INDIA: Arrest of Hindu Leader Defuses Temple Row – for Now

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Oct 17 2003 (IPS) - The arrests of thousands of supporters of a pro-Hindu group and its leader on Friday have temporarily defused a confrontation building up at the temple town of Ayodhya, but may have stoked up the political temperatures ahead of crucial state elections in India later this year.

News reports from Lucknow, capital of India’s largest state of Uttar Pradesh where Ayodhya is situated, said police carried out mass arrests of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Forum leaders to prevent them from converging on the town.

There, 10 years ago, supporters of the VHP tore down the 16th century Babri Masjid mosque, claiming that it had been built by invading Muslim conquerors over an older temple.

When there were signs of unruliness, police resorted to a cane charge and lobbed teargas shells to disperse VHP supporters who had managed to reach the site where the mosque stood.

VHP leader Ashoke Singhal, who managed to slip through the tight cordon thrown around Ayodhya by the professedly secular Samajwadi (socialist) Party government in the state, was arrested. But that was after he pledged before television cameras that a temple dedicated to the Hindu warrior deity Rama would be rebuilt at the site.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yadav was careful not to repeat the mistake he made in 1990, when he ordered police to fire on supporters of the VHP and the then relatively insignificant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) when they made an attempt to demolish the Babri mosque.

That attempt to save the structure brought on a Hindu backlash, which resulted in Yadav and his Samajwadi Party having to stay out of power in Uttar Pradesh through the 90s and, more importantly, the rise of the BJP to national power riding a massive pro-Hindu political wave.

But the BJP, which is supported by secular-minded regional parties from other parts of the country, has failed to make good on a pledge to help build a grand temple to Ram at the site where the Babri Masjid stood, partly because its ownership is under legal dispute.

The failure to build the temple has led to a serious rift between the VHP and the BJP. There have been frequent calls of late for the resignation of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is generally regarded as moderate. In the past, he has expressed regret at the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

”The repression of Ram Bhakts (devotees of Ram) and their arrests cannot have been carried out except with the support of Vajpayee and the BJP leadership,” said Surendra Jain, a senior leader of the VHP.

But Yadav had genuine reasons to order the mass arrests after Praveen Togadia, another senior leader of the VHP, had threatened ‘national-level’ violence if they were prevented from congregating at Ayodhya on Friday.

”We will hold Vajpayee and Yadav responsible if the country plunges into national level violence because they were denied entry into Ayodhya,” Togadia warned earlier in the week.

Togadia wanted Vajpayee to decide whether he was standing by ”the devotees of Ram or Mulayam Singh Yadav because the people of the country will not tolerate double standards”.

Yadav’s strategy was simple. He allowed devotees to be ferried in buses to the disputed site in batches so that they could offer prayers, but not build up large enough numbers to create trouble or begin construction of the temple as many had sworn to do.

Support for the tough chief minister was apparent in the fact that the BJP government in New Delhi had provided him large contingents of paramilitary troops that were deployed around the disputed site.

Significantly, Singhal has called for a withdrawal of the central troops and a stop to their use to ”support the forces of ‘jihad’ ”.

Yadav ordered the release of all VHP supporters late Friday, but Singhal has called for a nationwide general strike to protest ”police brutality”. This sends out a signal that the temple issue would figure in the coming elections as it has done over the past 15 years.

The states of Delhi that houses the national capital, western Rajasthan, central Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, all of which are ruled by the BJP’s arch rival, the Congress party, are due to elect new assemblies on Dec. 1. The outcome could affect the future of the BJP in general elections scheduled for September 2004.

A fifth state, Mizoram in India’s remote north-east, will go to polls earlier on Nov. 20. It is also ruled by the Congress party, which hopes to return to national power after being in the political wilderness since it lost elections in 1996. It lost mainly due to the BJP’s pro-Hindu campaign, which centred around its plan to dedicate a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya.

Leaders of the Congress party, which led India to independence in 1947 and ruled for most of the years afterwards, have charged the BJP with being a single-agenda party because of the focus on building a temple in Ayodhya.

”What have they to offer the people but the Ram temple when serious issues of governance are being neglected?” Congress spokesman Jaipal Reddy demanded to know.

Officially, the BJP has expressed displeasure at the arrests of Singhal and the VHP supporters. ”We don’t approve of this kind of action on peaceful Ram bhakts,” BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar told reporters at a press conference here.

But Javadekar had no comment to make on the provision of central government troops to the Uttar Pradesh state government, or to the call for their withdrawal from Ayodhya by Singhal.