Hindu nationalists stake out turf
Hindu nationalists stake out turf
By Nelson Graves
NEW DELHI (Reuter): They have canceled a big U.S.-built power
project, launched a drive to kick foreign consumer goods out of
India and threatened Moslem pilgrims.
Flexing their muscles months before general elections, Hindu
nationalists have begun drawing battle lines for a fight which
threatens to have anti-foreign, anti-Moslem overtones.
The themes are part of a broad strategy sketched out last
month by leaders of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP), by far the largest Hindu nationalist party.
In 1984 general elections, the BJP won two of 545 seats in the
lower house of parliament. They raised the number to 85 in 1989
and to 120 two years later.
Now the BJP says it is ready to capitalize on a gaping split
in the ruling Congress party and voter disenchantment to clinch
power in general elections due by mid-1996 but expected early
next year.
"Even our critics admit that the BJP is now unstoppable,"
party president L.K. Advani said recently.
He may have overstated his case, according to political
analysts who say polls could well yield a badly hung parliament.
That would usher in a period of power-sharing, only the third
since India gained independence from Britain in 1947. For all but
three years since then, Congress has ruled India.
Few doubt that the BJP, fresh from some important victories in
recent state polls, will improve on its 1991 performance in
coming elections and perhaps finish ahead of Prime Minister P.V.
Narasimha Rao's Congress party.
The BJP expects to reap political gains from a decision last
week to cancel a $2.8 billion power project in the western state
of Maharashtra.
The BJP and its radical Hindu partner, Shiv Sena, say the
project, India's biggest foreign investment, would have cost
consumers too much and has alleged that the deal, struck by a
former Congress state government, was tainted by kickbacks.
Enron Corp, which led the U.S. consortium building the plant,
has denied the allegation.
The issue fits in nicely with the BJP strategy of painting
Congress as anti-poor, corrupt and partial to foreign firms.
The BJP supports a campaign launched on Wednesday by an
independent Hindu nationalist group against foreign consumer
products including U.S. soft drinks Pepsi and Coke.
"Computer chips, yes. Potato chips, no," former BJP president
Murli Manohar Joshi told Reuters on Wednesday.
India, surrounded by high tariffs, was virtually self-
sufficient in 1991 when Rao launched reforms which have opened
the country to foreign investment and boosted trade.
But the BJP reckons a nationalistic tilt against foreign
consumer goods could play well with Indians who are proud of
those home-grown brands now having trouble competing.
Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray threatened retaliation against
Moslem Haj pilgrims last month if Hindus on a pilgrimage in
Kashmir this week were attacked by Islamic militants.
Thackeray's threat drew a quick riposte from a Moslem
separatist group which vowed to kill him.
The BJP was accused of whipping up communal passions in 1992
when Hindu zealots ripped down the 16th century Babri Masjid
mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya. Some 3,000 people were
killed in Hindu-Moslem riots that followed.
The party has since tried to strike a less provocative stance.
Now it is pushing for a uniform civil code which would force
Moslems to comply with standards in marriage and divorce that are
contrary to their normal religious practices.