By Ranjona Banerji
One more anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya by members of the Sangh Parivar. In 1992, apart from the small tribe who claimed to be happy and proud for their act of destruction, it was a matter of shame and shock for most Indians. “The past is a foreign country” goes the one line that novelist LP Hartley is most remembered for, “They do things differently there.”
And the India of 2022 is a completely different place.
In 1992, we felt that the very core of our democracy had been shaken. We knew that the movement of hatred was building up. From the time of the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement and LK Advani’s Rath Yatra – in which the current prime minister Narendra Modi played a part as an organizer – we knew that a few of us in the media were willing to sacrifice the Constitution for Hindu majoritarianism. Or maybe it was before that, during the implementation of the Mandal Commission. Upper caste anger at their privileges being “taken away” led to violent protests. From shameless caste discrimination to a Hindu supremacist movement was not a big jump at all.
On December 6, 1992, the media world was largely print dominated. The state broadcast media did not tell us what had happened. Rumours were rife. It was the BBC World Service radio and television who finally told India what had happened at Ayodhya that day.
Later, newspaper and magazine reports filled in the terrible details. Of uncontrolled mobs – the BJP would claim uncontrollable as the top leaders apparently wept buckets of sorrow that what they had instigated had actually happened – climbing up the domes of the mosque and bringing it down. Egged on by VHP “activists” like Sadhvi Rithambara of the infamous line: “Ek dhakka aur do, Babri Masjid tod do”.
India Today magazine, whose concept of journalism especially in its TV channels, has fallen leaps and bounds into the depths of propaganda, produced one of the best cover stories on the demolition. The coverage by most newspapers and other magazines was also of a high standard, all focussing on the damage that this demolition had done to democracy, to India, to society.
But and this is a big But, all those Hindu supremacist journalists, they vanished back into the woodwork. And media houses became complacent. We believed once again that democracy and the Constitution were our lodestones. We ignored the rot within. And the rotters were much cleverer than the rest of us. They waited their turn. They pretended to be what they were not. They played the democracy and secularism game. Even during the Vajpayee years, even during the Gujarat riots of 2002, they pretended that democracy mattered to them.
And so we were beguiled into 2014. And then we realized that the rot was not confined to the media alone. It had infiltrated all our democratic institutions. To make sure that Modi and the BJP came to power at the Centre, the India Against Corruption movement was carefully calibrated with the help of the RSS, to set the political mood in its favour.
A newsroom in which I worked was bought over by a media tycoon with RSS connections in 2009. In his first address to the newsroom he stated bombastically, “Yahaan secularism nahi chalega, secularism will no longer work here.” It was a sign of what was to come, no matter how sanguine you were.
And that is why when the Supreme Court decided that the demolition of the mosque did not matter and that a Ram temple could come up in its place, the Indian media neither reacted nor protested. The pliability had been tested and secured. Yahaan secularism nahi chalega.
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/10-key-quotes-from-babri-case-judgment-in-which-all-accused-acquitted-2303345
The clear evidence of the time was swept aside by a court which is supposed to uphold our democratic ideals. Swept away and celebrated with bottles of expensive red wine and a good dinner.
https://news.abplive.com/news/india/after-ayodhya-judgment-took-judges-for-dinner-shared-bottle-of-wine-ex-cji-ranjan-gogoi-1498756
And you can see how the media is neither shocked nor bothered.
In 30 years, the debris of the Babri Masjid has been joined by that of our democracy. And all hail the media which helped bring us here.
Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist and commentator. She writes on MxMIndia on Tuesdays and Fridays. Her views here are personal