Asia Times: BJP can benefit from climate of violence


	March 1, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

BJP can benefit from climate of violence
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - With Hindu-Muslim tensions at a high following the torching of a train in which 58 fundamentalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad members died in the Indian state of Gujarat on Wednesday, the only likely beneficiary will be the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP, which springs from the same Hindu revivalist movement as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP - the World Hindu Forum), has just been soundly beaten in four state elections, and it is desperately looking for cards to play - such as religion - ahead of national elections.

Analysts say that following the state election defeats, including a beating in key Uttar Pradesh (UP), the BJP leadership realizes that its survival will now depend to a large extent on votes from the VHP and its supporters, who are behind a mass campaign to construct a temple in Ayodhya town in northern UP where the 16th century Babri mosque once stood. This campaign is bitterly opposed by Muslims.

The mosque was torn down in 1992 by volunteers from the BJP, the VHP and affiliated pro-Hindu organizations wanting to build a temple to the Hindu warrior deity Rama on the site. At least 3,000 people were believed to have died in communal strife and rioting unleashed across the country in the wake of the demolition.

When the BJP finally came to power in 1998, leading a multi-party coalition, it was forced to shelve the temple-building campaign because of pressure from its secular regional allies in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA), whose support continues to be critical.

At a Tuesday night all-party discussion on the temple issue in parliament, several NDA members said that they were not satisfied with the government's assurances that a status quo at the site ordered by the courts would be maintained. They said that they wanted a halt to the VHP's plan to gather a million people at Ayodhya by March 15 - the deadline the organization has set for the temple-building to begin.

It is believed by some that the only way for the BJP to be able to support the temple builders - and ensure their votes - is by capitalizing on Hindu-Muslim riots, which create panic and serve to blunt the Muslim minority's opposition to the proposed temple.

Angry crowds went on the rampage in India on Thursday, destroying Muslim property in reprisals for the attack on the train in the town of Godhara. Police and witnesses said that hundreds of angry Hindus in Ahmedabad, the main city in Gujarat, took to the streets for a second successive day and set fire to Muslim property there and looted shops.

Fifty-one suspects have been arrested following the train fire, government officials said on Thursday. Those arrested are being held on charges of arson, rioting and looting. The state's Home Minister, Gobhardan Jhorapia, implied that those arrested were all Muslims.

Although the region has a history of sectarian unrest, there are those who claim that the present outbreak of violence is not coincidental to the BJP's defeat in state elections and the March 15 deadline over Ayodhya.

Talking to Asia Times Online by telephone, sources in Godhara explained that the majority of the town's people are Muslims who speak the local Gujarati language. The minority are Hindus descended from families who settled in Godhara from Sindh (now a Pakistani province) after the partition of British India in 1947. These Hindus speak Sindhi.

The train carrying the VHP activists was returning from Ayodhya, where they had attended a religious gathering at the site of the demolished mosque. According to sources, a large crowd of local Hindus had gathered at the town's railway station to welcome the VHP group. They began to chant slogans such as "Descendants of Baber leave India" and "Ram Mander Ban Kar Rahey Ga" (The temple will be constructed at all costs).

This enraged Muslim tea sellers on the platforms, and they grouped to return chants in praise of Allah. Then it was the turn of the Hindus to become belligerent, and the sources say that they set upon the tea sellers, with at least four of them reported stabbed.

At the height of this scuffle, the train suddenly burst into flames. Witnesses said that no Muslim groups other than the tea sellers were present - and they were under attack from the Hindu activists. This has fueled speculation that other forces might have been in play.

In the current situation the only beneficiary of the riots will be the BJP. Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is in a deep fix over the mosque issue. If he blocks the building of the temple, he risks losing key support - crucial now in the light of the drubbing that the BJP took in the state elections.

With the diversion of communal riots, the Hindu extremists might be able to force construction to go ahead.

Vajpayee has declared that the issue cannot be solved by confrontation, but rather through peaceful discussion with religious leaders or through the courts. "Peace and law and order must be maintained at all costs," he has warned. "I appeal to the VHP to stop their campaign and cooperate with the government in establishing peace and brotherhood in the country," Vajpayee said after Tuesday's meeting on the issue.

But VHP leader Acharya Giriraj Kishore has rejected the calls for peace and said that there would be no going back on the plan to begin construction on March 15.

VHP leaders have said that matters of faith could not be decided by the courts, only through might. This is the path that events appear to be taking now.

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