NEW DELHI: After the deputy speaker of India’s lawmaking lower house said on Tuesday that the future of violence-torn, Gujarat be discussed in Parliament and voted upon this month, the ruling pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has begun to run out of places to hide.

Parliament has been stalled for more than a week as the BJP refused to allow meaningful discussion on an anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat and the role of its chief minister Narendra Modi, as demanded not only by opposition parties but also several of its own allies.

The party, led by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has been arguing that what happened in the state was an internal matter of the party.

But Deputy Speaker P M Sayeed was emphatic that the “Gujarat situation cannot be construed as an ordinary law and order matter which is the concern only of the state government” and announced a vote on April 30.

Vajpayee’s immediate concern now is to save himself and the BJP embarrassment when the issue of Gujarat’s future is discussed and voted upon.

Already, many of the BJP’s powerful regional allies have decided to set aside their differences with the opposition Congress party and vote in favour of a secular future for the country — rather than a pro-Hindu one that the BJP has sworn to work for.

If the BJP is defeated in the voting, it would not be unseated from power at the central level.

But it could force Vajpayee to sack Modi, which is the minimum demand not only of the Congress party but such BJP major allies as the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), which rules Andhra Pradesh.

A BJP defeat would also set a precedent of provinces and regional parties coming forward to defend international accepted human rights norms and principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution, against a government at the centre.

Indeed, Sayeed’s ruling has brought additional pressure to bear on the BJP, whose openly partisan handling of the communal violence in Gujarat has come under flak not only from political parties and civil society within the country but also internationally.

On Monday, India’s foreign ministry lodged a strong protest with Finland over remarks made by Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja in an interview with the widely circulated ‘Indian Express’ newspaper.

“What happened in Gujarat is of great concern to us. It was mentioned in the Luxembourg meeting of the European Union (EU). The pictures of the carnage are very disturbing,” Tuomioja was quoted as saying.

A European Union fact-finding mission, according to the ‘Indian Express’ newspaper, recorded that the “carnage in Gujarat was a kind of apartheid” and also drew parallels between what was happening there and Germany in 1930s.

The ‘Indian Express’, which claimed to have access to the EU declaration that has not been officially released, said that Modi had instructed senior officials not to intervene in the rioting and members of his Cabinet had taken active part in the violence.

According to the independent paper, the EU declaration viewed the violence as having been led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Forum and other Hindu extremist groups.

It also saw the complicity of the Gujarat government in its failure to control the violence and the apparent purging of Muslims from Hindu areas.

While a defensive foreign ministry deplored the use of Indian media by foreign diplomats in no uncertain terms, there is a clear sense that the events in Gujarat have dented India’s carefully cultivated image of a secular and responsible country.

Vajpayee undid the sympathy he expressed for the more than 100,000 people who have been reduced to living in makeshift camps in Gujarat.

At a BJP party conclave, he laid blame on the Muslim community for “lighting the conflagration,” referring to the firebombing of a train carrying Hindu devotees near Godhra railway station.

Such remarks have drawn flak in the international press. The ‘Financial Express’ of London said in an editorial on April 16 that Vajpayee’s utterances “threatened to shred the vision of a tolerant and multi-cultural society articulated by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru”. —Dawn/InterPress Service.