From: mece1uh@Rosie.UH.EDU (Shashi Menon)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: 3 BJP ruled state govts. dismissed
Date: 15 Dec 1992 21:23:17 GMT
Organization: University of Houston
Reply-To: mece1uh@Rosie.UH.EDU
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu



     NEW DELHI, India (UPI) -- Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao dismissed
three state governments led by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and
imposed direct federal rule on the areas late Tuesday in the wake of a
week of riots that killed 1,200 people.
     The BJP, which has made considerable political gains against Rao's
Congress (I) Party in northern India in recent years, was widely viewed
as being one of the main groups responsible for whipping up communal
passions that led to the demolition of a 16th century mosque by Hindu
zealots, touching off the riots.
     Rao's dismissal of the state governments came just over a week after
he used similar constitutional powers to sack the BJP-led government in
Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and the site of the destroyed
Babri mosque, which many Hindus believe is built at the birthplace of
Lord Rama, a Hindu diety.
     The dismissals, which left much of India's northern heartland without
popularly elected state governments, was viewed as a blow to Indian
democracy. It was expected to fuel political and sectarian unrest, which
has claimed thousands of lives this year alone.
     About 1,200 people were killed this month in a weeklong orgy of
Muslim-Hindu fighting triggered by the destruction of the 16th-century
mosque.
     The latest political action came as authorities reported that more
than 3,500 radicals have been jailed under sweeping preventive detention
laws in a continuing crackdown against members of five Hindu and Islamic
groups outlawed following the outbreak of nationwide religious rioting.
     All the state governments sacked were led by the Hindu nationalist
Bharatiya Janata Party, or Indian People's Party.
     ``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 member and former foreign minister.
     The BJP has led a mass movement to build a Hindu temple at the site
of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya city, claiming it was constructed by a
Mogul conqueror on the ruins of a Hindu shrine he destroyed. Hindus
believe the site is the birthplace of Lord Rama, the warrior-king and
central figure of the religious epic Ramayana.
     The Dec. 6 mosque demolition triggered violent Muslim-Hindu clashes
in India and touched off a wave of Muslim attacks on Hindus in
neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh. India, despite its Hindu majority,
has the world's second largest Muslim population after Indonesia.
     Although a decades-old religious dispute, the mosque has in the last
two years became the center of a political tug-of-war between the Hindu
chauvinist BJP and the Congress party, which has viewed with deep
concern the erosion of its traditional Muslim support in the last two
national elections.
     The Congress party, which led India's independence struggle, has for
the first time faced the political ignominy of not being in power in any
major state in the Hindi-speaking northern heartland.
     The political maneuvering involved in the latest dismissals of the
BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh states
surfaced in the Congress intra-party squabbles this week.
     Although the state governments were sacked on grounds they were led
by politicians who supported the mosque demolition, the decision 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.
     Rao invoked constitutional provisions in order to dismiss the
governments. He used the same powers to dismiss the Uttar Pradesh
government last week and also has been invoking the special powers to
keep the insurgency-wracked northern state of Kashmir under
direct federal rule.
     The BJP said the dismissal of its remaining three state governments
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.
     A federal government spokesman said nearly 1,000 Hindu and Muslim
radicals were jailed Tuesday alone under India's sweeping preventive
detention laws, which have been severely criticized by international
human rights groups.
     Among those arrested was Jatinder V. Gupta, a retired chief justice
of a state high court.
     Most of the preventive detention laws permit authorities to imprison
people without trial or charge for periods between three to 12 months.
Indian law does not block authorities from re-arresting under a
preventive detention act those freed under a similar but separate
statute.
     Before the latest violence flared, India -- the world's most populous
democracy -- already had more than 10,000 political dissidents, ethnic
rebels and other separatists in jail under such laws, according to
Amnesty International and Asia Watch.
     The Indian Parliament, adjourned last week because of pandemonium, is
scheduled to resume its session Wednesday in an unprecedented setting
with the leader of the opposition, Lal K. Advani of the BJP, in prison.
     The BJP, the country's largest opposition party, announced Tuesday it
would block proceedings in Parliament to demand that the government
produce Advani and another imprisoned lawmaker, Party President Murli M.
Joshi, before the legislature.
     The BJP provided tacit support to Rao's minority government for more
than a year until the dispute over the mosque soured relations between
the two sides in late fall. The BJP has strongly backed Rao's radical
economic-reforms program.
     After the latest sectarian violence, India's splintered communist
groups have emerged as Rao's new political allies. Analysts, however,
believe such an alliance could cause a serious setback to the current
economic liberalization.
     Rao became prime minister in mid-1991 weeks after his party leader,
Rajiv Gandhi, was killed by a female suicide bomber while campaigning in
national elections.
     On Tuesday, night curfews remained in force in more than two dozen
riot- scarred Indian cities to deter fresh rioting and arson, the
Interior Ministry said.
     In Calcutta, however, curfew was completely lifted from much of the
city and its suburbs because of an improvement in the situation,
according to Jyoti Basu, the communist chief minister of West Bengal
state. Calcutta, India's largest city, is the capital of West Bengal.