NEW DELHI: The Indian public’s confidence in the judicial system has been badly shaken by the recent decision of a subordinate court not to indict a top Cabinet official for the razing down of a 16th century mosque in 1992, an incident that deepened communal divisions that plague the country to this day.

On Sept 19, a special court in a small town of Rae Bareli in northern Uttar Pradesh state decided against making Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani stand trial on accusations that included unlawful assembly and spreading communal frenzy.

Advani was the best-known mobiliser of a hysterical movement for demolishing the Babri mosque at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, which supporters of ‘Hindutva’, the Hindu-nation ideology, believe was built by the first Mughal emperor after destroying a temple to Lord Rama.

Tearing the mosque down was the Hindutva zealots’ way of avenging “history’s injustices” and of recovering their pride and “self- esteem”.

Advani not only provided the ideological inspiration for the mobilization, but played a pivotal rile in its planning, organization and execution, according to accusations against him.

Ironically, while the special court discharged Advani, it indicted seven other firebrand leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and associated organizations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or National Volunteer Organization, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Forum who were with him at Ayodhya on the day of the demolition on Dec 6, 1992.

There is strong evidence recorded by the government against all eight of them as regards their role in organising the long build-up to the attack on the mosque, as well as inciting crowds to tear it down through inflammatory speeches.

The anti-mosque movement was launched in 1984 and received a major boost when the BJP took over its active leadership in the late 1980s.

In 1990, Advani launched a long ‘rath yatra’ criss-crossing north and central India in a souped-up Toyota van made to resemble an ancient chariot.

Countless independent sources and agencies, from newspaper photographers, Indian and international television channels, and India’s own Intelligence Bureau, recorded the events of Dec 6, 1992 as well as the build-up to them.

They have detailed that Advani and his co-accused pro-actively mobilized rabidly Hindu-supremacist sentiment and repeatedly gathered charged mobs in Ayodhya in preparation for the final demolition of the mosque.

On one such occasion, in 1990, a section of the crowd climbed onto the top of a dome of the mosque and planted a saffron (Hindu) flag.

On Dec 5, 1992, they organized a rehearsal of the demolition. That evening, they held a major strategy meeting in the house of VHP leader Vinay Katiyar in Faizabad, near Ayodhya, to prepare for the following day.

On Dec 6, Advani, another national minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, and BJP-VHP leaders like Uma Bharati, Ashok Singhal, Katiyar and others made provocative speeches, encouraged an unlawful assembly and instigated the crowds to breach the police cordon and attack the mosque. They were present on the spot for a full seven hours.

The attack on the mosque began at 11:45 a.m, shortly after Advani’s speech. At 3:15, Advani exhorted the crowd to erect roadblocks so that the special police forces dispatched by the federal government would not be able to reach the mosque.

The Rae Bareli magistrate who discharged Advani has not made his order public so far. But from all available indications, the official prosecution agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), produced partial and distorted evidence.

The CBI, to start with, manipulated the original complaints filed against the accused and split them into two. Later, it altogether dropped the serious charge of criminal conspiracy against them. More recently, it claimed that the official videocassettes did not show them making speeches.

The CBI said it only had “oral evidence” that they spoke provocatively. But the evidence it presented against Advani was not irrefutable or unambiguous.

Magistrate Singh then decided to give Advani the benefit of the doubt, citing a Supreme Court judgment which says that if there are two conflicting testimonies against an accused during trial, he could be discharged. But this can only happen at a trial’s conclusion, not before it begins.

Advani’s acquittal involves a massive perversion of the law and the overturning of the principles of fairness and justice. This has angered a large number of Indian secularists as well as Muslims defending themselves against the onslaught of the BJP and its allies, the worst case of which was the massacre of 2,000 Muslims in western Gujarat state last year.

The Indian legal system has long been notorious for delays and antiquated procedures. But in recent years, it has been afflicted by religion-driven prejudice and vacillation on the principle of secularism, which is mandated by the Indian Constitution and is part of its foundation.

India’s higher judiciary tends to be more liberal and secular in its orientation than the subordinate courts, but it too has turned somewhat conservative in recent years, especially on economic and social issues.

Its recent judgments on the rights of dam-affected people, on contempt of court, and on irrational and contradictory economic policies and their wayward implementation by governments have favoured neo-liberal, anti-environmental and free-market ideas.

However, in welcome contrast to this trend, India’s Supreme Court played a progressive role in the litigation pertaining to the Gujarat violence.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.