Nov. 8 — Sonia Gandhi, former president of India’s main opposition Congress party, disclosed that she broke down in tears while watching the televised demolition of the 16th-century Babri Masjid by Hindu nationalist mobs in 1992, recounting that the moment signaled the beginning of an arduous struggle to defend the republic’s secular foundations.
In an interview published Saturday by British newspaper The Guardian, the veteran political leader reflected on the December 6, 1992 demolition in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, characterizing it as a watershed moment that endangered the foundational vision of the modern Indian state.
“Watching the demolition of the Babri Masjid unfold on the television screen, I could not hold myself back—I wept,” Gandhi said during the interview. “It was at that exact moment I realized India was entering a long, grueling battle to protect its constitutional secularism.”
Gandhi directly targeted the ideological mobilizations of the era, asserting that the current ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) played a direct role in whipping up communal hysteria under the guise of the Ram Janmabhoomi agitation across Uttar Pradesh.
She noted that witnessing the destruction brought an immediate realization that the secular, pluralistic India envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and their fellow freedom fighters was about to be subjected to an existential trial.
In a rare public admission from the Congress high command, the senior politician also acknowledged that past missteps, compromises, and policy failures by her own party had inadvertently contributed to the subsequent political ascent of radical Hindutva politics across the country.
The candid reflections provoked sharp backlash from the ruling BJP, which moved quickly to brand the Congress leadership as fundamentally “anti-Hindu.”
BJP National Spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari launched a scathing critique on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), accusing the Congress matriarch of selective empathy and appeasement politics.
“Sonia Gandhi sheds tears for the Babri Masjid, and Sonia Gandhi sheds tears for the Batla House encounter,” Bhandari wrote. “This once again demonstrates that Congress remains aligned with Babur and hostile to Bhagwan Ram. Because of this blatant hypocrisy, Sonia Gandhi’s voter base will continue its irreversible decline.”
The political exchange highlights how the historical trauma and polarizing legacy of the Babri Masjid demolition continue to serve as active ideological battlegrounds in contemporary Indian politics.
Source: The Guardian Exclusive Interview, Statements on X & Asian News International (ANI)