POLITICS-INDIA: Mosque Demolition Issue Strains Ruling Coalition

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Dec 15 2000 (IPS) - While regional allies bailed three key members of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cabinet out of a censure motion in Parliament for their implication in the 1992 demolition of a medieval mosque, it has strained the multi-party ruling coalition to its limits.

The censure motion asking for the resignations of home minister Lal Krishan Advani, Human Resources Development minister Murli Manohar Joshi and Sport Minister Uma Bharti was defeated easily enough on Thursday evening with 291 votes for the government, 179 against and 14 abstentions.

Winding up two days of debates preceding the voting, Vajpayee put up a stout defence of his “comrades” saying he would stand by them until they were actually convicted by the courts where a case against the three is pending.

Till then he would not accept their resignations as demanded by the Congress and other parties in the Opposition, he said.

The three were cited by a central investigating agency for their role in events leading to the razing of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya town in northern Uttar Pradesh state by Hindu fanatics.

While the demolition triggered off nation-wide rioting in which thousands, mostly from the minority Muslim community, lost their lives and property, it seemed to enhance the popularity of Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which subsequently came to power.

Last week, around the Dec 6 anniversary of the demolition, Vajpayee, regarded as the moderate face of the BJP, defended the campaign led by his party to raze the mosque and build a temple on its site as an “expression of national sentiment.”

That statement did not go down well with key allies such as the Trinamul Congress, which hopes to come to power in West Bengal state and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) which rules southern Andhra Pradesh state and supports the ruling coalition from the outside.

Both the Trinamul Congress and the TDP reminded Vajpayee that their support for the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was extended on the express condition that the issue of building a temple on the site of the demolished mosque would be eschewed by the BJP which leads the coalition.

On Monday the NDA convened a meeting to declare that “the status quo (at Ayodhya) must be maintained until the Supreme Court delivers its verdict” and in a pointed reference to the BJP’s attempt to revive the temple agenda insisted that this must be accepted by “all parties to the dispute”.

Other issues that the BJP had to give up on the insistence of its partners were the abrogations of an Article in the Constitution granting special status to Muslim-majority, northern Kashmir state and a uniform personal law for people of all religious denominations.

Vajpayee’s statement paralysed normal Parliamentary functioning for eight days during which period 600,000 postal employees were on strike demanding better job conditions and pay. The strike moves into its ninth day Friday.

A conservative Hindu newspaper commented in an editorial that Vajpayee was “guilty of more than just displeasing his allies or making statements which are not in consonance with the NDA programme”.

“More shocking is the sheer insensitivity of endorsing the Ayodhya agitation on the anniversary of the destruction of the Babri Masjid – an act of political vandalism which inflicted a deep and still festering emotional wound on the nation,” the editorial said.

The Congress party’s Jaipal Reddy who initiated the censure motion said the BJP and other Hindu fundamentalist organisations were using the NDA to “fulfil their fundamentalist agenda in instalments.”

Vajpayee did not satisfactorily respond to demands by Trinamul Congress member in Parliament that he make a commitment in the House that the BJP would not pursue its agenda of building a temple on the site where the Babri Masjid had once stood.

Instead, the Prime Minister called for a “consensus” by the Hindu and Muslim communities in favour of building the temple on the site.

Vajpayee denied the charge made by Oppositon members that the BJP was reviving the temple issue at this juncture with an eye to state assembly elections due in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, early next year.

Early last year, Vajpayee grandiosely called for a national debate on the subject of conversions to Christianity at a time when the community expected him to condemn a series of attacks on its institutions in the western Gujarat state which is ruled by the BJP.

In April this year, the international rights group Amnesty International accused the BJP-led government, in a document, of failing to clearly denounce acts of violence against members of religious minorities and making public statements which may have incited violence against them.

The Amnesty document said social action groups and non- government organisations (NGOs) have been subjected to harassment and attacks on the basis of their Christian and Muslim association.

“The rhetoric of national security of the present government which has been overtly linked to the Hindu religion by such groups, has led to the increased labelling of non-Hindu human rights activity as anti-national,” Amnesty said in its document.

Meanwhile, attacks on the Christian community have been continuing in Gujarat. Last week, 80 Christian families were reported to have been turned away from Chhindia village in the southern part of the state by Hindu fanatics and their church converted into a temple.

After Bishop Ezra Sirgunam, national president of the Evangelist Church of India protested against the Gujarat government’s indifference to the incident, he was told to leave the state for “fuelling communal tension between Hindus and Christians”.