NEW DELHI, 1 March — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee must be the most worried man in India today. His party, BJP, lost elections in four states last week. Right now there is a military standoff between India and Pakistan. As if this is not enough, the prime minister has now to grapple with the crisis created by Hindu activists in his own BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad‚ one of several front organizations of the party. Many fear that VHP’s Ayodhya adventure and the communal violence that it would trigger could lead to the collapse of the Vajpayee government.
Congress leader Sonia Gandhi met Prime Minister Vajpayee yesterday evening and demanded deployment of army in trouble-torn Gujarat to prevent the situation from deteriorating further. Senior Congress leaders Kamal Nath, Manmohan Singh and Arjun Singh were also present. During their 30-minute meeting, Vajpayee promised to take all necessary steps to restore normalcy.
Vajpayee was facing some stark and politically crucial choices yesterday as a volatile row over a disputed religious site threatened to escalate into widespread sectarian violence.
The brutal killing of 58 people by a mob who attacked a train carrying Hindu activists in a Muslim-dominated area of Gujarat state on Wednesday, dramatically raised the stakes in what has become a litmus test of the Hindu nationalist-led Vajpayee government’s secular credentials.
Riots broke out in several areas of Gujarat yesterday as Hindu youths attacked mosques and Muslim-owned businesses, despite government-imposed curfews.
The seriousness of the situation was underlined by Vajpayee’s swift decision to cancel his trip to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia which begins tomorrow.
The activists on the train were returning from the northern town of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh state, where tens of thousands of right-wing Hindus have been gathering to build a temple — in defiance of court orders — on the ruins of a 16th century mosque that was razed by Hindu zealots in December 1992.
The destruction of the Babri Mosque triggered some of independent India’s worst Hindu-Muslim riots in which about 2,000 people were killed, and the current game of brinksmanship being played by Hindu hard-liners in Ayodhya is poised on the edge of an equally violent outcome.
The dilemma facing Vajpayee has its roots in his BJP party’s historical links to the temple construction campaign.
The BJP rose from nowhere to a party of national stature by championing the drive to claim the Ayodhya site for Hindus in the early 1990s. Several members of Vajpayee’s Cabinet, including Home Minister L.K. Advani, still face charges of inciting the mobs to pull down the Babri Mosque nine years ago.
Since coming to power at the head of a multi-party coalition, Vajpayee, who is considered the moderate face of Hindu nationalism, has sought to distance himself and the BJP from the Ayodhya issue in order to ease the concerns of his more secular-minded allies.
As a result, he now finds himself under attack from both the secular and sectarian camps.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council), which is leading the temple construction drive and has close links with the BJP, accuses Vajpayee of turning his back on the campaign he once fought for and has rejected his appeals to resolve the Ayodhya dispute through talks or through the courts.
Meanwhile, opposition parties, and some members of his own coalition, accuse the prime minister of doing nothing to stop the influx of Hindu radicals into Ayodhya and of harboring sympathies for their objectives.
With Parliament in daily uproar and fears of further sectarian bloodshed fueled by the Gujarat train attack, the pressure has intensified on Vajpayee to take decisive action.
The VHP has set a deadline of March 15 when it has pledged to begin constructing the temple even if it means a battle with the security forces.
A belated directive from the Home Ministry on Wednesday to the Uttar Pradesh authorities to stop more Hindu activists descending on Ayodhya would seem to be an acute case of trying to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted.
“Whatever they do, our followers will find a way into Ayodhya and even sacrifice their lives if required to build the temple,” said Mahant Ram Chandar Paramhans, the architect of the temple construction campaign.
Vajpayee has appealed for communal harmony and warned the hard-liners that national security will be maintained at all costs.
“That is not enough. The time to appeal to the VHP is long past,” said the Indian Express newspaper.
“The VHP-sponsored assemblage of sadhus and saints must be instantly, summarily dispersed. Its paraphernalia must be firmly, even forcibly, packed off from Ayodhya.”
But the implications of a direct confrontation would be far-reaching.
Powerful right-wing Hindu groups have enormous influence within the BJP and provide the party with a crucial support base.
