March 18, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 14, 1424

NEW DELHI: The fight to win India’s national elections has started, with ruling Hindu nationalists and the secular opposition party staking out campaign grounds well ahead of the poll due by 2004.

And excavations underway in search of a lost Hindu temple in the northern town of Ayodhya have given the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a perfect opportunity to decide how hard to play up religion in the elections.

India’s Hindu-Muslim divide has long been exploited to win votes — the BJP was accused of using religious riots in western Gujarat state last year to rally the Hindu majority against minority Muslims and win a state election.

But ahead of state elections in November and a national poll in 2004, the BJP has yet to decide how much to bank on Hindu revivalism as a vote-winner and so far is blending its religious message with a promise of economic growth above six per cent.

“I think they are smart enough to see that another Gujarat would be counter-productive,” says political analyst Yogendra Yadav. “They will try to calibrate it much more carefully.”

Ayodhya, revered by Hindus as the birthplace of the god-king Ram, has always been central to the politics of the BJP, which is led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The BJP rose to national prominence in the 1980s demanding a 16th century mosque be moved to make way for a new Hindu temple, replacing one it says was demolished by Moghul invaders.

The mosque was razed by Hindu zealots in 1992, triggering nationwide riots, and the dispute then handed over to the courts, which have now ordered the Ayodhya excavations.

About 3,000 people died in the violence that followed, including about 1,000 in the financial capital Mumbai.

For the Hindu right-wing, driven by resentment of the Moghul invaders and Christian British imperial rulers who followed, the excavations are just the start of a revived agenda of cultural renaissance, known as Hindutva, literally meaning Hinduism.

Not only would hardliners build a new temple in Ayodhya, but they would also like to “liberate” other sites where they say mosques were built over temples, notably in the northern holy town of Varanasi and in Mathura, south of New Delhi.

Their agenda, which opponents slam as a threat to India’s secular traditions, terrifies minority Muslims, who make up 12 per cent of the one billion population.

The opposition Congress party also accuses the BJP of using religion to distract attention from real issues of poverty and governance.

BJP WARY OF BECOMING TOO HARDLINE: But as the dominant party in government, the Bharatiya Janata Party has played down Hindutva to win support from secular coalition allies.

And in a country where Hindutva is far more popular in the north than the more tolerant south, the BJP is seen as unlikely to win a majority in the 545-seat parliament based purely on Hindu revivalism. The BJP now holds 183 seats, and Congress 111.

“I don’t think Hindutva will have a big impact in the south,” said M.S. Sathyu, a southerner known for his films on communal violence. “We have been a much more united people.”

So to win a national poll, the Bharatiya Janata Party would have to play its Hindu card in the north and hide it in the south — surprisingly easy in a country where elections are still fought on the hustings often in remote areas where television cannot reach.

Vajpayee is seen by many as a master chameleon, capable of giving a rabble-rousing pro-Hindu speech in one place and talking up economic policies in another.

And while the Hindu right-wing would like to see a wave of Hindu revivalism sweep India that would keep the BJP in power, Vajpayee’s party also has to contend with decentralization over the past decade which makes nationwide sentiment harder to manipulate.

“In the 1990s we have seen an effective regionalization of our polity,” said Yadav.

In any case, the four states due to hold polls in November — Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Delhi — are all controlled by Congress governments, which are expected to stamp out the first hint of Hindu-Muslim violence.

“Gujarat was very, very different, because in Gujarat they were ruling,” said Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi.

“They engineered the riots,” he added.

Gujarat’s BJP Chief Minister Narendra Modi denied complicity in the riots that swept his state early last year, but won state elections on the back of an unabashed hardline Hindu campaign.—Reuters