Babri Masjid could have been saved: Rao's book

New Delhi, Apr 28 (UNI) Helicopters and transport planes were ready in the capital for movement of extra troops to Ayodhya and Babri demolition could have been stopped even at the very last moment if the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government had wanted it, says a new book on Ayodhya the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao wrote but wanted to publish after his death.

The Defence Secretary had been asked to keep helicopters ready if any force would have to be moved by air immediately and also keep one or two transport planes ready for movement of additional troops, says the just-released 'Ayodhya:6 December 1992'.

Written in the mid-90s after he stepped down as Prime Minister, the book claims that until the very last moments, the central government kept pressurising the UP state authorities to make use of the central forces available with them to save the Babri structure.

Even if the central forces, which had actually moved halfway towards the structure at 1420 hrs on December 6, 1992, when the demolition was going on, were allowed to go further, the mosque could have been saved, it says. ''By 4.30 pm, the entire structure was demolished.'' Rao, who did not publish the book when he was alive, made revisions till a few days before his death in December 2004.

The 317-page book, which contains as many as 128 pages of appendixes of official communication and other documents, says Rao was misled by his own officers who kept telling him that the 'Kar Seva' in Ayodhya would be peaceful.

''They said they had studied the field and were quite clear that the Kar Seva would be peaceful,'' says the book, published by Penguin India.

Rao defends his role in the central forces-episode on the ''complication of the Constitution'' saying permission of the state government was required to use the central forces deployed near Ayodhya.

''Here were two governments, creatures of the same Constitution, come into confrontation. So the Central force had to act according to the Constitution, there was no other way.'' On dimissing the Kalyan Singh government before the 'Kar Seva' on December 6 to save the structure, Rao says today's hindsight was not available to anyone in the government then.

''Hindsight is often a dangerous guide. Its main characteristic is to mislead and confuse. It makes one feel how easy the matter in question had been, the way it happened -- looking back -- and how it should have been dealt with. The formidable snag is that no one at that crucial time knew how it was going to happen.'' Rao also blames those responsible for the vandalism for ''trying to demolish'' him as well and poses the question if the central government could not trust the main opposition party (the BJP then), ''how can democracy function at all?'' The book also quotes senior BJP leader L K Advani, who led a 'Rath Yatra' for the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya as telling Rao that the BJP did not have any control over the VHP and ''you deal with the religious leaders yourself''.

Rao says he bought five months from the saints for negotations on the mandir issue, but the VHP and the RSS had decided to wreck the negotiations and the BJP connived all the way.

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