India's Hindu zealots vent frustration

By John Chalmers

NEW DELHI (Reuters): Attacks on Christians and ugly threats by Hindu zealots bent on derailing a Pakistani cricket tour have tarnished India's image in recent weeks.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, more accustomed to wrestling with querulous regional parties in his rickety ruling coalition, suddenly faces a battle from within.

Belligerent wings of the Sangh Parivar, a Hindu nationalist umbrella group from which the mild-mannered prime minister's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged to national prominence, have never given him much cause for sleepless nights.

Now a spate of mob attacks on Christian churches and prayer halls in the western state of Gujarat has stirred political controversy in New Delhi, prompting official expressions of concern from foreign missions and embarrassing the government.

The right-wing Hindu Shiv Sena party, an important BJP ally in the industrialized western state of Maharashtra, has chosen this moment to flex its muscles, making things look worse.

Shiv Sena activists dug up the Delhi cricket pitch where arch- rivals Pakistan and India are to play in their first test series on Indian soil in 12 years and ransacked the Bombay headquarters of the panel that monitors the game nationwide.

Analysts say the Hindu extremists' burst of activity can be traced to their frustration with the 10-month-old government's soft-pedaling on economic nationalism and the cultural promotion of "Hindutva", a term that literally means "Hindu-ness".

Prem Shankar Jha, a prominent columnist, described the attacks on Christians as "Hindutva's last gasp".

"Ever since the BJP came to power, its leaders have been marginalising this lunatic fringe and the pace has picked up in recent months," he wrote in the weekly magazine Outlook. "These are not signs of Hindutva's revival but of its imminent death."

Ashis Nandy of the Center for the Study of Developing Societies said hardliners, convinced the BJP's hold on power is slipping as the opposition Congress party gains ground, are "laying claim to whatever remains of the ruins of Hindutva".

"The Shiv Sena is convinced that the BJP is a losing party. It wants to get as much of the BJP support base as it can before the BJP goes down," he said.

The regional Shiv Sena espouses aggressive, attention grabbing strategies to cement its grip on largely urban adherents, and has an often uneasy relationship with the BJP.

Vajpayee and many of his BJP colleagues have condemned the pernicious turn of events, but many Indians remain suspicious of a party that either springs from the same stable or shares the same philosophy as the activists.

Vajpayee rounded on the Shiv Sena last week, holding up a cricket bat for photographers with the words "weapon of peace" written across it. But reports the BJP may cut its ties with the regional party have so far proved unfounded.

On a visit to a tribal area in Gujarat where Christians have complained of persecution, Vajpayee declared himself shocked and ticked off the local administration for allowing a provocative march by Hindus on Christmas Day.

But he was widely criticized for apparently giving the state government a "clean chit" and adding fuel to the fire by calling for a national debate on the question of religious conversion.

Senior government officials went out of their way last week to stress that Vajpayee was not challenging the secular constitution. His style may not be abrasive, but his condemnation of the violence was in no way half-hearted, they said.

"Vajpayee is a gradualist, he takes one step at a time. It is a question of restraint, not connivance," said one. "If you come down like a ton of bricks on fringe groups, people might make heroes of them."

But Nandy said Vajpayee was caught between his own instinctive moderation and pressure from strident wings of both his party and the Sangh Parivar.

"This is the last time he is going to be prime minister," he said. "He wants to maintain the image of an elder statesman, but there are those within the party who won't let him."

Asian Age columnist Seema Mustafa had a harsher verdict.

"It should have finally dawned on those who were still in doubt -- there is no difference between the moderates and the hardliners. They are all committed to the same ideology and the same belief. The only difference is one of language."

Jha argued it is dangerous to lump Vajpayee and his team with the outspoken leaders of extremist groups because it weakens the government to the benefit of the "lunatic fringe".

"By revealing its innate lunacy and bankruptcy, the lunatic fringe is destroying itself. We should help it do so," he said.

The BJP says the Christian attacks have been blown out of proportion by the party's rivals to score political points.

It is true the communal unrest in Gujarat pales in comparison with many Hindu-Moslem clashes of the past 50 years: the razing of a mosque by Hindu zealots in 1992, for instance, led to nationwide unrest in which more than 3,000 people died.

"The utterances of Congress leaders...make it clear they are now trying to play votebank politics with the Christians, just like they did with the Moslems," the BJP said in a statement.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), a vociferous wing of the Sangh Parivar, says Christians -- who account for a little over two percent of the population -- have become more assertive since Sonia Gandhi took charge of Congress last year.

Congress has dismissed the insinuations and Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and whose parental family is Roman Catholic, has not taken the bait.

"The aim is to involve Sonia in all this," says Nandy. "But she has not issued any glib statements, she has been very restrained."