Aakar Patel | How The Ayodhya Frenzy By Advani Transformed India, Put BJP In Power

On yet another December 6, one feels obliged to write about the most seminal movement in modern India and one that transformed our politics forever.

Forty years ago, the BJP had plateaued, winning seven per cent of the vote in 1984 and only two Lok Sabha seats. When Lal Krishna Advani took charge in 1986, he had never been a participant in electoral politics. His entry into politics came after time spent as a journalist in the RSS magazine, where he wrote film reviews.

As a politician, Mr Advani had always served as a nominated member, whether in the Delhi Council or in the Rajya Sabha. He had no experience of political mass mobilisation and, going by his autobiography (My Country, My Life, published 2008), does not appear to know how it worked. The Ayodhya issue had actually been launched by non-political groups inside the RSS, led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

In February 1989, at the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, the VHP said it would lay the foundation stone for the temple in November. This would involve the making of bricks across the country with Ram’s name embossed on them and their being carried in processions through towns and villages to Ayodhya in November. Till this time, Mr Advani wrote in his autobiography, it was not an issue in mainstream politics. In June 1989, at the BJP’s national executive meeting in Himachal Pradesh, Mr Advani threw the party behind the issue. The BJP resolution demanded that the site “should be handed over to the Hindus” and “the mosque built at some other suitable place”.

General elections came a few months later, in November 1989. The BJP’s manifesto made its first reference to Ayodhya: “By not allowing the rebuilding of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, on the lines of Somnath Mandir built by the Government of India in 1948, it has allowed tensions to rise, and gravely strained social harmony.” It was a violation of the BJP’s own constitution, which on its first page and opening articles pledged it would bear true faith and allegiance to the principle of secularism. A few days before voting, the VHP brought all its processions from across India to Ayodhya and laid the foundation stone next to the mosque. Powered by its divisive, anti-Muslim demand, Mr Advani’s BJP won 85 seats, four times as many as the Jan Sangh in the last election it contested alone and more than 40 times as many as Atal Behari Vajpayee had delivered in 1984. Mr Advani became the most successful RSS political leader, and found the recipe for electoral success.

He began to invest more in the issue that brought the dividend. The Congress lost its majority in the election, and a coalition led by V.P. Singh took power with support from Mr Advani, though for only a short period. Three months after the election, in February 1990, the VHP resumed its mobilisation against the mosque and said it would continue the process of what it called “kar seva” from October. This political escalation, according to Mr Advani, was by accident. He wrote in his autobiography that in June he was to visit London, and just before that he was interviewed by the RSS journal Panchajanya and asked what would happen if the government failed to resolve the Ayodhya matter. Mr Advani said the BJP supported the decision to begin kar seva on October 30, and if it was stopped there would be a mass movement led by the BJP.

“Frankly, I had forgotten about this interview,” Mr Advani wrote, when his wife telephoned him and asked: “What have you said? The papers here have reported it with blaring headlines: ‘On Ayodhya, Advani threatens the biggest mass movement in the history of independent India’.” Mr Advani added: “The die had been cast.” After this, he says he offered the Muslims a deal. If they would hand over the Babri Masjid, he would “personally request” the VHP to not campaign against two other mosques in Mathura and Varanasi. He writes that he was “deeply disappointed” and “annoyed” that this was not considered to be satisfactory by the Muslims. He announced he would begin his campaign against the mosque on Deendayal Upadhyaya’s birthday, September 25, in Gujarat, and ride a “chariot” (actually a truck) to Ayodhya on October 30, 1990.

Mr Advani writes that he was astonished by the frenzied response his campaign received. “I had never realised that religiosity was so deep-rooted in the lives of the Indian people,” he said, adding it was the “first time he understood the truth of Swami Vivekananda’s statement that ‘religion is the soul of India and if you want to teach any subject to Indians, they understand it better in the language of religion’.” At each stop along the way Mr Advani talked about why the Babri Masjid had to be taken down, using the vocabulary and metaphors of religion, in basic speeches that he says were no more than five minutes long. The reduction can only be imagined; the consequence was predictable. The scale of the violence unleashed by Mr Advani’s decision to politicise a communal issue and mobilise on it was staggering in both the numbers killed and the geographical spread.

Over 3,400 Indians were killed in the violence triggered by Mr Advani's anti-Babri Masjid campaign but it brought the BJP to the doorstep of power. In the general election in mid-1991, the BJP won 20 per cent of the vote and 120 seats. In the first election held after the demolition, in 1996, the BJP rose to 161 seats. After 2002, the BJP cemented its position as our only party willing and enthusiastic about pursuing divisive politics, and it has been rewarded handsomely for this.

The writer is the chair of Amnesty International India. X: @aakar__patel