[IMC-Editorial] [India Thinkers Net] Making trouble but going nowhere.

[India Thinkers Net at Zinester.com]

The Hindu, Oct 16, 2003
Editorial

Making trouble but going nowhere

THE SHOCK FORCES OF THE Sangh Parivar,
spearheaded by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, have
nowhere to go in Ayodhya - having demolished the
Babri Masjid more than a decade ago but unable to
take forward the project of building a Ram temple
on the `disputed' site where the 16th century
mosque used to stand. This is the essential
difference between the militant Ramjanmabhoomi
campaigns of the early 1990s and today. The
temple building project has met with both legal
and political obstacles. The legal obstacle is
the `title' suit and related issues being heard
by the Allahabad High Court. In March 2003, the
Supreme Court, in a splendid demonstration of
judicial impartiality and commitment to the
secular values enshrined in the Constitution,
prohibited the Central Government from handing
the 67.703 acres of land claimed to be
"undisputed" to a trust or organisation for the
purpose of constructing a Ram temple. It ordered
that the "status quo" should be maintained until
the title suits were adjudicated by the Allahabad
High Court. The political obstacle is the breadth
and depth of opposition from political parties to
handing over the disputed site for the building
of a temple. Given the apex court's order and the
repeatedly expressed positions of most of the
parties that make up the National Democratic
Alliance, the Vajpayee Government is in no
position to aid the Ramjanmabhoomi campaign in
any material way.

Over the past several days, the Mulayam Singh-led
Government of Uttar Pradesh has made a firm,
quiet and well-coordinated effort to thwart the
VHP's threat of holding an unlawful meeting, the
`Sankalp Sammelan', in Ayodhya on October 17. The
mass arrest of Sangh Parivar (and Shiv Sena)
activists, the requisitioning of more than 100
companies of Central paramilitary forces with the
cooperation of the Vajpayee Government, the
sealing of routes to the twin towns of Faizabad
and Ayodhya by diverting trains and stopping bus
services - a variety of law enforcement measures
has been employed to stop potential violence and
trouble at the disputed site. In enforcing such
measures, the U.P. Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh
Yadav, is armed with a potent weapon: a court
order. Last week's direction by the special bench
of the Allahabad High Court is unambiguous: the
State Government must not allow the VHP to
conduct a religious programme at, or in the
vicinity of, the disputed site where the Babri
Masjid once stood. It is notable that in this
round the U.P. Chief Minister has gone out of his
way to signal that he is not in favour of any
confrontation.

The VHP has repeatedly declared that courts have
no competence to adjudicate `matters of faith'.
It is no longer a novelty for top VHP leaders to
shower the Prime Minister with some of their
choicest abuse and insults. They are on record
accusing Atal Bihari Vajpayee of "weakening the
country", of not having "any sentiments" for
Hindus, of being a deal-maker (for the sake of
power), a "pseudo-Hindu", an "anti-Hindu", and,
worst of all, a "secularist". Pravin Togadia,
international general secretary of the VHP, has
even warned publicly that the country "will be
plunged into communal riots" if Ram bhakts are
stopped from going to Ayodhya for a `darshan'.
Not surprisingly, the Vajpayee Government has
come under pressure from the Sangh Parivar, and
especially its `brain', the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh, to come to the aid of the VHP. The top RSS
leadership has asked the Government not to stop
or divert trains and not to do anything to
prevent VHP volunteers from reaching Ayodhya for
their "sankalp" programme. There has been some
back-pedalling by the Prime Minister, who has
suddenly advised that the VHP should be trusted
to act peacefully. With five Assembly polls a
little more than a month away and a general
election due next year, the BJP has a desperate
political need to keep the Parivar together to
counter the party's adversaries. In Uttar
Pradesh, the party's political stock has declined
to a level that alarms senior leaders. VHP
leaders make no secret of their assessment that
the BJP, as presently led, is headed for defeat
in the next general election - and for a
near-collapse in U.P. - for the simple reason
that it has gone `soft' and `effete' on Hindutva.
The "sankalp" programme might have put some
pressure on the polity, but its main achievement
thus far has been to spotlight the contradictions
and dilemmas faced by the NDA coalition
Government and its Prime Minister.

www.hinduonnet.com


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