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Who gave Babri Masjid the push, brick by brick, on December 6, 1992

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Damayanti Datta
Damayanti DattaApr 22, 2017 | 09:13

Who gave Babri Masjid the push, brick by brick, on December 6, 1992

Just a few hours, thousands of berserk kar sevaks, a world heritage razed to the ground and more than a thousand people dead. That’s the image the nation carries of December 6, 1992.

But who should be blamed for what happened on that fateful day?

Whodunnit #1

In the last 25 years, the Babri Masjid demolition case in Ayodhya has turned into a Whodunit, with constantly-fluctuating lists of accused: sometimes 21 top BJP and Sangh Parivar leaders, sometimes only eight, sometimes 68, sometimes 49.

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The Supreme Court has now restored conspiracy charges against BJP stalwarts LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and 10 others for the demolition.

accused-babri_041917_042117102841.jpg
The Supreme Court has now restored conspiracy charges against BJP stalwarts LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and 10 others for the demolition. Photo: DailyO.in

The nation waits for justice. With bated breath. But, wait a minute. Nothing is ever as simple as that.

Whodunnit #2

“I demolished Babri Masjid, not Advani or Joshi. I gave the orders for demolition,” saffron-clad, long-beared, 68-year-old VHP Margadarshak and former BJP MP, Mahant Ram Vilas Vedanti, has come forward to take ownership of the crime. He has now gone on TV to make the claim. “It was I who said ‘Ek dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid tod do.”

In case you didn’t know, babaji is a PhD in Vedanta from Varanasi’s Kashi Vidyapeeth and was close to the late Deoraha Baba, who counted Indira Gandhi as a disciple. Apart from being one of the accused in the Babri case, the Mahant has a habit of giving directives to behead people he doesn’t like.

Say, DMK supremo and former Tamil Nadu CM, M Karunanidhi, in 2007 for saying: "Who is this Raman? In which engineering college did he study? When did he build this so-called bridge? Is there any evidence for this?”. In April 2016, babaji again said, “Behead those who do not say Bharat Mata ki Jai.”

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Whodunnit #3

But he is not the only one seeking credit. Since April 2014, Pramod Mutthalik, Sri Ram Sene Chief and former member of Shiv Sena, VHP and BJP, has also been claiming that he should be considered the demolition man. Check “Operation Janmabhoomi” sting carried out by Cobrapost.

Unlike Vedanti, everybody knows Muthalik. An ardent fan of Nathuram Godse, he is no stranger to controversy. And faces more than 50 cases (that after the Yeddyurappa government withdrew 54 of those), from unlawful assembly to promoting communal enmity. He is, however, most well known for leading a mob attack on women at a pub in Mangalore, in 2009.

Whodunnit #4

The man who could actually say, “I demolished,” (the temple, not the mosque) was apparently the first Mughal emperor, Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Bābar. Or so we have been told.

Now, just to confuse us, some historians are claiming that Babar didn’t destroy the Ram temple in 1528 to build his Masjid. The mosque was built by a general in Babar’s army, Mir Baqi Tashkandi, governor of Oudh.

Others are saying, the temple was demolished during Aurangzeb's reign, not Babur’s. Making things even more complicated are yet others, who are claiming that it was not the Mughals but the Lodis. King Ibrahim Lodi, who lost the Delhi masnad to Babar in the Battle of Panipat (1526), had built a mosque on top of a temple.

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Let’s not even talk about those who are saying that it was originally a Buddhist stupa on which Gupta king Skandhagupta built a Rama temple.

Rashomon moment

It’s a Rashomon moment. Is there really a truth out there?

We wait for the Supreme Court to lead the nation toward solving, what’s fast turning out to be, a postmodern riddle.

Last updated: December 06, 2017 | 11:24
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