India does not realise it because of the prevalent Hindu-chauvinist ideology, but it will not come to any sort of closure over the 1992 Babri Mosque demolition until its main perpetrators are punished. This was demonstrated yet again as the Bharatiya Janata Party stalled business in the Upper House over the alleged publication in an Indian newspaper of the Liberhan Report into the demolition, and its naming of senior BJP figures, like former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and party chief Lal Kishan Advani, as responsible, and for judging the demolition 'meticulously planned'. The BJP continued its protest despite Home Minister P. Chidambaram's assurance that there was only one copy of the report with his Ministry.
As the demolition was carried out by the BJP and it allies, the present Congress-led government wants to take action, but it will not, not just because it shares the BJP's Hindu-supremacist ideology, but because a Congress government at the Centre did nothing to stop the demolition, and therefore any full probe will tear the mask off senior Congress figures and reveal them for what they are: people filled with anti-Muslim hate who preach secularism at the same time as their actions show them to be filled with prejudice.
Yet the present Congress-led government must not duck the task of bringing all the culprits to justice, even if they hold, or have held, high office. Previous reports have found leading BJP figures responsible, so the party should not try to cover up the successive electoral defeats it has suffered by protecting them. The party should be ready to make necessary sacrifices. However, the real task before both parties is to make sure that no Babri Mosque demolition occurs again, something that is only possible by an acceptance that the Nehruvian model of secularism has not just failed, but was always false, and that Indian Muslims are just as good citizens as anyone else.
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