Hindus Likely To Profit From Split

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday May 29, 1991

By LOUISE WILLIAMS HERALD CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI, Wednesday: Campaigning resumes in India's national elections today, with the fundamentalist Hindu movement poised to profit from the chaos in Mr Rajiv Gandhi's Congress (I) party.

With its flashy neon signs, bigoted car bumper stickers and emotional electoral platform, the Hindu revivalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trumpeting proudly what has always been considered political heresy in multicultural India - the right of the Hindu majority to assert itself over other ethnic and religious minorities.

Even more remarkably, a common assessment here says that the BJP's appeal to community prejudice and widespread disillusionment with India's corrupt and ineffectual political system could hand control of the next parliament to a party which plans to dismantle the founding principles of the modern Indian State.

Under a BJP-controlled government, India would become a "Hindu nation", and all special privileges for disadvantaged minorities would be suspended on the dubious grounds that "majorities have rights, too".

The 110 million Muslims who remained in India following partition and the creation of Pakistan in 1947 were promised protection from communal violence by India's founding Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

The Muslims, among India's poorest and most volatile communities, now face the rise of Hindu power with a mixture of fear and defiance. The young men who linger in the narrow lanes of Delhi's crowded old city say they will fight. Other families are said to be planning to flee.

The BJP leader, Mr L.K. Advani, presents himself as a most reasonable man. He admits, however, to having resorted to "political gimmickry" when he rode a decorated chariot through India's north last year to lead a procession of extremists bent on constructing a Hindu temple on the site of an existing Muslim mosque at Ayodhya.

He denies having actually dressed up as Lord Rama for the occasion, or that the "warriors" who surrounded his chariot were hired movie extras. In his wake the national Government collapsed in Delhi and hundreds died in Hindu-Muslim riots.

What's wrong with India, he says, is that "the majority (Hindu) has come to believe there is a premium on being from a minority. What we are saying is everyone is equal".

In the name of equality, the BJP is planning to dismantle institutions such as the Minorities Commission and to subject all Indians to a uniform civil code. In practical terms this means that Muslims would be denied access to Islamic law.

"India's culture is one, and its culture is primarily Hindu. India is essentially a Hindu country, that is a fact but that fact is supposed to be political heresy," says Mr Advani.

Mr Advani is due to re-launch his campaign for the next round of national elections, planned for June 12 and 15, which were postponed following the assassination of Mr Gandhi, using the slogan of the Congress party -"stability".

"Earlier we emphasised Gandhi's failures. Now there will be no personal attacks because someone is dead and the family will have the sympathy of the whole country," he said.

"But Congress has failed to find a focus, and its leaders are making fools of themselves, so we think we will benefit from that."

The BJP also expects to gain support from voters who are simply tired of the bickering and splits in the Congress party, and disappointed over the failure of two coalition governments in two years to do much to alleviate India's economic crisis.