Yatra is past its sell-by date

LK Advani’s decision to revive the Ram Mandir issue during his current rathyatra brings back vivid memories of December 6, 1992 — when the Babri Masjid was demolished — and its aftermath.

We were in Cape Town where India was playing a one-day international against South Africa in a day-night game. During the break between innings or thereabouts, news filtered in (through the All India Radio commentary team, I think) of the mayhem in Ayodhya. There was hushed silence for a while among the Indians in the press enclosure, followed by agitated discussions, and then a flurry of calls back home to check if everything was all right.

When the match resumed after the break, India were fielding and seemed to be making things difficult for the South African batsmen till things suddenly began to go haywire. India’s best fielder — and captain then — Mohammed Azharuddin dropped three catches, two of them skiers, which he would normally have held in his sleep. The stranglehold over the South Africans had collapsed, and India crashed to defeat.

It is unknown whether the dramatic developments back home had anything to do with Azhar’s distracted performance — though how he could have been unaffected is difficult to imagine — but when I returned to India in late January 1993, after being stranded in Nairobi for a few days because of riots in Mumbai, there were a fair number of people I knew who had been devastated.

One such had had a nervous breakdown. The road to the Babri demolition had been defined by the voluble and abrasive extremism in which the realpolitik of the BJP had often been overwhelmed by the vituperative and bellicose hate campaign by the VHP and its splinter groups. The venom-spewing Sadhvi Rithambara (where is she now?) had been unleashed on the public, and she commanded as much, if not more, star appeal as Advani.

There were others of the same ilk, and the general atmosphere of the country had been vitiated to such an extent that the more sensitive could not but be traumatised. The man who suffered the nervous breakdown told me then that he wanted to leave the country. “This place has no future for us. It’s over,” he said.

When we met some days back, we recalled that conversation in 1993. He said that not leaving the country was the best decision he had ever made. “Something held us back, I can’t put my finger on it, but I am glad we stayed,” he mused. I asked him if the latest rathyatra had affected him in any way. “There’s no fear,” he replied. “The world’s changed too much, India even more. This will pass quickly.”

He does not obviously have the political experience and acumen to match those who have been in the business for life. Advani surely has his compulsions, but I suspect the changed times and new ideas of nationhood have left him behind.

The politics of hate has a sell-by date too.

Email: ayaz@dnaindia.net