEIR LAPS AND BIG DADDY CARLOS MASTERMINDS THIS WITH ENGLAND AND 16 COMMON WEALTHS.
ALL THIS NOT FOR RELIGION BUT LOOTING AS IT HAPPENED IN KOSOVA.
"However, radical Islamists adhere to medieval traditions and laws mandating the Jihad. According to the Dictionary of Islam: conquered by jihad, subjugated people are given three choices:
1) convert,
2) pay a head tax, or
3) die.
Thirteenth Century jurist Ibn Taymiya, often quoted by Osama bin Laden, wrote that spoils of war “received the name of fay since Allah had taken them away from the infidels in order to restore them to the Muslims.... [The] infidels forfeit their persons and their belongings which they do not use in Allah's service to the faithful believers who serve Allah and unto whom Allah restitutes what is theirs....”
This creed dictated that in conquered regions, ancient religious sites be confiscated and infidels banned from using them. Thus, the Dome of the Rock was constructed on the ruins of the Temple Mount in 691 AD., Al-Aqsa Mosque over the Basilica of St. Mary in 712, AD, and the Grand Mosque of Damascus, was built over the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in 715 AD.
In India, the Vikramasli temple was razed to the ground in the 13th Century, and its foundation- stones thrown into the Ganges. According to scholar K.S. Lal, thousands of Hindu temples were destroyed and their stones used to build mosques."
PLEASE READ EXCERPT
Economic and Political Weekly August 1-8, 1992
"for their own purposes, to settle their own scores. This is what seems to have happened on July 2 too.
The riot broke out in Dariapur area Or PreM Darwaza at about 4 pm. The procession of Lord Jagannath was being led by 15 elephants and it had 108 trucks and besides these there were 25 'akharas', and 25 bhajan 'mandlis'. Alongwith each truck the administration had posted one subinspector and four constables. Two airforce helicopters were also deployed to keep watch. Also on top of houses in Dariapur, Kalupur and Shahpur police were posted with telescopes to keep vigil.
But with all this elaborate 'bandobust' riots could not be prevented as some people were bent upon engineering communal violence. All the trucks in the procession were cleared by the police as well as by the Jagannath temple committee after proper screening. But it is alleged that the VHP leader L K Lodha mysteriously brought in several more lorries (some say 15 while others maintain that there were only two) and these lorries allegedly carried stones, lathis and other weapons which were freely used for rioting.
It is difficult to ascertain who threw stones first. The BJP and VHP leaders allege that it is Muslims who threw stones and bombs on the procession. However, Ajaz Patel, general secretary, Gujarat Yuva Janta Dal, explains it somewhat differently. According to him when the procession entered the Prem Darwaza area of Dariapur at about 4 pm the BJP municipal corporator Bhaminiben Patel signalled one of the 'mahavats' by her hand to stop and asked what happened as did the BJP MLA of Kalupur Bhupendra Khatri. The mahavat said stones were being thrown on the procession from the Muslim area. Then Khatri is reported to have stopped the yatra and said'it would not proceed further.
According to Ajaz Patel not a single stone was thrown till then. It was only a ploy to stop the yatra. Now the Hindu youths in the yatra began to shout antiMuslim slogans: (I) Jay Ranchod, Miya chor (Long Live Ranchod, Muslims are thieves), (2) Jai Ranchod, Bandiya chor and (3) Jay Ranchod, Miya madar chod (Muslim is mother-fucker). The slogan shouting went on for quite sometime and according to Ajaz Patel, Muslims were provoked into throwing stones and petrol bombs. The BJP-VHP volunteers then st"" e~ throwing stones and bombs on Muslims and soon looting, burning and stabbing ~gan. There is yet another theory that Muslims did not throw stones on the procession but it all started from the procession itself. The stones and lathis were brought in by the unauthorised lorries which mysteriously sneaked into the yatra. It is true that even L K Advani could not explain during his press con- ference in Ahmedabad after the riots how these unauthorised lorries came to be in the procession. Whether the Muslims were provoked into throwing stones as a result of abusive slogan-shouting by the processionist or stones were thrown by the yatris 'themselves is not the most important aspect of the riot. It is only a sparkingoff point.
There is no doubt that the riots, as usual, were pre-planned. Rumours were systematically spread that the Muslims have stoned the procession and riots started simultaneously in many areas of Ahmedabad. According to Nachiketa Desai of The Tele~raph communal holocaust spread to Madhupur, Shah pur and even in the posh areas of Ashram Road. The police, it is alleged, sympathised with therioters. For about five hours on the night of July 2 the administration was nearly paralysed. During that time the rioters burnt about 200 shops belonging to the \Muslims. Imtiaz Sheikh, a shop-keeper from the Shahpur locality said that when the rioters were attacking us the police was with them. He also said that the police was firing from the roofs of buildings nearby. His shop was also looted. On Ashram Road a Bata shop belonging to a Hindu was burnt down because its manager was a Muslim. That night of the 300 shops looted and burnt, 297 belonged to Muslims. The three shops belonging to the Hindus were gutted only because they were adjacent to Muslim-owned shops.
The heavy police bandobast which was , meant to prevent outbreak of violence in fact turned against Muslims. On the very first day seven people were killed, three in police firing including one CRPF jawan and four in stabbings. It was rumoured that the CRPF jawan was killed in firing., by Muslims but later it was established that he was caught in the cross fire by the police and killed.
More violence erupted when the VHP gave a call for a Gujarat bandh on July 4 to protest against stoning of procession of Lord Jagannath. During the bandh violence broke out in other places like Sidhpur where two persons were killed and Surat wherein one person was stabbed to death. The toll in the Ahmedabad riots had mounted to 14 by Juiy 3. At least six more people were killed on July 3 and at least 27 were injured. Most of the deaths took place in police firing, stabbings and group violence. Four people were killed in police firing and one by stabbing with the' situation taking a serious t I: n despite the deployment of .heavy ;;oiice, CRPF. SRP and home guard -eomingents. Of the tOtal 135 injured, one person succumbed to injuries on the morning of July 3.
Many prominent Muslims including some advocates and others told us that on
Economic and Political Weekly August 1-8, 1992
July 2 itself many miscreants attacked Miyawada and a mosque as well as the 'dargah' of the famous Sufi saint Mehmudmiya Chishti from the terraces of high buildings and Jain Derasar of Chunara's Khancha by throwing burning rags and acid bulbs, bottles and stones.
The mosque and dargah were badly damaged. They were also shown to L K Advani when he visited Ahmedabad.
According to these Muslims rath yatris attacked Champa Masjid of Shah pur Chakla and looted two bakeries, one washing company, two shoe-shops, as well as five other shops and houses. They also burnt down a Maruti van, a scooter and 15 bicycles, all belonging to Muslims.
These Muslims also maintained that some, VHP volunteers, right in presence of their leaders, shouted highly provocative slogans like "Children of Tipu Sultan bring your Ruqayyas, our Ram and Laxman are coming to-them':' Not only that, a few VHP volunteers stripped themselve, before some Muslim women who were standing in balconies to see the rath yatra.
During the Gujarat bandh two persons in autorickshaws were burnt alive in Amraivadi. Both were Muslims. The chief minister Chimanbhai Patel also described this incident as most shameful. Also one . officer of the Indian Oil Corporation was 'dragged out of his house in Naranpura locality, killed him and threw his body from second floor. One more shocking incident took place in the Gqmtipur labour locality where a woman was hanged. Also. in Khanpur area four people, including a IO-year-old girl were killed in unprovoked police firing. Of those killed in police firing more than 70 per cent were members of the minority community. The , police as well as the local Gujarati press displayed a communal bias.
The BJP-VHP had planned to take out another rath yatra apparently because the earlier yatra could not complete its course.
But the pujaris ef Jagannath temple themselves opposed the idea and this plan did not materialise. One does not know what would have happened if the yatra had, been taken out once again. The Muslims decided not to take out the tazia procession on July 12. That too was a wise decision. It could have been disastrous in a tension-ridden situation.
Jinabhai Darji, a prominent Congress leader, Rauf ValiuIlah, Congress(l) general secretary and Vadilal Kamdar, after preliminary inquiries have also concluded that the police showed anti-Muslim bias. What a shame that religious festivals are turned into death dances by communalists for petty political gains. These should be, as they were before, occasions of HinduMuslim participation and celebration. But it seems to be a distant dream now.
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