POLITICS-INDIA: Sectarian Strife Feared after Mumbai Blasts

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Aug 26 2003 (IPS) - After 45 persons died in two car-bomb blasts that rocked western Mumbai city, India’s ‘financial capital’, on Monday, authorities moved to contain possible sectarian strife that have, in the past, followed similar attacks.

It was unclear who was behind the blasts. Neighbouring Pakistan, which has often blamed for such acts of violence in India but with which ties have lately been on the mend, quickly condemned them 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 decolonisation 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 mosque 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 Prime Minister Atal Bihari 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 sparked 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 organisations 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 favoured 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 favourable 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.