By Manuwant Choudhary
The demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was a shame to all Indians but what is equally shameful is that the Commission set up to inquire into the demolition should take 17 years to submit its report and that too after 48 extensions and costing the government of India 8 crore rupees.
And nobody yet knows whether Justice Liberhan, a retired Supreme Court judge, has come any closer to the truth.
The truth is what I write not in a volumnous commission report but in this blog in just a few lines.
The truth is BJP leaders wanted the demolition of the mosque.
The truth is when the mosque was being demolished they remained present and did not dissassociate themselves from the violent acts by moving away, rather they stood and watched, even celebrated...some loudly others quietly but celebrate they did.
They could sense they were finally close to cornering Hindu votes and hence grabbing political power in Delhi.
For L.K. Advani it was a culmination of his decades of struggle - a sense of fulfillment.
And for the Congress it meant the Muslims would remain a scared lot and continue voting for it.
If I were Prime Minister the act of demolition of the Babri Masjid would have been treated like a pure criminal matter under the Indian Penal Code.
L.K. Advani would not be in parliament - by now he would have served a term in prison and would be leading a quiet life.
And the nation spared the communal riots that followed.
I await to see the findings of the Liberhan Commission Report and I would agree with senior advocate Prashant Bhushan who says the report should have come within six months.
And yet, I do not really care for such commssions anymore.
Nor for our politicians.
My former editor Behram Contractor had this comment in his famous Round & About column "When we destroyed the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya we did not destroy a mosque or even Islam. We destroyed Hinduism."
Its an irony that just a few days ago as part of a soul-searching exercise of a defeated BJP, Mr. Advani said Hindutva is `liberal and tolerant'.
But by his own definition of hindutva...the acts at Ayodhya were simply neither liberal nor tolerant.
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