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Mumbai blasts ignite mosque
debate
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW
DELHI - After 45 persons died in two car-bomb blasts
that rocked western Mumbai, India's financial capital,
on Monday, authorities moved to contain possible
sectarian strife that has, in the past, followed similar
attacks.
It is unclear who was behind the
blasts. Neighboring Pakistan, which has often been
blamed for such acts of violence in India in the past,
but with whom ties have lately been on the mend, quickly
condemned the blasts as "acts of terrorism".
Since Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee
extended the hand of peace to Islamabad in April, top
leaders of this country have been careful to
differentiate between militant groups based in Pakistan
territory and their hosts.
This is in contrast
to past policy under which India routinely blamed
Islamabad for acts of sabotage carried out on Indian
soil. After an attack on the Indian parliament in
December 2001, New Delhi responded by moving troops to
the Pakistan border, nearly triggering off war between
the nuclear-armed countries.
No group has
claimed responsibility for the Mumbai blasts, one of
which went off at the historic Gateway to India monument
at the seafront and the other at the prosperous Zaveri
Bazaar famed for its trade in gold and diamonds. At
least 150 people were injured, according to official
reports.
Maharashtra state, of which Mumbai is
the capital, quickly ordered a beefing up of security at
its airports and vital installations as well as police
patrols of communally sensitive areas.
Other
states, which have large Muslim populations, including
Gujarat which adjoins Maharashtra, West Bengal, northern
Haryana and Delhi, ordered security measures that
included spot checks of vehicles
Pakistan was
"separated at birth" from India in 1947 when it was
created as a homeland for the subcontinent's Muslims
following the decolonization of what was a larger
British India.
India went on to become a
constitutionally secular state, but one that became
increasingly rocked by communal violence between the
Hindu majority and Muslims, who form 20 percent of the
country's one billion people.
Monday's blasts
seemed to echo a series of bombings that hit Mumbai in
1993 as part of nationwide sectarian violence that
erupted after Hindu fundamentalist groups demolished the
16th century Babri masjid at Ayodhya town in northern
Uttar Pradesh state. At least 2,000 people died in the
post-demolition violence.
Many Hindus believe,
or have been led to believe, that the Babri masjid was
built by invading Muslims over a temple which marked the
birthplace of the Hindu warrior deity Ram 10,000 years
ago.
In the decade since the demolition,
politics in India seemed to revolve around plans to
build a grand temple to Ram on the site where the mosque
stood. The issue, an emotional one, helped the
pro-Hindu, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to come to power
in 1998 under Vajpayee.
However, the BJP has
been stymied in its plans to build the temple by the
Uttar Pradesh High Court, which tasked a team of the
Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to carry out
excavations and determine the truth of what lay beneath
the foundations of the mosque.
Monday's blasts
coincided curiously with the release by the High Court
of the ASI team's report, which spoke of evidence of a
"massive structure" below what were the foundations of
the Babri masjid and construction history of the site
stretching back to the 10th century.
The High
Court, which said its main task is to decide the
ownership of the site rather than whether Ram was born
there or not, has not accepted the report, but handed it
over to experts and stakeholders who have six weeks from
now to study and comment on it.
Although the ASI
findings are non-committal, they are likely to
exacerbate bitterness between India's two main
communities over an issue which has already been at the
root of much bloodshed, including a pogrom against the
Muslim community in BJP-ruled western Gujarat state last
year.
The pogrom, in which more than 2,000
people died, was set off by the torching at Godhra
railway station of a train carrying Hindu pilgrims
returning to Gujarat from a religious ceremony in
Ayodhya, resulting in the immolations of at least 60
passengers.
Recent acts of sabotage in Mumbai,
such as the bombing of a suburban train in March killing
12 people, have been attributed to people seeking
revenge for the pogrom in Gujarat where authorities have
ordered a special alert to maintain law and order.
For the BJP, faced with general elections next
year, the ASI findings are just the cue it has been
waiting for to pursue its plans to build the Ram temple
and redeem election promises it has been making over the
past decade.
"The ASI report proves what we have
always said - that a temple existed at the site. Muslim
organizations must now do some positive thinking on the
issue and come forward for a dialogue with Hindu
leaders," said BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas, himself a
Muslim.
The BJP has favored an out-of-court
settlement of the ownership issue brought about by
religious leaders from both sides, but their efforts
have so far not borne favorable results.
Hindu
leaders such as Vinay Katiyar and Pravin Togadia have
sworn that they would "liberate" other ancient temple
sites where mosques were built by Muslim rulers, notably
in the cities of Mathura and Varanasi, also in Uttar
Pradesh.
(Inter Press Service)
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