The Babri Masjid case: The story thus far
The Central Bureau of Investigation wants the restoration of the conspiracy charges against the 13 accused, including senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti. The CBI also wants a joint trial in the case to be held in Lucknow. Earlier, the CBI had challenged the Allahabad High Court order confirming the lower court’s decision to drop conspiracy charges against the BJP veterans in May 2010.
Here is everything you need to know about the sensational Babri Masjid demolition case which is a quarter of a century old:
The core of the issue
The ‘Babri Masjid case’ finds its roots in the ‘Ayodhya dispute’, which traces the disagreement between Hindus and Muslims since the 16th century over the ownership of a 2.77-acre plot of land in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
In 1528, Babri Masjid was built on the orders of the Mughal nobleman Mir Banki on the same plot of land, which is also believed to be the sacred birth place of Lord Ram.
The genesis of the dispute lies in the Hindu belief that the Babri mosque was built after demolishing an already existing Ram temple in the area. Muslims, however, deny this allegation and maintain that the Babri Masjid was a sacred place where the Muslims offered prayers until it was desecrated by ‘unknown Hindus’ in the year 1949 by placing idols of Lord Ram and Sita inside the temple in order to stake claim and convert this site into a Ram Mandir.
In 1949, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru discussed this matter with the then UP chief minister Govind Ballabh Pant and directed him to have the idols removed as a dangerous example was being set which would breed communal disharmony.
Nehru’s concerns soon snowballed into a major issue and Hindu nationalist leaders refused to remove the idols, following which the gates of the Babri Masjid remained locked for the next four decades.
In 1986, the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (in an attempt to assuage voter-sentiment after the furore that followed the Shah Bano case which Hindus believed was a case of Muslim appeasement) persuaded UP chief minister Bir Bahadur Singh to open the doors to the mosque and allow religious rites to be held inside the disputed structure.
Following his orders, the Faizabad court ordered the gates to be opened for Hindus to offer prayers. In view of the ongoing dispute, the Babri Mosque Action Committee was formed to settle the issue.
Meanwhile, having gained support, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad launched an agitation to break free the idols of Lord Rama and Sita from ‘captivity’.
Riots broke out across all of North India, especially in UP and Bihar, as sacred idols were carried into the Babri Majid to perform Shilanyas (laying of the foundation stone) for a Ram temple.
On November 9, 1989, the Rajiv Gandhi-led government allowed the VHP to lay the foundation stone for the Ram temple on the disputed land.
BJP’s Hindutva brigade leaders, along with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, VHP and Bajrang Dal workers, ran campaigns to rebuild a Ram Mandir over the next three years.
In 1990, leader of the Opposition, LK Advani organised a ‘rath yatra’ to Ayodhya, but was halted and arrested in Bihar.
The day of the demolition and thereafter
Advani’s arrest led to further agitation among BJP, VHP and RSS workers and eventually culminated in the demolition of the 400-year-old Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992. About 200,000 ‘karsevaks’ (volunteers to a religious cause) together demolished the Babri mosque, fuelling communal riots across the nation. More than a thousand people died during the riots.
A makeshift Ram Mandir was built on the disputed land under the guidance of the BJP, RSS, VHP leaders.
Ten days after the demolition of the mosque, the PV Narasimha Rao-led Congress government at the Centre established a commission of enquiry under justice M S Liberhan to investigate the demolition of the Babri Mosque.
The investigative report found several Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Murli Manohar Joshi, Kalyan Singh, Pramod Mahajan, Uma Bharti, Vijayaraje Scindia and LK Advani, along with VHP leaders like Ashok Singhal and Giriraj Kishore, culpable of inciting communal disharmony and abetting a conspiracy.
The Liberhan Commission also claimed that the demolition of the Babri Mosque was a planned act and that the Narasimha Rao was responsible for the incident.
Shortly thereafter, the accused were freed by a court in Raebareli, and in 2010 the Allahabad High Court confirmed the lower court’s decision to drop charges against the BJP veterans. The Central Bureau of Investigation, however, challenged the high court order.
In 2003, the Allahabad high court asked the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to excavate the disputed site of ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’. The Archaeological Survey of India findings indicated the presence of a 10th century temple beneath the mosque. But the report was challenged by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.
The Allahabad High Court’s ruling stated that the ‘disputed land was Ram’s birthplace’, that the ‘mosque was built after the demolition of a temple’ and that ‘it was not built in accordance with the tenets of Islam’.
Given all considerations and ambiguities involved, the Allahabad High Court finally delivered a verdict for a three-way division of the disputed land and allots 1/3 part of the land to Sunni Waqf Board, one-third of the land to Nirmohi Akhara and remaining to Rama Lalla (Lord Ram) represented by the Hindu Maha Sabha.
Pending matters and present situation
In 2016, the Supreme Court appointed noted economist and member of Rajya Sabha, Subramanian Swamy to intervene in pending matters. On February 22, 2016, Swamy filed a petition in the SC permitting the construction of a Ram temple at the disputed site where Babri Masjid once stood, and expediting the adjudication related to order of the Allahabad High Court on 30 September 2010.
The petition was accepted on 26 February to be later heard by the court.
On March 21, 2017, the Supreme Court delivered its decision and recommended ‘an amicable out-of-court settlement in the dispute.
On April 6, 2017, the CBI demanded that L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and others be tried for conspiracy in the Babri Masjid demolition case. It also demanded a joint trial in the case to be held in Lucknow.
