India, Babri Masjid demolition "planned by Hindu party"
Mumbai
(AsiaNews) - The destruction of the Babri Masjid (mosque of Babar) in 1992 was
the result of a plan hatched by the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, the Hindu nationalist party), and was not
the consequence of a spontaneous reaction by a mob of fundamentalists. This
was stated by the Cobrapost, Indian website specializing in investigative
journalism and famous for it's under coverage reporting, which broke the news
yesterday.
According
to theeditor , the demolition was planned by LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi,
the leading figures of the BJP , and the then chief minister of Uttar Pradesh
Kalyan Singh was aware of it. The
investigation revealed that the Vishwa
Hindu Parishad and the Shiv Sena
- violent radical Hindu groups, affiliated to the BJP - have openly spoken of a
"conspiracy".
The
Cobrapost revelations were criticized by the BJP as an attempt to tarnish the
credibility of the party on the eve of the 2014 general elections in, which begin
on April 7 .
However
Ram Puniyani a well-known social activist of the All India Secular Forum and the Centre
for Study and Secularism, confirmed the online agency's thesis to AsiaNews: "In the past, many
analysts and experts had suggested the idea of a targeted and predetermined operation
with the aim of destroying the Babri Masjid and the secular fabric of India".
He
explains that "planning the attacks in order to hide the truth is the
style of the Hindu fundamentalist forces, even the ' minor ' cases of violence
against religious minorities. They know that their electoral strength can be
reinforced through these acts, which cause divisions
in society. It is a line that they have
always followed".
The
story of the Babri Masjid is emblematic of the Hindu nationalists' political
extremism. Built
in 1528 in Ayodhya - which Indian tradition considers the birthplace of Ram (incarnation
of the god Vishnu) - it has been the center of disputes between Muslims and
Hindus for centuries. The
latter claimed that the mosque was built on the ruins of an ancient Hindu
temple and tried several times to have it pulled down.
Called
to Ayodhya for a symbolic ceremony to launch the construction of Hindu temple,
December 6, 1992 Sangh Parivar activists
set upon the mosque, tearing down the three domes in less than three hours. This
all took place under either the police or deployed paramilitary forces,
intervening. Then
overnight a small Hindu temple was built on the ruins of the mosque.
In
2010, the Allahabad
High Court ruled that the area be divided into three parts between Hindus
and Muslims.
.png)
