THE death toll in the communal riots following the Godhra train attack continued to rise even on the third day. The reaction to Wednesday’s incident has left close to 300 people, mostly Muslims, dead and caused damage to property worth millions of dollars. Mosques have been attacked by Hindu mobs not just in Gujarat but in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. It goes without saying that the loss of life and property is deeply regrettable and unfortunate, but what is perhaps equally distressing is the inaction on the part of the police, security forces and senior functionaries of the Gujarat government to deal with the situation. Credible reports suggest that the BJP-controlled state government took inordinately long in deploying the army in the most sensitive areas well after the killing had begun. In fact, this lapse on the part of the authorities has been so serious and conspicuous that India’s human rights watchdog — the National Human Rights Commission — has asked the state government to submit a report on the steps it had taken to control the violence and what it was doing to prevent further escalation. Unfortunately, the presence of even the Indian army did not deter the mobs from pillaging whole neighbourhoods, laying siege to homes and then lynching and burning the Muslims inside.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told his country on Saturday he was “confident all secular-minded people” would “observe peace and help the government in maintaining communal harmony”. However, that seems easier said than done. For one, the appeal comes from the head of a government controlled by a party whose ideology is grounded in Hindutva, the Hindu way of life. And, who exactly are these “secular-minded” people the prime minister is addressing? Some even in Mr Vajpayee’s inner cabinet cannot be called secular. The most obvious example is that of Interior Minister L. K. Advani, whose involvement in the Ayodhya issue has been so communal and provocative that he would be the last person one would expect to act impartially in the present frenzy of violence. Mr Advani is on record as having said in 1992 that regardless of the Supreme Court’s verdict, a Hindu temple would be built in Ayodhya. A few months later, thousands of Hindu activists, among them many from the BJP, descended on the town and destroyed the mosque.

The blame for the widespread violence lies also on the rabidly anti-Muslim Vishwa Hindu Parishad, whose senior vice president Acharya Giriraj Kishore described the massacres in Gujarat as a “little violent reaction” and who held the “Muslim psyche” responsible for whatever happened after Godhra. Another VHP hard-liner, Sharma Prem, said Muslims were “being paid back in the same coin”. Now, since the BJP is closely aligned with the VHP, it is quite likely that Mr Vajpayee’s well-intentioned appeal will fall on deaf ears. It is time parties like the BJP, which has risen to power by exploiting religion, did some soul searching and acted swiftly to stop blood-letting instead of paying lip service to secularism. A good step forward could be a settlement of the Ayodhya dispute in a manner that addresses the concerns of the Muslim minority.