AHMEDABAD, India, 16 May 2004 — India’s Hindu extremists, once seen as invincible in the western state of Gujarat after deeply polarizing religious riots, suffered setbacks here in national polls as right-wing ideology lost out to bread-and-butter issues.
The shock election loss of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has raised hopes of activists that the incoming left-of-center national government will bring to book perpetrators of the 2002 riots who escaped prosecution under the BJP.
The BJP lost seven of the 21 Parliament seats it held in Gujarat, still keeping a majority of the state’s 26 constituencies but proving wrong exit polls which predicted the Hindu extremists would solidify their grip here.
Rights groups had accused the BJP state government of turning a blind, or even sympathetic, eye to the grisly riots that left 2,000 dead, mostly Muslims. The bloodshed broke out after a mob torched a train carrying Hindu activists, killing 59.
But the BJP stormed back into power in state elections later in 2002 by telling Hindu voters that critics of the riots including the opposition Congress party were maligning Gujarat’s reputation.
State leader Narendra Modi has since been a star of the BJP’s far-right, touring India before the election in a saffron helicopter and regaling rallies with a tirade of insults against Congress’ Italian-born leader Sonia Gandhi — now the frontrunner to be prime minister.
“Modi should be blamed 100 percent for the BJP’s weakening position in Gujarat,” a BJP leader in the state said.
“His extreme Hindu philosophy, his show of arrogance and power, and talking irresponsibly at public meetings brought about this verdict,” he said.
“In India, extremism has never worked in any state.”
Muslims account for only around nine percent of Gujarat’s more than 33 million eligible voters. Analysts said the BJP’s losses instead stemmed from anger by rural Hindu voters, particularly at the cost of electricity.
Modi had insisted on charging electricity by meter, doing away with previous Gujarat governments’ heavy subsidies for power in the countryside.
“Had Modi negotiated with the farmers and been more diplomatic in his approach, he would not have angered the farmers so much. His handling of farmers’ protests were very autocratic,” political analyst Achut Yagnik said.
But Modi remains best known in India not for his free-market agriculture policy but for the riots. No Hindu has been convicted and jailed over the bloodshed.
The Congress’ national platform calls for the “strictest possible action” against anyone who promotes hatred.
While Vajpayee deplored the riots, he refused to remove Modi from power after the allegations that his government abetted the vigilante violence.
Girish Patel, a human rights lawyer here, said the fall of the BJP in New Delhi “is going to have a direct impact on the communal situation in Gujarat”.
“Modi’s moves will be scrutinized by the central government. The pending cases in the Supreme Court and other courts will also get a push,” Patel said.
Hindu militants, meanwhile, said the poll reversal was because the BJP tried to run a moderate campaign in contrast to its past platforms based on “Hindutva”, or the Hindu way of life.
Vajpayee, running for re-election, called the Gujarat riots a blemish on his record and tossed Muslim phrases into his speeches. The BJP only brought Modi onto the campaign trail in its last, desperate week.
“The saffron party has been out rightly rejected for showing disdain for the Hindutva agenda and adopting a policy of Muslim appeasement,” said Dilip Trivedi, general secretary of the extreme-right Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
