Asia Times: Vajpayee hides behind militant smokescreen


	March 13, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Vajpayee hides behind militant smokescreen
By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - Barely three days ahead of its proposed puja (a Hindu worship ritual) near a disputed site at Ayodhya, the various wings of the Sangh Parivar (the family of militant Hindu organizations) are speaking in discordant voices.

But the question is, are the contradictory signals emanating from the Sangh Parivar part of its strategy to confuse and lull into complacency those opposed to its plan? Or are sections within it seeing sense in moderation and looking for a face-saving exit?

On Sunday, following the rejection by the Muslim Personal Law Board (MPLB) of the compromise formula worked out last week, the hard-line Hindu organization, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP - World Hindu Forum), went on the offensive. The VHP had shown scant regard for the compromise formula even before the MPLB rejected it.

Declaring that the VHP would press ahead with its plans, its general secretary, Praveen Togadia, said, "The VHP has never withdrawn any of its announced programs ... The shila [carved stone] puja will be held at the pre-determined place at exactly 2:15pm on March 15."

He also issued a veiled warning of a communal backlash. "If Muslims come in the way of a temple being constructed on the undisputed, acquired land in Ayodhya, they are playing with the feeling of Hindus," Togadia said. A "Hindu movement" would be launched in which "crores [tens of millions] of people will participate", he said, warning that the agitation "would turn every Indian village, district and town into an Ayodhya".

The VHP has been threatening to hold a puja near the disputed site at Ayodhya on March 15. In a bid to defuse the tension, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has been trying to get the VHP to defer the puja on land adjacent to the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Masjid site.

The disputed site is the land in Ayodhya on which the 16th century mosque, the Babri Masjid, stood until December 6, 1992, when Sangh Parivar activists tore it down. Many Hindus believe that this site is the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Ram, and that a temple existed there before Muslims destroyed it to build a mosque.

Following the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the government acquired the adjacent land. This area, the court has conceded, is not disputed.

The current controversy concerns this undisputed "acquired land". While ownership of the "acquired land" is not in dispute, whether the VHP or any other organization can build or perform even a symbolic puja there before the court gives its verdict on the disputed land, is contested.

The compromise formula worked out last week is in tatters. While the VHP kept confirming, then denying its willingness to abide by the court's verdict on the dispute - the key gain for Muslims in the formula - the MPLB subsequently rejected the formula as "incomplete and inchoate".

The disputed site has been before the courts for decades. This week, the government lobbed the undisputed "acquired land", too, to the Supreme Court. The verdict on whether the VHP and others can perform a puja at the undisputed site is to be given on Wednesday (March 13).

Clearly, having mounted the Hindu hard-line/fundamentalist tiger, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is having a hard time dismounting. He is looking to the judiciary to ease his way out of a sticky situation. If the court decides that it is illegal to allow the VHP to perform puja on the "acquired land", Vajpayee will have to persuade it to back off. If he fails to do so, he will have to crack down on any attempt by the activists to defy the verdict. If he does not, his government could collapse.

Most of the BJP's allies in the coalition government have stated that they expect the prime minister to impose the verdict on the VHP.

So far, while the BJP ministers have been saying that they will stand by the court verdict and are taking some steps - such as restricting the free entry of activists into Ayodhya and beefing up security forces in the town - they have displayed some ambiguity too, simultaneously.

For instance, reports indicate that entering Ayodhya is not too difficult as many of the curbs have been lifted. "This has raised fears that the BJP might not clamp down effectively on its sister organizations should they defy the law on March 15," says Nasser, a member of the Communist Party of India (CPI). "After all, is it not a fact that while the BJP government has banned Muslim extremist organizations like the Students Islamic Movement of India [SIMI] it has turned a blind eye to the extremism of the VHP and the Bajrang Dal?" he asks.

Meanwhile, the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas (RJN) (the trust representing the Hindu claims in the dispute) has virtually dropped plans for a bhoomi puja (a ritual before construction work) on the acquired land on March 15. Its chairman, Paramhans, has said that he will only donate the consecrated pillars of the planned temple to the divisional commissioner, that is, move the pillars from the workshop, where they were being carved and kept, to the site.

Has the RJN toned down its rhetoric and scaled down the plans for Friday in a bid for a face-saving exit? Is it distancing itself from the VHP's defiant and confrontationist posture? What is one to make of the conflicting plans being announced by the various Sangh Parivar organizations for March 15?

There is a real possibility that the discordant voices and the creation of confusion by the Sangh Parivar outfits is part of its strategy to push ahead the temple plan. By painting an unclear picture of what is going to unfold on March 15, the constituents of the Sangh Parivar hope to keep administration officials guessing as to what to expect and how to act. "Confusion helps in concealing the strategy," admits Paramhans.

Indeed, as Subodh Ghildiyal points out in an Ayodhya datelined report in the Deccan Herald, "confusion is a deadly weapon in the hands of the VHP. And its aplenty in the temple town of Ayodhya."

Several Sangh Parivar watchers are of the opinion that while the various wings of the Sangh Parivar often criticize each other and give an impression of a divided family, the fissures are not that serious and there is little difference in their ideology or aims.

The VHP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) (the organization that provides the Parivar with its ideological content) might snipe at the BJP, accusing it of not doing enough in government to implement the Sangh Parivar's goals. But the reality is that at the ground level members of one wing are members of other wings too. Vajpayee, for instance, as the BJP leader, might seem the "moderate face of the Parivar" but he is also a member of the extremist RSS.

Discordant voices represent no real differences; it is a useful ploy, observers say. In the current context, for instance, it might seem that the VHP and the Nyas are working to further the temple agenda even if it should dislodge the Vajpayee government. But, say analysts, the hardliners' attack on Vajpayee for appeasing minorities is part of the strategy to underscore the prime minister's secular credentials to keep his secular allies in the ruling coalition happy and the government intact.

Vajpayee is increasingly seen as a moderate and helpless before the VHP zealots. The question is whether his secular allies will buy that argument should the VHP, defying a possible restraining court order, go ahead with its puja plan on Friday, while a "helpless" prime minister wrings his hands in public.

So far, Vajpayee's gamble of running with the Hindutva (a militant Hindu majoritarian ideology) hares and hunting with his secular-ally hounds has paid off. His fragile government has survived several problems.

But will he pass the test on March 15 too? That would require keeping both the hares and the hounds happy.

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