NEW DELHI, 27 August 2003 — An explosive archaeological report backing Hindu claims on a disputed religious site in northern India will be used by Hindu extremists as an electoral gambit in upcoming poll, analysts said.

Right-wing Hindus, meanwhile, warned they were mobilizing on the strength of the report and would renew their campaign to build a temple on the holy site, in the town of Ayodhya.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) study released Monday described a 10th-century temple with Hindu carvings under the rubble of the Babri mosque — apparently confirming a claim long being made by Hindu hard-liners.

“The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) excavation report will be exploited piecemeal for maximum political mileage by Hindu nationalist parties tapping into latent feelings of Hindu revivalism and pride,” said analyst P. Bidwai.

The excavation was ordered by judges to find out the validity of Hindu activists’ claims that a temple predated the razed Babri mosque in Ayodhya.

Hindu hard-liners led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council) demolished the Babri mosque in 1992, setting off nationwide Hindu-Muslim riots that left more than 2,000 people dead.

The dispute over the religious site is now in the hands of the courts which had ordered the excavations by the ASI, with Muslim vowing to challenge the study. “With the ASI reporting evidence of a temple below the Babri mosque, hawkish Hindu leaders will step up their temple campaign with the (ruling) BJP sure to join it in the months before the national general elections,” Bidwai said.

Five states go to polls in November, including four heartland and politically prestigious states that are currently ruled by India’s main opposition Congress party.

Parliamentary elections, meanwhile, are scheduled for September-October next year but there is talk that they may be brought forward to February. As the courts deliberate on what to do at the disputed site, Praveen Togadia, the general secretary of the VHP, warned that he was preparing mass protests in support of “rebuilding” the temple.

“The ASI report has vindicated Hindu aspirations,” Togadia told reporters.

“We have decided to start a mass movement to mobilize support for the temple in Ayodhya. We will visit at least 200,000 villages and round up at least 20 million people.” The VHP is close to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had campaigned for the Ram temple while in opposition.

Since coming to power in 1998, however, the BJP has stressed that a consensus must be reached over Ayodhya, to the fury of Togadia and other hard-liners.

“The BJP can now resurrect the temple issue as a poll plank,” said the Hindustan Times newspaper.

Meanwhile, Zafaryab Jilani, convenor of the All India Babri Masjid Action Committee, a Muslim group that is a plaintiff in the Babri Mosque case, said the ASI report was “vague and self-contradictory and prepared under political pressure.”