The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) did very little during its first term to re-secularise Indian politics and society emphatically, barring the revamping of the National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) to produce non-communal and pedagogically superior textbooks, and the establishment of the Sachar Committee on the status of Muslims.
Today is the right moment to decisively marginalise the BJP and reaffirm secularism. The best way to do so would be for the UPA to seriously pursue the prosecution of the culprits of the Babri demolition and the wave of violence which followed, and above all, the Gujarat pogrom. Simultaneously, the UPA should do all it can to empower the marginalised among the Muslim community by aggressively implementing the recommendations of the Sachar Committee and the Ranganath Mishra Committee.
The testimony of police officer Anju Gupta in the case against Advani and others in a Rae Bareli court is a landmark development, which holds the potential for bringing the perpetrators of the Babri demolition to justice. Anju Gupta’s account of the events of December 6 can and should be richly corroborated by other evidence, including eyewitness accounts and video footage of the inflammatory speeches by Sangh Parivar leaders and the kar sevaks’ actions.
The UPA would do the public a great disservice if it drags its feet on this case. The urgency to end the impunity of Hindutva leaders cannot be overemphasised.
From Praful Bidwai's article in Frontline
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