BJP LK Advani

Ram Temple Trust Asks BJP Veterans Advani, Joshi to Skip Inauguration Ceremony

Both the leaders who were at the helm of the Ram temple movement in the ’80s were requested to refrain from attending due to their advanced age.

New Delhi: The Ram Temple Trust on Monday (December 18) said that veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, may not attend the Ram temple consecration ceremony in January due to health and age reasons.

Trust general secretary Champat Rai said that both leaders, who were at the helm of the Ram temple movement in the ’80s, were requested to refrain from attending due to their advanced age – a request they accepted, NDTV reported. Advani is aged 96 and Joshi will turn 90 next month.

Advani assumed leadership of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1984 and led the infamous ‘rath yatra‘ from Somnath to Ayodhya. The purpose of the yatra was to stir up support for the demand for the construction of a Ram temple at the spot where the Babri mosque stood.

The yatra wasn’t positioned as a message of peace with large scale violence, rioting and killings along the route before Advani was arrested by former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.

Two years later, on December 6, 1992 the Babri Masjid was demolished by a mob of kar sevaks led by a coterie of BJP leaders, who in turn were led by Advani.

The crowd that stormed the mosque said they had gathered on the instruction of senior BJP leaders like Advani and Joshi. Before the demolition almost 150,000 people gather to listen to their speeches and the two veteran party leaders were among the 32 individuals accused in the demolition case.

Preparations for the ceremony

Preparations for the ceremony, set to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are in full swing and are expected to conclude by January 15. The ‘praan pratistha’ puja is scheduled to commence on January 16 and extend until January 22.

A three-member team has been designated to invite former Prime Minister Deve Gowda to the ceremony, the report said.

Also read: Ram Mandir, Article 370 and Now the Constitution: India Is a Republic at the Crossroads

“Shankaracharyas of six darshanas (ancient schools) and around 150 saints and sages will participate in the ceremony,” Rai said. He also provided a comprehensive list of invitees including around 4,000 saints. Notable personalities invited to the ceremony include spiritual leader Dalai Lama, actors Rajnikanth, Amitabh Bachchan, Madhuri Dixit, and industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani among others.

Following the consecration ceremony, a 48-day ‘mandal puja’ will begin on January 24 with the temple opening for devotees on January 23.

Arrangements for guest accommodations in Ayodhya have been made, with over 600 rooms provided by monasteries, temples, and households.

The Ayodhya Municipal Corporation is gearing up for the event, planning installations of fibre toilets and designated changing rooms for women.

Additionally, a ‘Ram Katha Kunj’ corridor, showcasing 108 events from Lord Ram’s life, will be constructed in the Ram Janmabhoomi complex.

L.K. Advani, the Provocateur in Chief

The violence that accompanied the senior BJP leader’s rath yatra and the incendiary speech he gave in December 1992 before the mosque was demolished are well documented.

Note: This article was first published on November 9, 2019 and is being republished on September 30, 2020 in light of the verdict acquitting all those accused in the Babri Masjid demolition case.

New Delhi: No one else bears more singular responsibility for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the violence that preceded and followed it – in which the lives of thousands of Indians were lost – than Karachi-born former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani.

After getting a free case from the Central Bureau of Investigation in the demolition case when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was prime minister, Advani was finally chargesheeted in 2017 on the directions of a Supreme Court bench led by Justice Rohinton Nariman. On cue after the November 2019 apex court judgment which handed the disputed land to the Hindu plaintiffs for the construction a Ram temple, he promptly declared himself vindicated.

The Bharatiya Janata Party was founded in 1980 and Advani assumed leadership of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1984 before becoming party president in 1986.

In 1989, the BJP announced that the construction of a Ram temple on the land where they believed Lord Ram was born – and where the Babri Masjid had stood for over 400 years – was its key political agenda.

In the autumn of 1990, Advani launched a rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya, the purpose of which was to stir up support for the demand for the construction of a Ram temple at the spot where the mosque stood.

Also read: L.K. Advani Makes a Historic Intervention

A Shiv temple had stood in Somnath since at least the 6th century CE. It was demolished and reconstructed several times over the centuries. The last demolition came at the hands of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1665. It lay in ruins until 1950 when its reconstruction began under the prime ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru.

Advani’s choice of beginning the yatra at Somnath and ending in Ayodhya thus had a very powerful symbolic value of ‘reclaiming’ the temple in Ayodhya as was done in Somnath.

He wrote in his 2008 book My Country My Life:

“The choice of Somnath as the starting point of the yatra had a powerful symbolic value, made evident by repeated references to it as the target of Muslim tyranny against the Hindus…The intention was to contextualise Ayodhya in the historical lineage of Muslim aggression and then to seek legitimacy for Mandir movement by drawing a parallel. The parallel the Sangh Parivar drew was with the reconstruction of the Somnath temple.”

Advani’s rath yatra made it abundantly clear that he was not carrying a message of peace. Pictures of him carrying a trishul, an axe, a sword and a bow and arrow also emerged. Workers of the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad pasted posters along the route of the yatra of the proposed temple and the ‘treachery’ of Muslims.

Through the course of the yatra there was large scale violence, rioting and killings. Advani and his associates were finally stopped and arrested by the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led Bihar government in Samastipur in October 1990.

Senior BJP leader L.K. Advani being greeted by vice president Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and BJP working president J.P. Nadda on his 92nd birthday at his residence in New Delhi on November 8, 2019. Photo: PTI/Twitter

Even after the arrest of Advani, thousands of kar sevaks managed to reach Ayodhya where 20 of them were killed after a clash with the police.

Two years later, on December 6, 1992 the Babri Masjid was demolished by a mob of kar sevaks led by a coterie of BJP leaders, who in turn were led by Advani.

Also read: Why Don’t We Hold Our Leaders to a Higher Standard of Morality?

His role, according to several reports, was key. Anju Gupta, a police officer who was with Advani on December 6, testified before a CBI special court that Advani made a provocative speech before the mosque was brought down by the kar sevaks who had gathered.

“On December 6, 1992 Advani made a spirited speech from the Ram Katha Kunj Manch, barely 150-200 metres from the disputed site, which charged the people. He repeatedly said that the temple would be constructed at the same site,” Gupta told the court.

She also said that when the kar sevaks began demolishing the Babri Masjid none of the BJP leaders who were present, including Advani, made any efforts to stop them. Once the mosque was demolished, the BJP leaders distributed sweets, according to Gupta’s testimony.

In 2017 speaking to The Wire, some of the kar sevaks who were part of the mob that demolished the mosque said that BJP leaders including Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti, told them to demolish it.

Also read: ‘Blame It on the Mob’ – How Governments Shun the Responsibility of Judicial Redress

“We had gathered there on the instructions of LK Advani, M.M. Joshi, Uma Bharti, and other VHP and RSS leaders who told us that we have to erase the sign of the slavery of 500 years. They told us that we have to demolish the Babri Masjid and we successfully did that,” one of them said.

The CBI chargesheet had noted that Advani had said that the December 6 kar seva “would not mean only bhajan and kirtan, but would also involve construction of the Shri Ram temple.”

It also added that the demolition was not a spontaneous act and that the final decision to demolish the Babri mosque was taken at a secret meeting at the residence of BJP leader Vinay Katiyar which was attended by Advani.

Advani and several others, including Murli Manohar Joshi, were charged with criminal conspiracy. In 2001, the Allahabad high court dropped the charge of criminal conspiracy. But the charge was restored by the Supreme Court in 2017, which described the act of demolishing the mosque as a crime that had shaken the ‘secular fabric of the Constitution’.

The apex court in its judgment directed the sessions court at Lucknow to complete the trial within two years. A final verdict is yet to be delivered despite the two years having passed in April this year.

In July 2019, the Supreme Court extended the deadline by another nine months.

Advani now lives a life of relative obscurity having been relegated to the ‘margdarshak mandal’ after his former protege Narendra Modi took charge as prime minister. In 2019, Advani was overlooked in favour of Amit Shah for the Lok Sabha ticket from the Gandhinagar constituency which Advani had made his own since 1998.

Though he is no longer an MP and thus not entitled to government housing, the Modi government has continued to allow him to occupy a Lutyens bungalow on “security considerations”.

Babri Demolition Trial: Murli Manohar Joshi Deposes, Pleads Innocence

The senior BJP leader accused the then Congress government of falsely implicating him and called the CBI’s witnesses ‘liars’.

Lucknow: Deposing in the Babri Masjid demolition case, veteran BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi on Thursday asserted before a special CBI court that he was innocent and implicated in the case by the then Congress government at the Centre.

The 86-year-old leader made his statement under Section 313 of the Criminal Procedure Code through a video conference to the court of special judge S.K. Yadav, who is holding the trial in the case.

Former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani, 92, is also slated to depose before the Lucknow court through video links from New Delhi on Friday.

In his deposition to the court, Joshi accused the then Central government of falsely implicating him out of political vendetta.

He also refuted the prosecution evidence saying they all were “false and inspired by political reasons”.

The entire investigation was conducted under political influence and he was charged on the basis of false and fabricated evidence, Joshi told the court.

At this, the judge asked him why then the prosecution witnesses have deposed against him and Joshi retorted that all the witnesses are liars. They have deposed due to political reasons and under the influence of police, he claimed.

During the court proceeding, the court posed as many as 1,050 questions to Joshi and he replied to each one of them.

As the judge sought Joshi’s comment over various pieces of evidence led by the CBI on the basis of different video clippings and newspaper cuttings, the former Union human resource development minister said the entire evidence is “false and fabricated”.

During the proceeding, judge Yadav apprised Joshi of the statement of a CBI witness, in which he had averred that Kalyan Singh was sworn in as Uttar Pradesh chief minister on June 25, 1991, and went to the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya the next day along with his cabinet colleagues.

Also read: The Political Undertones of Choosing August 5 for Ayodhya Ram Temple ‘Bhoomi Pujan’

The judge told Joshi that, according to the CBI witness, Kalyan Singh had pledged for building the temple at the very place, chanting Ram lalla hum aayenge, mandir yahi banayenge (Lord Ram, we will come and make the temple here itself).

The judge then asked Joshi to explain the statement of the CBI witness.

Joshi replied that it was true that Kalyan Singh had gone to Ayodhya but, he said, the rest of the averment of the prosecution witness was false.

The judge also showed Joshi a photograph taken on June 26, 1991, at the Ram Janmabhoomi premises, in which he is seen standing with the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh and asked the BJP leader to explain it.

Joshi dubbed the photograph as fake, pointing out that there was no negative of the photograph on the CBI records.

The photograph was handed over by one Swapna Das Gupta to the CBI during the investigation.

The judge also referred to many newspaper reports on alleged statements of Advani and Shiv Sena’s late chief Bala Saheb Thackeray on the Ram Janmabhoomi issue and sought Joshi’s response to them.

Joshi asserted that the relevant news items were false and were made part of the investigation by the CBI due to political malice and ideological differences.

Joshi told the court that he would present evidence in his defence at the appropriate stage of the trial.

After Joshi completed his deposition to the court, judge Yadav asked his office to send a copy of his statement to the CBI in New Delhi.

The CBI will then get Joshi’s statement signed by him in New Delhi and send it back to the court in Lucknow.

The court recorded Joshi’s statement in the presence of his counsel Vimal Kumar Srivastava, K.K. Mishra and Abhishek Ranjan.

The counsel for prosecution agency CBI, Lalit Singh, R.K. Yadav and P. Chakravarti too were present in the court during its proceeding.

The court is presently at the stage of recording the evidence of various accused, totalling 32, in the Babri mosque demolition trial after examination of the prosecution witnesses.

A photograph of the Babri Masjid from the early 1900s. Copyright: The British Library Board

At this stage of the trial, an accused gets the opportunity to refute the prosecution evidence against him.

The mosque in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992, by ‘kar sevaks‘ who claimed that an ancient Ram temple existed at the same site.

Advani and Joshi were among the BJP leaders, spearheading the Ram Janmabhoomi temple movement at that time.

The court is conducting a day-to-day hearing in the case to complete its trial by August 31 as directed by the Supreme Court.

BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti had appeared in person earlier this month before the court to make her deposition in the case.

In her testimony, she too had accused the then Congress government at the Centre of implicating her in the case due to political vendetta.

Another senior BJP leader and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh too in his deposition to the court on July 13 had accused the then Congress government at the Centre of levelling “false and baseless allegations” against him in the Babri mosque demolition case.

Singh, during whose tenure as UP CM the mosque in Ayodhya was demolished, had said that he was falsely implicated in the case.

Babri Demolition Case: Advani to Depose on July 24; Murli Manohar Joshi on July 23

The court is recording the statements of the 32 accused under Section 313 of Criminal Procedure Code to enable them to plead their innocence if they so want.

Lucknow: A special CBI court on Monday set July 24 as the date for recording the statement of former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani in the 1992 Babri mosque demolition case.

The 92-year-old BJP leader’s statement under Section 313 of the Code of Criminal Procedure will be recorded through video conferencing.

In his order, Special Judge S.K. Yadav also fixed July 23 for recording the statement of BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi through video conferencing.

The court is recording the statements of the 32 accused under Section 313 of Criminal Procedure Code to enable them to plead their innocence if they so want.

The court, which is conducting day-to-day hearings to complete the trial by August 31, as directed by the Supreme Court, set July 22 for former Shiv Sena MP Satish Pradhan to depose before it through a video link.

Also read: The Political Undertones of Choosing August 5 for Ayodhya Ram Temple ‘Bhoomi Pujan’

On Monday, it recorded the statement of accused Sudhir Kakar who appeared in person, though earlier he wanted to depose through a video link.

Like the other accused, Kakar claimed that he was innocent and was falsely implicated by the then Congress-led central government for political reasons.

The court will record the statement of accused Ram Chandra Khatri on Tuesday.

BJP leader Uma Bharti had earlier this month appeared in person before the court.

She had also accused the then Congress-led central government of framing her due to political vendetta.

The mosque in Ayodhya was demolished on December 6, 1992, by ‘kar sevaks’ who claimed that an ancient Ram temple had stood on the same site. Advani and Joshi were leading the Ram temple movement at that time.

L.K. Advani Makes a Historic Intervention

The timing of Advani’s intervention confirms the general feeling that the 2019 elections will have far-reaching systemic implications for the country.

Writing on his blog ahead of the BJP’s foundation day on April 6, L.K. Advani made a historic intervention in the country’s political climate fraught with polarisation. Sensing a real and present danger to both – the character of the party and the Constitutional Republic (and perhaps in expiation of the indulgent advice he gave prime minister Vajpayee in 2002) – Advani has underscored the anxieties prevalent over certain foundational values that go to the heart of the continuance of India as a democratic and constitutional nation.

Here are some of the things that Advani has flagged:

that the Bharatiya Janata Party of his day did not look upon political rivals as “enemies or anti-national’ but as “adversaries”;
that the Party always regarded “diversity and freedom of expression” as the “essence” of Indian democracy;
hat the Party he knew stood by the “independence, integrity, fairness, and robustness” of state institutions;
that the credo of the Party has been “nation first, party second, and self, last’.

Also Read: In Advani’s Blog Post about Modi’s BJP, Echoes of His Writings on Indira

Instructively, the prime minister chose to respond only to the last of Advani’s forewarnings, reiterating – rather disingenuously – that this indeed continues to be the party’s credo. The insinuation in Advani’s statement that the “nation” and “party” have come to be subsumed under the “self” is thus neatly side-stepped.

Modi’s silence on the first three implications by Advani is not only a tell-tale confirmation of the widely-shared public apprehension that the Constitutional Republic and all its democratic edifice is under jeopardy, but that the stage will be set for more terminal danger should the current leadership return to power.

PM Narendra Modi with L.K. Advani. Credit: PTI

Furthermore, the fact that in his electoral campaign thus far, the Prime Minister has chosen to ignore any mention of the livelihood issues that confront the overwhelming majority of citizens, and has focused exclusively on bruisingly divisive and communal perorations only lends further credibility and macro-historical piquancy to the dangers voiced by Advani.

As a founding member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and now of its decorative ‘Margdarshak Mandal‘, Advani has thus not only cautioned his own party but, by inference, conveyed a thought-provoking pointer to the political opposition of the day.

Whatever be the facts of Advani’s Hindutva compulsions, he has risen like a caring statesman to express how autocratic predilections must yield to the supremacy of the foundational building blocks of India’s constitutional democracy or else be impugned as destroyers of the republic.

Also Read: In Advani’s Silence, the Sum of All Fears

The timing of Advani’s intervention confirms the general feeling in the body politic that the general elections of 2019 will not be just another routine electoral exercise, but a happening whose consequences will not but have far-reaching systemic implications for the country.

For this, the nation must be thankful to Advaniji, and, drawing the appropriate conclusions from his warnings, ensure that the fruits of India’s uniquely precious freedom struggle and the secular, democratic and egalitarian values intrinsic to it, are not allowed to be erased by those who are cavalierly indifferent to its histories.

Badri Raina taught English literature at Delhi University.