The immediate shock of the unthinkable happening gradually settled down to a kind of numbness. The demolition happened on 6 December 1992, ...
The immediate shock of the unthinkable happening gradually settled down to a kind of numbness. The demolition happened on 6 December 1992, a Sunday. After the devastating weekend, on Monday morning, 7 December, the Council of Ministers was gathered in a crowded ground-floor room at Parliament House.
Understandably, most were at a loss for words, but Madhavrao Scindia broke the ice to say how we all felt for Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. The reaction of the embattled PM took us by surprise when he retorted, “Please spare me your sympathy.”
I do not recall the meeting having lasted long or indeed any substantive further steps being discussed. The Uttar Pradesh government had been dismissed on 6 December itself and a week thereafter, the BJP governments in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were dismissed by the President, as advised by the cabinet.
That decision led to the challenge in the Supreme Court in the SR Bommai case – a bench of nine judges heard the challenge along with other Article 356 matters and upheld the dismissal on the grounds of violation of secularism. As becomes clear in the Ayodhya judgment as well, SR Bommai has become a bulwark against any attempt to encroach...
