The attack by a mob on kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya on the Sabarmati Express has in a single stroke turned the clock back to 1947. Not since then has a Muslim mob waited for a train at the station, with the express purpose of killing their unsuspecting passengers. In 1947, the killing was done by Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims alike, with sticks, swords and daggers. Last week, the killers boarded the train armed with canisters of gasoline and kerosene and systematically set its bogies on fire with the intent of burning the occupants to death.
The wave of anger that has swept through the country is understandable but must be curbed. Such calculatedly aggressive behaviour is so utterly uncharacteristic of the Muslims of Gujarat and of India in general, and is in such marked contrast to the pattern of Hindu-Muslim conflict during the past three decades, that its causes need the closest possible scrutiny. It is barely possible that the dispute arose out of a fracas between kar sevaks and Muslim vendors in Vadodara, or on the train. The VHP and Bajrang Dal are not exactly known for their sensitivity to the sentiments of the minority community and may have cast aspersions on Islam that brought forth this unwonted, although still utterly condemnable reaction.
However, if the reaction had been spontaneous, it would almost certainly have taken several hours to gather force and would have taken place in Vadodara and not 150 kms away. Even the theory floating around that the persons who had been roughed up in Vadodara rang up co-religionists in Godhra and set off the conflagration sounds far-fetched, for the attack on the train was too well organised and too cold-blooded to have been organised in the two hours or so that the train took to get there. Thus one cannot rule out the possibility that the attack was planned, was intended to occur after the Ayodhya meeting of VHP kar sevaks, and was instigated by outside elements. This cannot be ruled out because India has been a victim of calculated attempts by trans-border elements to tear the social fabric apart with premeditated acts of communal violence in Punjab and Kashmir for the last two decades. It would be no surprise if the net had been widened to cover Gujarat as well, for the endemic communal violence that has racked the state ever since 1969 has prepared the ground for extremism—both Muslim and Hindu—exceptionally well. If this is what indeed happened, then both Hindus and Muslims are being used as pawns in other peoples' devilish chess games. Thus Hindu chauvinist elements would do well to reign in their anger till they know more about how the violence began.
The firm action taken by the Gujarat government and Advani's assurance to Parliament that there will be a detailed investigation of the origin of the violence are therefore reassuring. However, the Muslim attack on the kar sevaks could not have come at a worse time for the ruling NDA. Ever since the BJP came back to power in October 1999, a conflict between it and the Hindu chauvinist wing of the Sangh parivar had been waiting to take place. It is a tragic irony that the spark that has ignited the confrontation—a confrontation that threatens the very fundamentals of the Indian political system—has been struck by murderous hooligans belonging to the community that will suffer the most from it. The BJP's commitment to a pluralist polity has been born, reluctantly, out of three decades of interacting and sharing power with secular and ethnicity-based political parties in the country. Today it is part of a 24-party coalition in which it holds only three-fifths of the seats. Its allies, with the exception of the Shiv Sena, are staunchly secular and pluralist. They made it absolutely clear to Vajpayee in December 1998 that they would continue to give the BJP their support only if Vajpayee kept the Hindu chauvinist fringe of the Sangh parivar under control.Vajpayee himself is a staunch champion of India's pluralistic culture and politics. He had made it clear as long back as during the 1990 confrontation over the Babri Masjid that he did not approve of the tactics of coercion that were being employed by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. He therefore had no difficulty in giving his assurance and has scrupulously abided by it.
The setback in the state assembly elections has weakened the moderates in the Sangh parivar. The VHP has been gloating over it and ascribing the defeat to Vajpayee's moderation. The Godhra episode will strengthen its hands especially in Gujarat, which also faces an assembly election in the not-too-distant future. It is time for the Vajpayee government to ask itself how long it will allow the canker of Ayodhya to poison Hindu-Muslim relations, keep the nation perpetually on edge, and dictate the BJP's relations with its allies. Its present tactics of simply fending off attempts by the VHP to grab the disputed site and build a temple will simply keep the issue alive and endanger the lives and future of the Muslim community. Since the Babri Masjid site has no particular sanctity in the eyes of Islam, a better alternative, as I argued in these columns a few weeks ago, would be for the government to acquire the entire site, pay a huge compensation to the Waqf Board, allow a temple to be built upon it and ask the entire nation to join in constructing a grand mosque at a site that does have religious and historical importance for Indian Muslims, anywhere in India.
If this can be done by common consent, it would heal a century-old rift between the two communities. This may be entirely possible because ten years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, Muslims are sick of the tension they are living under and have in the meantime been reassured that no more mosques will go the Babri way. But even if diehards in the two communities continue to object, the government has a duty to go ahead with a solution that, even if not optimal, puts a full stop to this unsavoury dispute.