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Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani asserted on Wednesday that a temple used to exist at the very site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and added that the temple is a reality again today.
"From 1950 to 2001, namely for 51 years, what stands there is a temple. First a de facto temple and today a temple which is de facto as well as de jure," Advani said during his two-hour deposition before the Liberhan Commission.
"I have been pleading with the supporters of Ram Janambhoomi, who occasionally announce that from this date onwards we will start reconstruction of the temple and telling them that at the site there at Ram Janam Sthan, there is nothing but a temple."
Quoting the Faizabad Civil Judge's order in 1950, the home minister said, "From 1936 onwards Muslims have neither used the site as a mosque nor offered prayers there and... Hindus have been performing the puja at the disputed site."
He said "From 1950 onwards it had not become any major issue so much so that the central government and the state government, both belonging to the Congress, seemed to cooperate in the locks on the temple being removed and 'shilanyas' being performed."
However, when the commission counsel Anupam Gupta asked how could he say that a de jure temple existed at the site and was he legitimising demolition as a legal fait accompli, Advani said "So far as the courts are concerned, I am a humble citizen. I cannot at all contemplate presenting the courts a fait accompli.
"What I have in mind are various organisations and political parties, who were part of this dispute all along prior to 1992, even they thought it was a temple by virtue of a court injunction," he said.
He said the superstructure was that of a mosque and he regarded it as significant that even the government in its white paper did not refer to it as a mandir or a mosque but only as a disputed structure.
Asked by Gupta about his views on the temple, Advani said, "I am not competent to give my views to the court."
Advani also pointed out that during his 1990 Rath Yatra to Ayodhya he had not created any controversy regarding pitting Lord Ram against Babar and the negative slogans raised by some of his supporters were not approved by him.
He also informed the court that Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan did not use any provocative language during his Rath Yatra.
Advani said after the demolition, the first reaction of several organisations and political parties was that "we shall rebuild the mosque".
"I regard it as significant that subsequently there have been elections in 1996, 1998, 1999 apart from elections in Uttar Pradesh but no political party has ever spoken of rebuilding the mosque," he said.
This showed that by and large it had come to be accepted that on the place believed to be the birth place of Ram, there was only a temple, he said.
Defending the use of the word de jure temple, he said "Therefore, I used the word somewhat loosely of describing it also as a de jure temple. I would like to emphasise again that I am not using this phrase as against the possibility of courts deciding something else finally in that regard."
He said despite the Congress Government allowing opening of the locks of the disputed structure and performance of 'shilanyas', the problem began when some section of the population thought it proper to set up Babri Masjid Action Committee.
"For us in the BJP, the participation in the Ramjanambhoomi movement was aimed at the concept of strengthening nationalism in the country which we believe is cultural nationalism and not merely physical and geographical nationalism," said Advani.
He said, it was because of India's cultural nationalism that the country had rejected theocracy in 1950 unlike Pakistan.
Additional reportage by PTI
EARLIER REPORT Negotiated settlement or legislation for Ayodhya: Advani
ALSO SEE VHP echoes Advani's statement: PTI
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