New Delhi’s conscience rests comfortably if Sikhs do not get justice even 33 years after unprecedented, premeditated, planned massacre of nearly 5,000 plus members of the community on the roads of Delhi. It also rests comfortably if Muslims are kept waiting for justice on the basis of Justice Liberhan Commission report which indicted Hindutva-inspired karsevaks and leaders marshalled by RSS-BJP-VHP-Bajrang Dal to demolish the Babri Masjid.

Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan called men like Vajpayee and Advani as ‘pseudo-moderates’ and said they and other leaders could have stopped the demolition but did not on December 6, 1992 and only made a sham of their unwillingness when the domes were brought down.

Justice M S Liberhan Commission cited evidence to deduce that the entire build-up to the demolition was meticulously planned and that there was nothing to show that the BJP-RSS-VHP leaders were either unaware of what was going on or innocent of any wrongdoing.

The one-man Commission probed the sequence of events leading, and all facts and circumstances relating, to the occurrences at Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid complex on December 6, 1992, the day the Babri Masjid was brought down by karsevaks. The Commission was set up 10 days after the demolition as communal riots rocked several parts of the country and submitted its report after 17 years and 48 extensions, on June 30, 2009.

The report indicted and found culpable the entire top brass of the Sangh Parivar for pushing India to the brink of communal discord. Liberhan minced no words in saying that while Vajpayee, Advani and Joshi could have been used by the Parivar as the publicly acceptable faces of the movement, they were still party to all decisions.

“The entire build-up to the demolition was meticulously planned and that there was nothing to show that the BJP-RSS-VHP leaders were either unaware of what was going on or innocent of any wrongdoing.”

Justice M S Liberhan

And that none of them had the capacity to defy the orders of the RSS without damaging their political future. In fact, the Commission calls them tools in the hands of the RSS.

However, drawing from history, particularly from the trials of Nazi soldiers, at which the plea of having acted on the orders of superiors was not accepted, the Commission concluded that these leaders can’t be given the benefit of doubt or absolved of culpability. Vajpayee, Advani and Joshi have also been indicted for having violated the trust of voters.

Rath yatras by Advani and Joshi, Liberhan concluded, were targeted at making the emotionally-charged common man join the movement. The commission’s report also tries to explore the relations between BJP and RSS, through prism of the events culminating in the demolition. If BJP did not know about what it’s kar sevaks were about to do, then this only proves that the party is little more than a “frontal organisation” for its parent body, the RSS, the report said.

Justice Liberhan Commission of Inquiry said the infiltration of the government and of the administration by pro-Sangh elements was complete. Liberhan even said that its ‘traces and remnants are still thriving all over the country’ and pose as grave a threat as ever-continuing to spread in scope to encompass every pillar of the Constitutional system.            

The Commission concluded that diversion of funds to Faizabad and Ayodhya just before the kar seva, mobilization of kar sevaks as well as arrangements made at the site with military-like precision, clearly proves that the plan was not just limited to symbolic kar seva, as stated by Sangh and BJP leaders.

The report said that the emergence of a host of leaders to lead the movement from among the ranks of the BJP, RSS, Bajrang Dal and other Sangh Parivar groups was because of the lure of wealth and power rather than ideology.

Liberhan wrote that these leaders saw the Ayodhya movement as their road to success, and they acted as executioners wielding swords provided by the ideologues.

Referring to the funds collected by leaders of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the Commission said that many tens of crores of rupees collected from the people were deposited into bank accounts operated by these leaders. These funds were used to provide infrastructure and other amenities for kar sevaks in the days leading to the demolition.

But what was perhaps the most scathing of the indictments of not just the RSS parivar but of the very way the brahmanical powers within the Indian polity conduct their agenda, the Commission said the entire government machinery was used to and allowed itself to be used to  subvert the system so that the Sangh Parivar could achieve its goal of demolishing the Babri Masjid.

The Justice Liberhan Commission of Inquiry said the infiltration of the government and of the administration by pro-Sangh elements was complete. Liberhan even said that its traces and remnants are still thriving all over the country and pose as grave a threat as ever continuing to spread in scope to encompass every pillar of the Constitutional system.

“The entire government machinery was used to and allowed itself to be used to subvert the system so that the Sangh Parivar could achieve its goal of demolishing the Babri Masjid.”

Justice M S Liberhan

The commission’s report also tries to explore the relations between BJP and RSS, through prism of the events culminating in the demolition. If BJP did not know about what it’s kar sevaks were about to do, then this only proves that the party is little more than a `frontal organisation for its parent body, the RSS’, the report said.

Liberhan pointed to the mode of assault on the disputed structure as well as easy availability of instruments and material. The small number of kar sevaks who actually carried out the demolition, the hidden faces of such kar sevaks, the removal of idols and cash boxes from under the domes and the eventual installation in the makeshift temple clearly show that demolition was carried out with painstaking preparation and planning, the report said.

Justice Liberhan was most scathing in his condemnation of former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh and his ministerial colleagues and officers. He said that Kalyan, his ministers and their chosen officers created circumstances that led to the demolition of the Babri Mosque and split Hindus and Muslims resulting in massacres across the country. And that at every step, the state government supported the imminent demolition by tacit, open and material support.

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Liberhan said after coming to power, Kalyan Singh worked to identify and replace officers who could have resisted his attempts and stopped the demolition. Transfer was a weapon used with alarming frequency, almost always to replace these officers with pliant ones. The transfers resulted in giving the Sangh Parivar and its affiliates a free run on the disputed structure, the report said.

Liberhan also observed that as part of the same game plan, the state government stationed fresh recruits to the armed police in Faizabad and Ayodhya and these recruits got so close to the kar sevaks that they wouldn’t have fired at them even if they were asked to do so. One of the key conclusions of Liberhan was that Kalyan Singh stood guard against any preemptive and preventive action by the Union government or the Supreme Court. He also observed that Kalyan tied the hands of security forces and agencies by issuing orders that directed them not to fire at any cost.