'Emphasis on Shaming the Masses Into Action': Key Quotes from the Liberhan Committee Report on the Babri Demolition
New Delhi: Seventeen years after it was formed, and after 43 extensions, the Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan Committee delivered a 1,000-page report on the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition to the government on June 30, 2009.
The report was not without its controversies. Many have said that it came much too late. A temple now stands where the Babri Masjid stood, after a Supreme Court order in 2019. As news of the alleged donation theft at the much politicised temple continues to dominate cycles, and on the day of Justice Liberhan's passing, at the age of 87, it may be worthwhile to remember some of the choice parts of the report's conclusions.
A selection of quotes is as follows.
On responsibility
"As the inner core of the Parivar, the top leadership of the RSS, VHP, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and the BJP bear primary responsibility."
On rabble rousing
"The RSS and other protagonists have repeatedly tried to use the term mobilize to characterize the aggregation of support for their Ayodhya campaign. However, this is a misnomer and one that necessitates clarification. The inertia that was built up by the rabble-rousing organs of the Sangh Parivar and inflammatory leaders was focused not on tugging at the emotional heartstrings of the common man and building a consensus for a temple at Ayodhya. Rather, the emphasis was more on shaming the thinking masses into inaction and suppressing any voices of sanity or moderation that might arise."
On ideologues turning masses into mobs
"The single-minded agenda of the RSS and the VHP; and the extremely patient and focused manner in which the handful of ideologues and theologians manipulated the common masses and turned them into a frenzied mob, capable of acts of the greatest depravity agenda, is unparalleled in recent times."
On the brains behind the operation
"The RSS, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, BJP etc. and their inter se relationship have been subjected to a detailed study in my report and their relationship with the de jure powers. These organizations are collectively an immense and awesome entity with a shrewd brain, a wide encompassing sweep and the crushing strength of a mob. The leadership provided by the RSS, BJP, VHP and the other mutating and constantly transforming organizations like the Hindu Mahasabha and the Jan Sangh, in furtherance of the suspect theories
of the founders of these organizations was consistent and unabashed. The ends are all that matter to the core group of thinkers and the destruction of the disputed structure was only one victorious battle in their ongoing campaign against secularism and the multicultural society, clothed in the garb of religion, regions, reservations, castes etc."
On the state as a willing ally
"To sum up, December 6th 1992 saw a state of Uttar Pradesh unwilling and unable to uphold the majesty of the law. The ennui flowed from the very office of the Chief Minister downwards and infected the state’s minions down till the bottom. The state had become a willing ally and co-conspirator in the joint common enterprise to announce the revival of a rabid breed of Hindutva, by demolishing the structure they had denounced as a symbol of Islam."
On the UP government's undertakings
"The Central Government was crippled by the failure of the intelligence agencies to provide an analysis of the situation. It stayed its hand deferring to the Hon’ble Supreme Court which had taken up the matter and was dealing with it by giving appropriate directions. The Supreme Court was in turn misled by the pretentious undertakings given to it by the UP government and the leadership of the movement and the all-is-well reports by its rapporteur Tej Shanker. Without the proverbial leg to stand on, there was little either
could have done to forestall the determination of the perverted guardians of democracy, who were in control in Uttar Pradesh."
On who got the cash
"Apart from the inflow of the cash from unidentifiable sources, cash was also transferred and transacted through banks to the recipient organisations. The RSS, VHP, BJP and also the other members of the Sangh Parivar raised funds for conducting the movement from time to time. The recipient organisations were mostly the Ram Janam Bhoomi Nyas, Bharat Kalyan Pratishtan, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Ram Janambhoomi Nyas Paduka Pujan Nidhi, Shri Ram Janambhoomi Nyas Shri Ram Shila Pujan, Jan Hiteshi and the accounts were operated by Onkar Bhave, Mahant Paramhans Ramchander Das, Nritya Gopal Das, Gurjan Singh and Narad Saran, Acharya Giriraj Kishore, Vishnu Hari Dalmia, Nana Bhagwat, Jaswant Rai Gupta, BP Toshniwal, Sitaram Agarwal, Ashok Singhal, Rameshwar Dyal, Prem Nath, Champat Rai, Surya Krishan, Yashwant Bhatt, Avdesh Kumar Das Shastri etc."
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