Nagging Annals of the Babri Verdict

Reading the 2,300-page judgment in the Babri Masjid demolition case, acquitting all accused of a conspiracy to demolish the mosque and spark communal riots, leaves any thinking person with only one question: How to square the “reality” presented in the judgment with the reality witnessed through one’s own eyes?

Twenty-eight years after the demolition took place, the verdict of the trial court, after going through all the evidence and all the arguments, is that there was no pre-planned conspiracy, no attempt to provoke communal clashes, and no attempt to rend the secular fabric of the country. All that happened, apparently, was “spontaneous”—like a chemical reaction—that needed no human intervention or planning. As if thousands of kar sevaks gathered with ropes, tools and weapons to discuss the niceties of the Babri Masjid dispute. As if top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party had not undertaken a rath yatra for the construction of the Ram Mandir. As if all the build-up to the destruction of the Babri Masjid and the events after never really took place.