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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 002391 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INS, DRL, DS/IP/SCA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PTER PREL PINR KDEM IN
SUBJECT: LIBERHAN LEAK STEALS REPORT'S THUNDER 
 
REF: A. NEW DELHI 2354 
     ¶B. NEW DELHI 2330 
     ¶C. NEW DELHI 1278 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  The list of political scandals awaiting 
Prime Minister Singh upon his return from Washington has 
grown with the release of the Liberhan Commission report. 
Bowing to immense pressure from the Opposition, Home Minister 
F.M. Chidambaram presented the report in the lower and upper 
houses of Parliament on November 24.  The report had been 
allegedly leaked by the Congress Party a day earlier to 
distract the public and media from contentious issues such as 
price rises and party scandals.  The report investigates the 
1992 destruction of the Babri Masjid, a mosque in the 
northern Indian town of Ayodhya, by Hindu mobs who claim that 
Muslims had torn down a Hindu temple at the site over 500 
years ago.  The report, 17 years in the making, concludes 
that the mosque's destruction was a premeditated attack with 
the implicit approval of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 
leaders, including L.K. Advani and former Primer Minister 
Vajpayee.  Contacts assess that the report will have little 
impact, as it confirms what most people already suspected and 
puts forth weak recommendations.  Overall, the Opposition has 
emerged as the big winner in the drama as it again proved its 
ability to corner the Congress Party and unite over issues of 
its choosing.  The Congress Party's leak backfired, as the 
BJP focused media attention on the leak, rather than the 
report's contents.  The BJP lost some ground to the report's 
vilification of several prominent party leaders.  However, 
the rallying cry the report provided to the party's Hindu 
cadres more than compensated for this.  Contacts predict that 
the furor over the report will soon pass, as the dramatic 
rise in food prices has a much heavier impact on the common 
man than the 1992 mosque destruction.  END COMMENT. 
 
Ghosts of Babri Masjid 
----- 
 
¶2. (SBU) The long-awaited report -- 17 years and USD 1.3 
million in the making )- investigates the 1992 destruction 
of the Babri Masjid, a mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, by 
radical Hindu activists who claim that Muslims had torn down 
a Hindu temple honoring the god Ram in the 16th century on 
the same site.  The mosque's destruction set off a wave of 
violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims that killed an 
estimated 2,000 people and marked the worst communal violence 
since partition.  At the time of the mosque's destruction, 
the BJP was a small, right-wing party that propagated 
Hindutva (political Hinduism).  In what has been called a 
watershed event in Indian history, Ayodhya set the stage for 
the BJP to consolidate its electoral base and eventually come 
to power in Delhi.  The Liberhan Commission, named for the 
former high court Judge M.S. Liberhan who headed the 
investigation, was established days after the mosque 
demolition.  The Commission convened over 400 sittings and 
requested 48 extensions over nearly two decades.  The report 
has been anxiously awaited since June 2009, when Justice 
Liberhan submitted his findings to the central government. 
 
Liberhan Leak 
----- 
 
¶3. (SBU) The contents of the Liberhan Report were leaked to 
the Indian Express newspaper November 24, raising a firestorm 
in Parliament.  This is the second time in three days of the 
current winter session of Parliament that the United 
Progressive Alliance (UPA) has been blind-sided by the 
Opposition.  It was forced to backtrack last week on a 
sugarcane pricing measure after the opposition parties 
mobilized a huge rally in the capital and froze proceedings 
in Parliament (Ref A).  Before the GOI had fully resolved the 
sugarcane issue, the Opposition seized the Liberhan leak as 
another opportune moment to corner the Congress Party. 
 
NEW DELHI 00002391  002 OF 003 
 
 
Opposition parties accused Congress of deliberately leaking 
the report to distract the Parliament and public from urgent 
issues such as price increases and corruption, an allegation 
confirmed by most contacts.  Congress MP Raashid Alvi 
dismissed the leak, telling Poloff the leak was "being blown 
out of proportion by the BJP and its allies.  They should 
focus more on what they shamefully did 17 years back." 
 
¶4. (SBU) The BJP, Samajwadi Party (SP), and the Left united 
in demanding that the government release the report 
immediately.  BJP leader Advani responded angrily to the leak 
and called for an inquiry into its source.  He repeated that 
the destruction of the Babri Masjid was the "saddest day of 
my life," adding that he remains fully committed the 
construction of a Hindu temple at the site. 
 
Parliament Theatrics 
----- 
 
¶5. (U) Yielding to heavy opposition pressure, Finance 
Minister Pranab Mukherjee convened a special Cabinet meeting 
to approve the release of the Liberhan Report in Parliament 
on November 24.  Home Minister Chidambaram presented the 
report to the upper and lower houses of Parliament at noon 
that day.  In the upper house, an unruly scene followed the 
report's tabling.  Samajwadi Party (SP) Leader Amar Singh and 
his BJP counterpart S.S. Ahluwalia came to blows on the 
Parliament floor after the latter began shouting a slogan 
about the god Ram.  During the scuffle, Deputy Chairperson K. 
Rahman Khan walked out without even bothering to adjourn the 
house.  Most Parliament watchers attribute Singh's violent 
outburst as a feeble attempt to court Muslim voters who 
abandoned SP in the recent U.P by-elections (Ref B).  The Lok 
Sabha (lower house) will debate the Liberhan report on 
December 1. 
 
Bold Accusations and Weak Recommendations 
----- 
 
¶6. (U) The 1029-page report accuses top BJP leaders, 
including Advani and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari 
Vajpayee, of implicitly approving the systematic, 
premeditated destruction of the mosque.  Liberhan condemns 
Advani as a "willing collaborator" in the incident and 
concludes  that the mosque's destruction was "a joint common 
enterprise," hatched by top leadership of the Rashtriya 
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), the 
Shiv Sena, and the BJP.  The report characterizes the BJP as 
the "front organization" of the "militant" RSS.  Liberhan 
also holds then Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) Chief Minister Kalyan 
Singh responsible for the violence (Comment: The SP was 
relieved it had dumped Singh last week, as he had already 
done sufficient damage to its Muslim vote bank.  End 
Comment).  The report includes a lengthy description of the 
mobilization of the protesters at Ayodhya, characterizing the 
preparation as "accomplished with phenomenal secrecy" and 
"technically flawless." 
 
¶7. (U) Home Minister Chidambaram also presented the Action 
Taken Report (ATR), which details the government's response 
to the Liberhan's seven primary recommendations.  In the ATR, 
the GOI responds to many of Liberhan's suggestions by 
pledging to introduce the Communal Violence (Prevention, 
Control, and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill, which may 
establish special courts to try those accused of inciting 
such violence.  The ATR does not single out individuals 
against which further action would be taken; however, Law 
Minister M. Veerappa Moily assured the media that "the 
government is bound to take positive action."  The Congress 
Party Spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said fresh cases would be 
filed against individuals named by the Commission who have 
not been tried previously if investigating agencies find new 
evidence against the accused.  Currently there are cases 
 
NEW DELHI 00002391  003 OF 003 
 
 
against Advani and seven other BJP/VHP leaders in a Rae 
Bareli, U.P. court, as well as one case involving 49 accused 
in a special court for Ayodhya matters in Lucknow, U.P. 
 
¶8. (U) Overall, the report provides little new information to 
those familiar with the mosque demolition.  Journalist Sanjay 
Kapoor told Poloff "you need not have the wisdom of a 
Socrates or Plato to know about the culprits."  Other 
contacts also condemned the huge cost of the report given its 
"temporary value."  Asian Age Bureau Chief Amita Verma noted 
that "thousands of commission reports are eating dust in 
North and South Block...Muslims in U.P. have seen so many 
reports like that and dismiss them as the government's paper 
work ritual."  Additionally, contacts conveyed that the 
report can only make recommendations; it is not legally 
binding.  Even the recommendations have been criticized by 
contacts as weak.  Liberhan indicts 68 individuals for 
bringing India to the brink of communal discord, yet it does 
not recommend filing charges for those who have not been 
tried, nor does it urge the government to expedite ongoing 
criminal proceedings.  The report calls for the separation of 
religion and politics, but avoids making recommendations for 
near term steps to ensure justice in the demolition case or 
long-term measures to prevent a similar incident. 
 
Comment: Win (the Opposition), Lose (Congress), or Draw (BJP) 
----- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Ultimately the big winner in the Liberhan drama is 
the Opposition, which once again proved that despite the 
disparate interests of individual parties, it can unite 
against the ruling coalition on selective issues.  The UPA 
should be careful not to leave itself vulnerable to such 
displays of might again in the winter session.  Despite its 
secure standing, Congress has not been able to govern in a 
way commensurate with its majority and consequently emerged 
as the big loser.  If Congress expected the leak would divide 
the Opposition which had united against the ruling party on 
the sugarcane issue, it was mistaken -- the leak backfired 
miserably.  What should have an opportunity for the UPA to 
further twist the knife in an already wounded BJP turned out 
to be a setback as the debate focused on the report's leak 
rather than its contents. 
 
¶10. (SBU) The BJP and its affiliate organizations came out 
even.  While the report vilified BJP leaders, it also 
provided a powerful rallying cry for the party's core Hindu 
constituency, for whom Ayodhya strikes a powerful chord.  As 
the BJP had faced near implosion over its feeble showing in 
the spring parliamentary elections (Ref C), Liberhan's 
drumming up of the ghosts of Ayodhya provides powerful fuel 
to keep the party and its issues alive.  Overall, we expect 
the Liberhan furor to be short-lived as the public returns to 
more pressing issues, such as the cost of food staples. 
India's aam admi (common man) cares more about commodity 
prices than commissions.  END COMMENT. 
WHITE