 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today, the verdict in the criminal conspiracy case regarding the demolition of the barbarian mosque was pronounced. This was by a special CBI court in Lucknow. And all 32 persons who were accused of this conspiracy have been acquitted. Now, this includes, of course, prominent BJP leaders like LK Advani, Murali Maharaj Joshi, and Uma Bharti. And the charge was that there was a criminal conspiracy that demolished the barbarian mosque. On December 6, 1992, was pre-planned. And now the court has said that it was not pre-planned. So we have with us senior journalist, Dhranjan Mukhopadhyay, to talk about this, who has worked extensively both on this issue and this as a whole. Thank you so much for joining us. And first of all, I just wanted to quickly get your initial response to the verdict. Were you surprised by this verdict? It has taken a long time to come. We'll talk about that later. But were you surprised by the verdict? Surprised, no. Saddened definitely. Not surprised because over the last several months, we have seen how the judiciary on several occasions has become more mindful of what we can call at one level is a sense of societal thinking. And at the other level, that what is thinking in government quarters or in the official corridors of power. So we have seen very close proximity between the judiciary and the other arms of the government legislature, as well as the executive. So not really surprising, but saddening because this judgment is not the case. But it's something which pertains to a matter on which in 2010, let me remind you, two very important Supreme Court Justice Bush and Justice Nariman said that the demolition of the Babri Masjid was a huge attack on the secular foundations of India. Even the Supreme Court in its November 2019 said that the demolition of the mosque was an aggregate violation of the law and that it was clearly a criminal case. So one expected that CBI's special judge was looking after this criminal case that he would at least provide a semblance of justice. So when taking to law, there has been absolutely justice delivery. Absolutely. And could you also quickly take us through the chronology of the case also because this case has seen a lot of ups and downs. The Supreme Court has intervened on multiple occasions. And it's been so many years. It's been close to 30 years now. And we've seen no justice, the justice being ought, the verdict being just delivered right now. So how has the case progressed over all these years? Because as opposed to a civil case which was far more contentious in terms of the history, in terms of the multiple claims, this was basically a question of assigning, say, criminal conspiracy if there was one and assigning clearly delineating what happened in the run-up to the demolition. Yeah, I think if you look back at the 27 years since the time that really work began on this case from the onwards, the basic mistake which was made by the Narasimha Rao government was that two very hasty FIRs were launched on that day. One was FIR number 197 and the other one was 198. One was against unidentified car savers, unnamed car savers, and the other was against specific leaders. Confusion was created right in the beginning. There I think that the government was not very serious about trying to prove criminal charges. It was essentially used as a point to subdue the BJP. That was the strategy of Narasimha Rao and the Congress government at that particular time. So this case that continuously right from 93 onwards kept moving from one city to another. It first after the FIRs being registered in Fezabad, it went to Lalitpur. From Lalitpur, it went to Raibareli. From Raibareli, it came to Lucknow. Then it went back to Raibareli. Till finally the Supreme Court said nothing once together, all of these cases and listening listen to each one in Lucknow. That is when it started, daily hearing started in 2017. In between 1915 and 2005, there were seven concerns including it came that when all the so-called political VIPs were acquitted of the charge of conspiracy, it was removed from the case. Then again after the Supreme Court's intervention, they were, the trial was told to charges of conspiracy against him. That is how it was started. Right from the beginning, if you actually try to look at this, close scrutiny to it, which has not been given much primarily because the entire focus was on the civil suit. Here, I think successive governments neglected the entire case and I would not exclude anyone including the National Front government, which was there in power from 96 onwards till 98, 97, 98, till the Gujarat government fell. Even the UP government after 2004, 10 years, they were in power but they really did not, who expedite and actually get justice done. And in this context, of course, there's also a general question that comes out like after November's judgment, after the recent incidents around, recent the ceremonies around the temple and now this verdict, what do these really say about the kind of India we are living in right now? When there was definitely institutions have agreed, the highest institutions have agreed that this was a crime, that this should not have happened and now we have a series of events over the past one year. So what do you really think this says about the kind of country we are living in? So I think we are definitely a much more majoritarian loving country, you know, loving the majority and what we were when this agitation started in 1984, 85. From that time on, I keep telling people that suppose we plot an imaginary index and on the bottom we put the number of years right from 1980s till 2020 and in the vertical axis, we plot the value. So we will find a constant rising from 1984 onwards and it keeps on rising. It does not stop even in 2004 and 14. So I think the biggest failure of a government which was a worldly secular was that it was not able to forget, pulling it, pushing it back the communal center in the country and greater and a popular support for the ideology. So I think we have become a much more authoritarian, a Hindutva loving country. Actually, we have started believing what we put that Hindutva is a way of life, a highly contentious statement to have made, a sweeping statement, totally confusing between Hindu, Hinduism and Hindutva. That's right. The three completely different things. That is something which you say Hinduism and it means Hindutva, that is it. Right, and do you see that this case might actually progress in terms of appeals? Is there a scope for say, maybe even the verdict being reconsidered or challenged with a higher judiciary? No, earlier today I had seen the Congress statement and at least I really expect that the government vote the center as well as the state to file an appeal against this judgment and vote to a higher judiciary. I hope that this government does, but I do not expect it. I think that they are going to say that it's been a long time. The country has expended a lot of time and energy. So it's best to put closure to this entire issue. The Supreme Court has in any case settled and the Ram Temple is coming up at a very quick pace. It is now time for us to forget the past and move ahead. So let us not linger on with this case because the CBI judge has given a patient theory and looked at every pro and con of this particular case. So I really do not expect any appeal being filed. But nonetheless it also, the fact remains that there is that we know closure because Ayodhya was only one plank of the larger movement. There was also Kashi and Mathura as well. And in recent days, we've heard say once again many of these ideas coming up. They begin to spread in popular culture. They were maybe buried for a long time. And now they're again sort of coming up in the media. They're coming up in discussions. There was even, I believe, a petition to sort of re-examine the issue. So how do you see the impact of this verdict and also the verdicts of the past year on these kind of say movements which are being led by the right wing? Prashant, the beauty of right wing forces right from the time that they became very assertive from the mid-90s, 1980 onwards is that they keep on repeating the same actions all the time. And one tends to forget what has happened in the past. We are immediately looking at Mathura and Kashi in the context of a case that has been filed in Mathura about three or four days ago. Whereas let me remind you that immediately after November 2019, at that point, one BJP MP, I think he's a member of Rajya Sabha if I remember correctly, a gentleman called Harnath Singh. He had gone in a virtual fancy dress to Parliament House during the winter session and said that after Ayodhya, now it is the turn of Mathura and Kashi. I have written articles for news, in which I have said that how between November and till the time, you know, in May and June, from the time a series of events happened, there was a meeting in Mathura, in Varanasi, in February in which a committee was constituted where Subramaniam Swami was named as the president. There was, after the lockdown was imposed for a few weeks, there was an alliance on Mathura and Varanasi front. But sometime it was in July that a new committee was set up in Mathura. Prishan Janambhoomi Mukti Yagya Samiti, very much mirroring what had happened in Ayodhya, the Sri Ram Janabhoomi Mukti Yagya Samiti. So it's the same story, just the way that the RSS and its front organizations were initially not involved in Ayodhya, here too the RSS is not involved in either Mathura or Varanasi at this moment, but take it from me, it is just a matter of time that this is going to be first formally an agenda of the Vishwa Hindu Parichart. It cannot allow the leadership to pass on to the organization because along with leadership, comes a huge amount of resources which is generated by way of donations and offerings which come their way, they're not going to allow this to be captured by someone else. And after the Vishwa Hindu Parichart, the RSS is going to start passing resolutions at it various meetings in the year saying that the aspirations of the Hindu society could be fulfilled and at the final end, just the way the BJP did in June, 1989, with the Palampur Resolution, the BJP too is going to pass a resolution saying that given the tremendous will of the people for the restoration of the Krishanjanam Bhumi, the Tashi Vishwanath Mandir, we are extending support and we feel that the demands should be pursued and ask the government, whichever is there, in power at that time. If it happens to be their own party government, then it is going to be quicker. If not, then we can pick another round or several more rounds of agitation. Already in between, Yogi Adityanath, the Chief Minister of Uttar Padesh has continued with this extensive Hindutva campaign, the latest being the renaming of the proposed Mughal Museum at Agra into a Chakrapati Shivaji Museum. Even though in history, there is very little link of Shivaji with the city of Agra whose history begins with the Lodhis who went and made Agra their capital. So what we're definitely seeing is an intensification of this campaign, which also in some senses sends a message to the minorities, sends a message to tribal communities, sends a message to the liberals, leftists, everyone that the push towards creating a Hindutva country is very much going to be on. Definitely, you know, this is going to be the constant whenever there are issues, whenever the government or the BJP faces challenges on other areas, this is what they are going to have back up all the time. Absolutely, the moment there is a crisis in terms of the handling of COVID, both in terms of health, in terms of economy, we have a very uncertain situation with China on the waterfront. The best way to contain all this is by generating a false sense of euphoria over India, which has already happened. Now, it's going to be the turn of Mathura and Varanasi. Thank you so much, Ranjan, for talking to us. Nice. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching.