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Indian politicians ride terror's
wave
By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI - A suicide attempt to storm one
of the world's most disputed religious sites,
Ayodhya in northern Uttar Pradesh state, may be
just what the doctor ordered for both India's
secular, Congress Party-led ruling coalition and
the fractious, right-wing opposition groups led by
the pro-Hindu, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
After police shot dead all the members of
an armed, six-man squad on Tuesday as they
attempted to storm the heavily barricaded
makeshift temple that stands on the site,
authorities were reluctant to speculate on the
identity of the attackers.
Immediate
suspicion, based on the style of operation, fell
on the Pakistan-based Laskhar-e-Toiba (Soldiers of
God - LeT), a militant group that is committed to
ending Indian rule in the Muslim-majority
territory of Kashmir, the possession of which is
disputed between Indian and Pakistan.
A
similar "fedayeen" attack carried out by a
suspected LeT suicide squad on India's ornate
parliament building in December 2001 brought India
and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed countries, to the
brink of a full-scale war the following year.
The LeT is opposed to recent peace
initiatives between the South Asian neighbors and
authorities in this country have said they were
expecting moves by militant and fundamentalist
groups to derail diplomatic efforts that include
"softer borders" through provocative attacks at
religious or other sensitive targets.
Tuesday's attack was considered serious
enough for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make a
statement carried over television condemning it as
an attempt "aimed at destabilizing our society and
polity" and vowing to "never compromise with
terrorism".
Singh's government ordered
police alerts across the country to prevent
possible outbreaks of communal violence and took
care to "request all political leaders to help in
maintaining public peace and communal harmony".
Nevertheless, protests by Hindus broke out
in many parts of the country, and police had to be
called in on several occasions. Police fired water
cannon to disperse about 1,000 activists in Delhi.
Six people were injured in Hindu-Muslim clashes in
the eastern city of Ranchi. In Indore, the capital
of Madhya Pradesh, activists of the World Hindu
Council broke past security officers to storm the
domestic airport. The protesters sprawled on the
runway, blocking a New Delhi-bound flight for
about an hour. Police eventually beat them back
and arrested 40 people.
The makeshift
temple at Ayodhya was erected in 1992 by Hindu
fundamentalist groups after they tore down the
tri-domed, 16th-century Babri Masjid (mosque),
which set off nation-wide riots between Hindus and
Muslims communities that left 3,000 people dead
and deeply polarized India's political landscape
on religious grounds.
Leaders of the BJP
and affiliated pro-Hindu organizations hold that
the Babri Masjid was built by iconoclastic Muslim
invaders over the site of a Hindu temple that
marked the birthplace of the warrior deity Rama.
The BJP used the issue to build up mass
fervor among majority Hindus and, with support
from regional parties inimical to the avowedly
secular Congress Party, managed to hold popular,
national power for a six-year stint that lasted
until May 2004.
However, during its years
in power, the BJP found itself unable to build the
temple to Rama because of court orders banning
construction on the site and also because the
party ran a minority government and depended on
support from coalition partners in the National
Democratic Alliance that were opposed to the
temple-building agenda.
Tuesday's attack
immediately brought rapprochement between the BJP
and hardline organizations that support it with
men and muscle, especially the Rashtriya
Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), known best for the
militaryûstyle drills its uniformed,
stick-wielding cadres perform in public parks.
In recent months, the RSS has been
demanding the resignation of Lal Krishna Advani,
the high-profile president of the BJP, who
personally oversaw the 1992 demolition of the
Babri Masjid, but who has since recanted, publicly
saying it was the saddest day of his life.
Coincidentally, the High Court in Lucknow
on Wednesday cleared the decks for Advani to stand
trial for inciting communal hatred in Ayodhya
during the Babri Masjid demolition on December 6,
1992. The ruling overturned an earlier acquittal
by a special Central Bureau of Investigation court
nearly a year-and-a-half ago.
Even worse,
from the point of view of the RSS, Advani, during
a highly-publicized visit to Pakistan in April,
visited the mausoleum of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and
described the man who created the neighboring
country on religious grounds in 1947 as a
"secular" leader.
Immediately after
Tuesday's attack Advani - who once traversed the
country in a motorized chariot whipping up support
for a project to demolish the Babri Masjid and
rebuild on the site a grand temple to the deity
Rama - was visibly back in charge.
But
Advani, who has been trying to revamp the BJP so
that it has a more secular image and also
considers the peace process between India and
Pakistan important, said he would not immediately
travel to Ayodhya - perhaps heeding Singh's appeal
to political parties to help maintain public
peace.
Of late, though, Singh, who runs
the minority, Congress-led United Progressive
Alliance, has had more trouble from its powerful
communist allies than with the BJP-led opposition.
This is because of its pro-liberalization policies
that seek to sell away large public sector
enterprises build up during decades of
Soviet-style economic planning and state control.
The communist parties support the Singh
government from the outside, but have the strength
to make or break it. Leaders of the communist
parties have been threatening to pull the plug
unless the polices that openly encourage
liberalization and promote ties with the United
States are reversed or slowed down.
"Sadly
the present government has been toeing the line of
capitalist forces and encouraging liberalization
which only serves the interest of about 10% of the
population," said Prakash Karat, general secretary
of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M),
at a press conference last week.
Karat has
also been critical of a Indo-US "framework"
agreement on defense signed last week, which
independent analysts have said has compromised
this country's security interests by lending
support to Washington's stated policy of
"containing" India's northern neighbor China.
Karat said the Indo-US agreement brought
India to a level that was close to Washington's
traditional allies in the region like Japan, South
Korea and the Philippines and he objected to the
fact that it was concluded "without any public
debate or discussion within the country".
The communists parties have stayed out of
the government because of the serious differences
they have with the Congress Party over economic
and foreign policies and made it clear that their
support was purely to contain fundamentalist
forces represented by the BJP and to maintain the
secular character of the country.
Tuesday's attack at Ayodhya resulted in
quick consultations among top communist leaders
who decided to patch up their differences with
Singh's government and prevent the BJP from
gaining any political mileage out of it.
"We will not, at any cost, allow the BJP
to bring the Ayodhya back on the political center
stage," said A B Bardhan, leader of the Communist
Party of India, the second largest communist party
after the CPI-M. Bardhan said it was also
important not to allow the incident to affect the
Indo-Pakistan peace initiative.
(Inter
Press Service) |
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