By Dr. Mohammad Manzoor Alam,
Soon after we became a republic, governments of the day started using a standard (and by now, too familiar) a ploy to wriggle out of sticky situations like massive anti-Muslim riots and financial scandals. That ploy was, and continues to be, the appointment of inquiry commissions “to look into the matter”, the officialese for a probe.
Nothing substantial has ever come out of the elaborate and costly exercises by such commissions. We are afraid the Liberhan Commission report on the demolition of Babri Masjid is also going to meet the same end if We the People allow the government to have its way.
We must remember that the destruction of the four-century-old and rare specimen of Sarcenian architecture is not a mater of concern for Muslims alone. It is the concern of all Indians who want to preserve the country’s architectural and cultural heritage. Babri Masjid also used to be a World Heritage site declared by United Nations Educational Social and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
On December 6, 1992 a crowd of demented, fanatical goons tore down the mosque led and cheered by the Who is Who of BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal, organisations of the so-called Sangh Parivar, at the top of which sits the RSS. The then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and UP chief minister Kalyan Singh, through their acts of omission and commission, facilitated the criminal act. It is very likely that these two men who deceived the Constitution of India and failed to do their constitutional duty of protecting the mosque have been indicted by the commission. However, Rao has already made his exit before he could be brought to justice.
The stalwarts of the Sangh like LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Ashok Singhal and the second-rank worthies like Vinay Katiyar and Uma Bharati, too, have every reason to be indicted, hopefully. Uma Bharati has already owned up to the criminal deed. Kalyan Singh is on record proudly owning up to the crime. Others, too, cannot convincingly deny their role in the crime.
The Liberhan Commission Report that has come after over 16 years of its constitution in December 1992 and at a cost of a staggering Rs 8 crore, and 48 extensions, can turn into another costly exercise in futility like Srikrishna Commission or Jain Commission reports. The Union government must have the political will to see to it that so much of public money is not wasted on mere gimmickry.
A word of advice to the two largest political parties, Congress and BJP: please don’t ever succumb to the lure of using Liberhan findings as a stick to beat each other with. Commissions of inquiry, as Justice BM Srikrishna notes in a recent article, are meant for finding the truth about certain happenings and for acting upon them to prevent them from recurring.
Commissions of inquiry are not meant as a subterfuge to buy time and allow frayed public tempers to cool as other events occur and overlay those traumatic memories before a report is filed and duly junked. That is Justice Srikrishna, again. That is what common Indians know already from experience.
Finally, one would like to observe that this Union government at least has the image of an upright administration (quite unlike Narasimha Rao’s, for instance). Let us hope that it will not sit tight over it (like Congress-led governments have sat tight over Srikrishna report), and put it before Parliament along with the Action Taken Report. Let the people know what action has been taken, to begin with.
It is important in the interest of the integrity of the nation and the supremacy of the Constitution. The people must know that rule belongs to the state, not frenzied crowds. The country must be run according to the law of the land, not according to the whims and fancies of law-breakers and Constitution wreckers.
(The author is Chairman of Institute of Objective Studies (IOS), New Delhi)