Nearly eleven years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Rae Bareli special court has finally announced the first verdict on the CBI investigation on Ayodhya. Twenty-eight years ago it was another Rae Bareli verdict - delivered, of course, by the Allahabad High Court - against the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi which had made her finally press the Emergency button. How the present government would have reacted had the Rae Bareli court not chosen to 'discharge' the Deputy PM will now never be known.
The BJP, aided by successive governments at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh, had taken enough care to make sure that the possibility did not arise in the first place. The main charge of conspiracy had already been dropped by the CBI. The road was thereafter clear for Advani's discharge - after all the main allegation against him was that of masterminding the whole campaign and not of merely making some physical contribution to the actual demolition of the mosque.
Even though the case was considerably watered down by the CBI, the fact that the court has decided to frame charges against Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti, Vinay Katiar, Ashok Singhal and other senior VHP leaders clearly shows that Advani had just been given 'benefit of doubt' and not really a reprieve. Advani has expressed surprise that his collegaues have not been 'exonerated' while they all were together. The people are actually surprised how come Advani has been let off while the others have been held guilty.
The court has also made it clear that there were evidences against Advani as well, but since there were also 'contrary' evidences which suggested that Advani actually 'appealed' to the kar sevaks to refrain from demolishing the mosque the court believed that the case against him was based on mere 'suspicion'! Quite interesting! Now luckily Joshi, Singhal and Bharti did not have the benefit of such contrary evidence even though they all were sharing the same stage. In other words, Advani's 'appeal' had no impact even on his colleagues surrounding him! And the court would like us to believe that the case rested on idle suspicion!
The BJP has now decided to go in appeal against the Rae Bareli verdict while the next move of the CBI and the UP government is still not known. According to the Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley, the 'illegality' involved in the Ayodhya case can at the most be described as a case of unlawful assembly and the court has been too harsh on such a trivial matter. Can any civilised society ever treat an incident like the demolition of the Babri Masjid, an incident that was preceded by a series of riots and has since been followed by such an enormous amount of bloodshed starting from the immediate post-demolition riots to the Gujarat genocide and the latest Mumbai blasts, as a case of mere unlawful assembly? Ironically, the same day while the Rai Bareli court was announcing its verdict on Ayodhya, the Supreme Court gave a dressing down to the Chief Secretary of the Gujarat Government and the Director General of Gujarat Police on their complete inaction (read connivance) in the Best Bakery carnage case. The DGP told the apex court that he was aware of the witnesses in the case turning hostile as they were "coerced and won over", but then he chose to do nothing even though all the accused were acquitted in the case! The Supreme Court would however never go beyond a few strong words and words, however strong, can have no impact on a regime which is out to subvert democracy from within.
The CBI case on Ayodhya and the Rai Bareli verdict have only confirmed something that is really axiomatic about a bourgeois state. Bourgeois politicians in power, and often while out of power, are seldom punished in a bourgeois state, no matter whether they are guilty of embezzlement, ghastly atrocities on dalits, adivasis and women, or even genocide or wholesale murder of democracy.
The only way to teach them a lesson is to oust them from power and consign them to the dustbin of history. And who but the people can mete out this punishment?