It must be said to the credit of India's national security bureaucracy -- in the IB [Intelligence Bureau], the R&AW and the MHA [Ministry of Home Affairs] -- that they kept urging Narasimha Rao to prevent the assembling of the Hindutva volunteers in Ayodhya, dismiss the UP government, impose President’s rule in UP and deploy the central para-military forces to prevent any law and order situation.
L K Advani, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who kept meeting Rao at the latter's request for discussions, was assuring him that there would be no damage to the Masjid. A Hindu religious leader who had some friends at the senior levels of the R&AW, repeatedly cautioned that Rao should not trust any assurances given by Advani. He expressed his fear that the Hindutva volunteers might demolish the Masjid. What he stated was conveyed to Rao orally.
One got the impression that Rao was in two minds. Sometimes, he felt he could trust the assurances of Advani. Sometimes, he felt he could not. Once he told the R&AW that he did not like Advani coming to his house for discussions, lest there be mischievous speculation in the media.
He asked whether R&AW had a secret guest house in which he could meet Advani without the media coming to know about it. The R&AW told him that it had such a guest house, which was being used by Rajiv Gandhi for secret discussions with the Akali leaders before Operation Blue Star in 1984. He developed second thoughts and gave up the idea. He then asked R&AW to give him a secret recording device and explain to him how to use it. He wanted to use it for recording his discussions with Advani in his house. It was given to him. After the demolition of the Masjid, he returned the device to the R&AW. He did not say whether he had used it and, if so, what happened to the recording. Nor did the R&AW ask him.
Buy your copy of the The Kaoboys of R&AW -- Down Memory Lane at the online military bookshop at www.lancerpublishers.com
Image: L K Advani
Photograph: Paresh Gandhi
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