Babri panel submits report after 17 years

After 17 years of probe, the Babri Masjid demolition report was finally submitted by the Liberhan Commission to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday. The report holds many saffron leaders guilty and criticises others. Will the truth of Babri ever emerge? Congress Spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi and BJP Spokesperson Siddharth Nath Singh joined CNN-IBN on India At 9 to try and answer the question.

CNN-IBN: Siddharth Nath Singh you are already calling this a Congress conspiracy. Once a commission of enquiry comes out with its report after 17 years, shouldn't we wait for its findings to be made public before calling it such? Are you saying Justice Liberhan is a Congress agent?

Siddharth Nath Singh: We haven't said that. BJP Spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad held a press conference on Tuesday and by no means have we used these words so.

CNN-IBN: Your leader Vinay Katiyar used these words after it was reported that he has allegedly been named in the report.

Siddharth Nath Singh: No Vinay Katiyar has spoken about the longevity of the report - 17 years. He said that the last witness appeared before the commission in 2005, so why did it take the Congress Government take so many years to submit the report?

CNN-IBN: That's because several of your leaders like Kalyan Singh did not cooperate with the commission.

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Siddharth Nath Singh: No, no. Your own channel has been talking about how the report was expedited during the NDA regime and that Sriprakash Jaiswal had said in 2007 that the report would be tabled in Parliament in December that year. Why did the Congress wait? It's suspicious. These are the questions that need to be answered.

CNN-IBN: There is a feeling that the Congress has brought this report out after elections because you are secure in your majority. The report at best indicts Narasimha Rao who is no friend of the Gandhi family and therefore it's easy for Congress to bring out a report of this kind. Abhishek Manu Singhvi please respond to this.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: There are three or four important points to be raised here. Firstly, it's the typical BJP tactic of ignoring the message and shooting the messenger. We saw it in Tehelka and we find it now. Secondly, it ignores one very fundamental point that this is a commission with a judicial element, a sitting judge and later a retired judge, a commission which has seen 17 years of bi-partisan extensions of political parties of every colour. Remember that under the law, a Government is entitled to wind up a commission. This commission was given extension by every political colour across the spectrum. So there is a bi-partisan element to it. Number three, it's a non-issue, a red herring. Whether it took 17 years or four years from 2005, there will be a chapter as Justice Liberhan himself said on why there were delays. Nobody supports 17 years, least of all the commission.

CNN-IBN: Sections of the BJP are calling it a Congress conspiracy and your leader Digvijay Singh said within hours of the report being submitted that it has indicted the BJP leadership. But the fact is that it was a Congress prime minister who presided over December 6, 1992. A terrible tragedy occurs, hundreds of people die, so shouldn't this be a moment of bi-partisan consensus on the findings of the report?

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Abhishek Manu Singhvi: You have seen many knee-jerk immediate reactions by BJP leaders and these reflect nothing but a guilty mind. We have said on one hand that we want to await for the content of the report, but let me tell you that the entire content can only be within the circle of the BJP. Everything is of the BJP, by the BJP, for the BJP. Nobody except a minority of individuals in the BJP believes that a Central Government sitting in Delhi is culpable when law and order is a state subject, when chief minister is culpable and hauled up for contempt in the Supreme Court and Advani is standing a few meters away and Uma Bharti is in the background and Murli Manohar Joshi is gleefully rubbing his hands together and you are blaming Narasimha Rao. I think nobody in this country except the BJP believes this. It's the Panchjanya and the RSS which have given certificates of goodness to Narasimha Rao. He doesn't need those certificates.

CNN-IBN: Since 1992, an entire new generation of Indians has come up. Seventeen years have elapsed. Unlike what happened with the 1984 anti-Sikh reports, what happened with the Mumbai riots of 1992-1993, can we at least now expect both the parties to expect the findings?

Siddharth Nath Singh: We can't really comment till we see the findings.

CNN-IBN: Then why have a commission of enquiry if the findings are not going to be accepted?

Siddharth Nath Singh: We are willing to see the report, debate in Parliament, let it be all tabled. We are not running away from there. We had faced the commission, Mr Advani as the deputy prime minister had faced the commission and he was cross-examined for over a week and we have not run away from it. We have supported the commission so how can you charge us saying that we will not accept the commission's report?

CNN-IBN: Our sources have said that the rath yatra by Advani led to the demolition, while the BJP has always been saying that the rath yatra was a mass awakening. Are you going to accept it if the report is critical of the rath yatra? Will you accept it then that the rath yatra was a mistake?

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Siddharth Nath Singh: There is a history of more than 400 years of agitation on the Ram Janmabhoomi. It happened in 1986 under the Rajiv Gandhi government due to the Shah Bano case, there is a whole history of rank opportunism which Congress has displayed time and again. There are many things which cannot be brushed away.

CNN-IBN: If the judge says the rath yatra led to the demolition, will you accept that conclusion of the judge or will you reject it?

Siddharth Nath Singh: Absolutely not. The reason for the demolition was that it was an explosion of the tolerant Hindus, of their suppression, of the duplicacy of the Congress policies which were followed and which came to light under the Shah Bano case. We have not run away and the Congress should not either.

CNN-IBN: Effectively you are not accepting the findings. Abhishek Manu Singhvi please respond.

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: I don't want to get into the tu-tu, main-main (blame game) politics of it. You have raised the much larger issue. Remember for the apartheid issue in South Africa, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission was set up. Reconciliation is important but it means three things - not brushing things under the carpet and ignoring them, owning up to things and transparently addressing them and facing them. You've had an example of ownership and admission - which is crucial in reconciliation - from Uma Bharti on Tuesday, who far from being apologetic has reiterated. You have an example of ownership from the BJP, you have an example of ownership and admission from Vinay Katiyar. This is not reconciliation. A new India can look forward only when you start owning up to admitting things.

CNN-IBN: Is that true for both sides?

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Siddharth Nath Singh: Fair enough, provided we get to see the report. Secondly, what was there in 1992. Mr Singhvi is forgetting history. It was the Central Government, the CRPF everything - Uttar Pradesh was under President's Rule on December 6, 1992. It was nothing to do with the state government or the Kalyan Singh government.

CNN-IBN: Sir bottomline. I am a taxpayer who wants to know what happened on December 6, 1992. A commission of enquiry is appointed for Gujarat, for 1984, for 1992 Mumbai riots, for Babri Masjid - at the end of the day politicians simply use it as a slanging match. Will anything change or should we just abandon the idea of having commissions of enquiry?

Siddharth Nath Singh: It will change.

CNN-IBN: But you are saying that you will not accept it if the rath yatra is held responsible for the demolition.

Siddharth Nath Singh: You are interlinking a matter of faith that cuts across caste, creed and geographical boundaries.

CNN-IBN: No sir, a judicial commission is not a matter of faith, it's a matter of law. Do you accept the law of the land or not?

Siddharth Nath Singh: We accept it is a judicial commission, a matter of law. It needs to be debated in Parliament and we need to see the content and then we can give you a comment about it, but just not to brush away Ram Janmabhoomi which is a matter of faith which led to a national identity, a fight between secularism and pseudo-secularism.

CNN-IBN: Abhishek Manu Singhvi are you worried that this report will lead to a consolidation of Hindu forces? Is that a concern at all? Will you see this report also through a political prism which is why this was brought out after the elections and not before the elections?

Abhishek Manu Singhvi: The BJP has been trying this so-called consolidation of so-called Hindu forces for the last many, many decades. If the proud Hindu, the tolerant Hindu, the real Hindu was to start believing the BJP, you wouldn't have the Congress winning so many elections. This is fiction, this is a myth. The real Hindu does not believe in divisive politics, in breaking down other people's religious places and that is why we are a proud nation, with a proud lineage and a proud religion.

CNN-IBN: Whatever either side says, at least there is an action-taken report accepted by our major political parties. Thank you both for joining us on Talking Point at India At 9.