ANANTAPUR: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has no regrets over the demolition of the Babni Masjid in Ayodhya. Its president, Dr.Murli Manohar Joshi, said, on Jan.24, that the party had wanted the disputed structure to go. Addressing a news conference al Anantapur on Sunday, DrJoshi came out unambiguously when questions were put to him on the incidents of December 6.
Though he tended to skin the issue for a while, when pressed for an answer, DrJoshi said that the BJP had wanted the “demolition of the disputed structure at Ayodhya but not on the day it was done or in the manner in which it took place.”
The BJP president’s forthright comment came when reporters asked him whether or not his party was ready to own responsibility for the demolition. He said though his party had not exactly wanted it to happen that day, “the Indian people demolished it that day because they thought that was the nighttime.” “We have no regrets,” Dr. Joshi asserted.
He was equally uninhibited when he explained his party’s approach to the minorities. The BJP, he said, would not recognize the minorities as “permanent minorities.” “Our party,” he said, “is not for treating anybody as a minority,” adding that all those belonging to India should be one.
DrJoshi said wherever the BJP was in power, it had shown how it would try to bring everyone into the national mainstream.
He urged the Muslims to come out of the “pernicious influence of their obscurantist and fundamentalist leadership.” They should, he felt, consider themselves as a “‘part and parcel” of India’s national heritage.
“Enlightened Muslims,” he said, should reject the call for boycott of the Republic day. They should respect the National Flag and the Constitution, he added.
Reverting to the Ayodhya issue, DrJoshi said his party would not accept any “sarkari trust” for construction of the temple or any proposal to change the site of construction. He cautioned the government against playing upon the sentiments of the majority of the people by resorting to “dubious methods” and announcing the formation of trusts for the construction of the mosque and the temple.
The BJP president ascribed the current “miserable” situation in the country to the “neglect of Hindutva.” Whenever Hindutva had been neglected, DrJoshi said, India had suffered at the hands of foreigners. He harked back to what he said was the glory of India during the Vedic period and said that the need of the hour was to “revive that glory.”
Dr.Joshi reiterated the demand for a fresh look at the Constitution. The party wanted formation of more states as declared in its manifesto.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 29, 1993
