From: bond@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca (Girish)
Subject: The disputed site to be opened for Hindu worship
Keywords: Ayodhya, BJP
Organization: University of New Brunswick
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 23:37:52 GMT


      The government has  decided  to  acquire  the  disputed  site  in
      Ayodhya,  maintain status quo as regards the makeshift temple and
      refer the conflict to the Supreme Court.

      In a significant move, authorities said Sunday they were  prepar-
      ing to open to Hindu worship a temple constructed on the disputed
      site, the Press Trust of India reported.

      The news agency quoted officials in Uttar Pradesh, India's  larg-
      est  state,  as saying the shrine would be opened within the next
      few days after more troops had been deployed and steel barricades
      erected to regulate the flow of pilgrims.

      Rao's government gave a new twist to the old settlement  move  by
      decreeing  its  ownership  over  a  large  area  adjacent  to the
      disputed Ayodhya site but pledging to build a temple  and  mosque
      slightly away from the actual locale of contention.

      Earlier, Hindu religious and political leaders  launched  a  cam-
      paign Saturday to demand that the Ram Janma Bhoomi site be opened
      to Hindu worship. More than 4,000 Hindu holy men volunteered  for
      arrest  in  Ayodhya as part of this campaign to force the govern-
      ment to open the shrine to worship.

      "Today's development was only a symbolic event. If the government
      does  not allow us to worship at the Rama temple, it will witness
      a mass Hindu uprising," warned a Hindu guru, Paramhans  Ramachan-
      dra Das.

      The movement leaders said hundreds of holy men  and  other  Hindu
      activists  would  seek  arrest  daily by defying curfew orders at
      Ayodhya.

      Teachers, lawyers and traders in Ayodhya began indefinite strikes
      Saturday in support of the movement.

      Muslim groups, meanwhile, said only Muslims had the right to wor-
      ship   there  because  the  mosque  was  razed  unlawfully.  They
      threatened a protest movement if the government succumbed to  the
      Hindu demand.

      Meanwhile, in a front page article in the Indian Express,  L.  K.
      Advani  wrote that BJP believes in a secular political system and
      does not advocate the establishment of a theocratic state.

      The widely respected opposition leader said the  BJP  would  con-
      tinue to campaign against "pseudo-secularism".

      "Indian nationalism is rooted, as was  India's  freedom  struggle
      against  colonialism,  in  a  Hindu ethos," Advani wrote. "Unfor-
      tunately, for four decades now, in the name of secularism,  poli-
      ticians have been wanting the nation to disown its essential per-
      sonality."

      "Through the Ram Janma Bhoomi movement, the BJP  has  intensified
      its ongoing crusade against the politics of minorityism, which we
      believe is gravely undermining the  fabric  of  national  unity,"
      Advani said.

      Advani said the recent events have boosted the  BJP's  popularity
      and  the  party  favored  the holding of fresh national and state
      elections. But the Congress party, the Communists and other oppo-
      sition  groups were "frantically exerting themselves to ensure no
      elections are held for at least a year," Advani wrote.

      Meanwhile, in a resolution adopted by the BJP's  national  execu-
      tive,  the  party urged India's 110 million Muslims not to regard
      it as anti- Muslim  because  of  its  support  for  a  temple  at
      Ayodhya.

      "What has happened is the reaction to a  grave  historical  wrong
      and  the  idea  is  not  to hurt the sentiments of anyone. Indian
      Muslims should not  identify  themselves  with  the  excesses  of
      (Mogul)  invaders  just  because they happened to be Muslim," the
      resolution said.

      Earlier...

      India's top constitutional  lawyers  and  independent  newspapers
      strongly  criticized  Rao's  use  of  draconian powers to disband
      opposition-led state governments and impose direct federal rule.

      Rao acted by invoking the  constitution's  controversial  Article
      356.   The  article empowers federal authorities to impose direct
      rule if a situation arises that makes it difficult for a  govern-
      ment of a state to fulfill its duties under the provisions of the
      Indian Constitution.

      "Repeated onslaughts on the federal fabric of our constitution by
      the  misuse  of  Article  356 has desensitized us to the value of
      federalism which obviously means little to us," said Soli  Sorab-
      jee, a former solicitor general of India.

      Another top attorney, Ram Jethmalani, a national lawmaker, called
      Rao's  disbanding of state governments "a shameless demolition of
      democracy."

      The Indian Express, the country's largest  chain  of  newspapers,
      said  the  dismissals  left  nearly half the country's population
      without democratically elected state governments.

      "This constitutes a  travesty  of  democracy  and  constitutional
      government and, going by past experience, has a built-in tendency
      toward gross abuse of power," the  independent  paper  editorial-
      ized.

      There also is national  concern  over  the  government's  use  of
      sweeping laws to jail members of banned organizations.

      Analysts expect the BJP to adopt a more  hard-line  position  now
      that  its  top  leadership  has  been  imprisoned and it has been
      removed from power in the states where it won elections.

      "The dismissals amount to a declaration of war against democracy,
      and  the Indian people will give a befitting reply," said Atal B.
      Vajpayee, a BJP leader and former foreign minister.

      The political maneuvering involved in the  latest  dismissals  of
      the  BJP  governments  in  Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal
      Pradesh surfaced in the Congress intra-party squabbles last week.

      Although the state governments were sacked on grounds  they  were
      led by politicians who supported the events in Ayodhya, the deci-
      sion also was widely seen as an attempt by the 71-year-old Rao to
      beat  back  a  serious challenge to his leadership from his party
      rivals.

      The BJP said the dismissal of its remaining three  state  govern-
      ments  would  "sound  the  death knell" for Indian federalism and
      democracy.  "The party will not take such an  assault  on  Indian
      democracy  lying  down  and  will fight back with all its might,"
      party Vice President Krishan L. Sharma said.

      The ban on RSS/VHP/Bajrang dal and arrests of leaders/members  of
      these organizations have tremendously boosted the political popu-
      larity of the BJP. Many analysts have predicted that if elections
      were held today, the BJP would win absolute majority in the lower
      House of the Parliament.

      Source: UPI news.

      --- Girish.

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