Worse than street corner gossip

S Gurumurthy
First Published : 08 Dec 2009 12:44:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 08 Dec 2009 05:00:32 PM IST

Liberhan’s theatre of conspiracy starts with exonerating the Ayodhya movement leaders from the guilt of demolition first, on evidence and later, on suspicion, indicting them for the conspiracy to demolish. In this exercise he does not spare anyone, including A B Vajpayee who never visited Ayodhya during or after the movement. Read on to know how he achieves this impossible feat.

Exonerate first, indict later

Look at how Liberhan’s conclusion in one place destroys his own conclusion in another. He swings from exonerating the leaders while seeing the evidence to indicting them at the end purely on suspicion. Analysing the (fragmented) evidence in Chapter 8 (para12) of his report, he says that “the leaders of the movement” — who must necessarily include Vajpayee, Advani, Singhal, Seshadri and the like — “may not have approved the demolition”. But six chapters later in Chapter 14 he ends up concluding (para 171) that each of them — naming them all — is individually ‘culpable’, on suspicion! How could the later indictment in Chapter 14 match with the earlier exoneration in Chapter 8? The exoneration was based on evidence; the indictment, on suspicion. This is the pattern of Liberhan’s jurisprudence.

Advani pretended to save structure — Liberhan

Again, Liberhan (para 44.24, Chapter 4) suspects as ‘feeble’ the ‘requests to the karsevaks’ by L K Advani, M M Joshi, Ashok Singhal, Vijay Raje Scindia, H V Seshadri, etc, who were present there ‘to come down from the disputed structures either in earnest’ or, as Liberhan suspects, ‘for the media’s benefit’. He doubts that Advani was merely pretending. He says: “The icons of the movement present … could have easily proceeded to the corridors and utilising the administration’s assistance or that of their highly disciplined swayamsevaks, prevented the demolition”, virtually leaving it unsaid that, unless Advani and others had rushed towards the crowd to stop them, it would be correct to suspect that Advani was part of the conspiracy. Liberhan knows that the movement leaders are themselves under high security and the security would not allow them to rush into the crowd. Yet he says that unless they did so they would be suspect, and they did not and so he suspects them. His logic of suspicion yielding suspicion is adequate, according to him, to nail Advani.

Advani actually attempted to save the structure, Liberhan again!

But, contradicting his suspicion (in para 44.24, p256) that Advani was just pretending to stop the karsevaks, Liberhan notes the evidence in his possession, in the very next para (para 44.25) which totally destroys his suspicion that Advani was pretending. Liberhan notes: ‘L K Advani first made requests over the public address system to the karsevaks on the dome to come down. When the request fell on deaf ears, then he deputed Uma Bharati, Acharya Dharmendra Dev, Baikunt Lal Sharma ‘Prem’ to go along with his own personal security officer Anju Gupta to the disputed structure to persuade the karsevaks to come down. The karsevaks paid no heed to this request either. Uma Bharati claimed that when the persuasion failed, an attempt was made to bring them down by instilling fear of the paramilitary forces, saying that there would be firing and bloodshed. The karsevaks’ reply reportedly was, “we have not come here to eat Halwa Puri. We are not that brand of karsevaks. We have come from home to face firing. The karsevaks did not react to persuasion nor fear”. This evidence about the level of motivation of the karsevaks recorded by him from different persons, should have completely removed his suspicion in the earlier para that Advani was merely pretending to ask the karsevaks to stop the demolition. More. Liberhan recognises (in para 59.12, p346) that ‘all witnesses including’ the then BBC correspondent ‘Mark Tully accepted’ that Advani ‘did not make any provocative speeches’. Again (in para 44.5, p263) Liberhan finds that ‘there was mixed reaction among the leadership of the movement. L K Advani and other more sober leaders were taken aback by the demolition’. These are all Liberhan’s findings on evidence. How could Liberhan then hold, as he does, that Advani did incite the crowds when all witnesses say he did not? Why would Advani who, Liberhan suspects, was inciting the karsevaks to demolish and pretending to stop it, be taken aback by the demolition? Evidence recorded by Liberhan establishes that Advani never made provocative speeches; he tried to prevent the demolition; he was taken aback by the demolition. Yet Liberhan holds him, purely on suspicion, guilty of conspiracy to demolish the structure. How? He first suspects that Advani was pretending to prevent the demolition. On that basis he further suspects in Chapter 14 that Advani and others could have prevented the demolition but did not do so. On that basis he further suspects that Advani must have been part of the conspiracy. So his suspicions aggregated become, for Liberhan, proof even though it is contrary to evidence.

Flip-flop-flip on RSS

See how he flips-flops on the RSS, first exonerating it and later indicting it for conspiracy. Liberhan (para 43.11, p241) refers to allegations of training and rehearsal for the demolition, but concludes that, even though there are doubts, it was not safe to hazard a finding about training in the absence of conclusive evidence. But he says in the very next page (paras 43.15-27 p242-45) that ‘it was never in dispute that they (karsevaks) had the ability to carry out the demolition’ — which is exactly the opposite of what he says earlier. How come that ‘there is no conclusive evidence of training for karsevaks for demolition’ in para 43.11 becomes, ‘it was never in dispute that the karsevaks have the ability to carry out the demolition’ in para 43.19? A flip-flop! Again Liberhan notes (paras 43.15/43.19/43.27) that tempers among the emotionally surcharged and belligerent karsevas started rising, but concludes (in para 158.10, page 917), against all the evidence to the contrary, that ‘the theory or the claim made by the leaders of the movement’ … ‘does not carry conviction to conclude that the demolition was carried out by the karsevaks spontaneously or sheer anger or emotions’. Again a flip-flop!!

Liberhan notes (paras 43.12/13, p253) that a defiant group of karsevaks breached the security cordon ‘despite the resistance offered by the RSS swayamsevaks’ and ‘the RSS swayamsevaks succeeded in physically throwing the intruders from the platform’ when ‘no visible substantial resistance was put up by the police or the administration for stalling the intruders’. All this was in the presence of Advani and M M Joshi. Thus the evidence clearly proves that the RSS, on its part, was determined to protect the structure. But in defiance of this direct evidence, he concludes, in the end, that the RSS was the main conspirator to demolish the structure. But why would the RSS volunteers throw the intruders out if the RSS was conspiring to demolish? Again a flip-flop!!!

Suspicions as conclusions, against evidence

Thus, against all evidence in his possession and no evidence to support him except his own high propensity to suspect, Liberhan conclusively suspects that not only Advani against whom Liberhan has, in possession, evidence that establishes that he had tried to prevent the demolition, and others, but, also A B Vajpayee — yes Vajpayee — was part of the conspiracy.

See his sequential ‘logic’ for holding that the BJP leaders are culpable: one, it cannot assumed even for a moment that L K Advani, A B Vajpayee and M M Joshi did not know the designs of the parivar; two they could not have defied the mandate of the parivar; three, the BJP is appendage of the parivar; four, they could not be given the benefit of doubt! (para 166.11, p943). That is, they should be not exonerated, but indicted, on doubt! Is this logic any different from the gossip in street corner tea stalls and coffee shops like how could Dr Manmohan Singh be not aware of the payoff in the Spectrum scam, so he should also be indicted?

QED: The Liberhan report is worse than street corner gossip.

(The author is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues.

E-mail: comment@gurumurthy.net)