Hindu saints come marching in

By Mark Tully

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- In India Hindu holy men and their supporters have completed a march from Ayodhya to Delhi to press their demand that a temple be built on the site of a mosque pulled down in 1992.

They claim that the Ayodhya site is the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama.

The march was timed to coincide with the start of campaigning in elections for the State Assembly of Uttar Pradesh which could prove crucial to the survival of the central government.

There are fears that the campaign to revive the Ayodhya issue could lead to a dangerous clash between the government and the Hindu holy men, known as saints.

When the mosque in Ayodhya was pulled down an Indian journalist said to me, "they have killed the chicken which lays the golden egg," arguing that replacing the mosque -- a powerful symbol of hatred -- with a temple was not such an emotive issue.

On the day the mosque was pulled down I well remember hearing speaker after speaker describe it as "a symbol of Hindu slavery," and the slogans were full of hatred for Muslims.

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The current slogan, "we will build a temple there" certainly doesn't seem to have the same pull. When the saints came marching into Delhi they didn't attract the attention they used to during the height of the campaign to pull down the mosque.

So why has the campaign to build the temple been revived at this time?

There are two possible explanations, both centering on the election to the State Assembly of Uttar Pradesh in three weeks time.

Ayodhya is in Uttar Pradesh, and it is possible that the leaders of the Ram Temple campaign marched to Delhi hoping to force Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's hand by demanding a firm commitment this time.

If so they were disappointed. When the saints met Vajpayee, he merely promised to review the legal dispute about the land, a case which has dragged on now for nearly ten years and shows no sign of resolution.

It's more likely that the leaders of the temple campaign and Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strategists planned the revival of the Ayodhya issue together.

With State Assembly elections in India tending to go against the incumbents, the BJP needs issues to take the electorate's attention off the lackluster record of its government in Uttar Pradesh.

The government certainly hopes that its current bellicose attitude to Islamic Pakistan, its preparations for war, will detract attention from local issues.

Anti-Muslim subtext

There is an anti-Muslim subtext to that message which Ayodhya would reinforce, and the BJP is the only party in the fray which has consistently supported the Rama temple campaign even though it has so far accepted the legal constraints on building it.

If my journalist friend is right, Ayodhya will only be an issue which attracts support from hardcore supporters of the BJP's Hindu ideology. History also suggests that this will be so.

The BJP and its predecessor have always had to face the dilemma of needing religious issues to hold their hardcore together but finding that those issues do not attract the wider support needed to come to power in the center or any state.

The saints at the Delhi rally complained that they had brought Vajpayee to power with the Ayodhya issue but he was ignoring his commitment to them.

Whether they are right to say that it was Ayodhya which brought Vajpayee to power or not, he can't meet their demand because he didn't win enough seats to form a government on his own and his coalition partners won't allow him to build the temple.

Even in Uttar Pradesh itself the Ayodhya issue was not enough of a vote-winner to give the BJP anywhere near an absolute majority. There too they have been heading a coalition.

Surface issue

But it would be dangerous for Vajpayee and the BJP to assume that because the Ayodhya issue only commands limited support the saints and their temple are mere froth on the surface of Indian politics which can be blown into a big bubble when required and will then subside peacefully.

The BJP maintains that it didn't want the mosque pulled down without legal sanction. But it created the fervor which led to its illegal destruction and to the riots which wracked India afterwards.

It also undermined the sense of security felt by Muslims by putting in place blatantly partisan riot police, and spotlighted the tarnishing of India's international reputation as a country which respects all religions and allows freedom of belief and worship.

It may be that Ayodhya is not as hot an issue as it was when the mosque was standing, but so long as the saints are encouraged to believe that the BJP depends on them they may yet decide to carry out their threat to assemble in Ayodhya again and start constructing the temple.

If they do, the consequences for India's secularism, and for harmony between its different religions, will be grave whether the government uses force to stop the saints or allows them to go ahead.