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India: Riots Force Identity Crisis In Ruling Party
March 8, 2002
Summary
Violence between Muslims and Hindus in India has left hundreds dead. The largest repercussion in the country has been a crisis within India's ruling coalition and the ruling party itself. This division will help the opposition take more power and likely slow engagement with the United States.
Sonia Gandhi visits Indian riot sites as death toll reaches 678.
Image Credit: Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Analysis
Fears of continued clashes over a disputed religious site in northern India eased March 5, following five days of violence between Hindus and Muslims which has resulted in the deaths of at least 600 people. Radical Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP - World Hindu Council) agreed to allow India's courts to rule on the ownership of a site in the city of Ayodhya where a Muslim mosque was burned down in 1992 and where Hindu activists want to erect their own temple.
However, the group also said it wanted the government to hand over a plot adjacent to the site where it could begin construction June 2. Political disagreements over Ayodhya are forcing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into an identity crisis, as it is being forced to navigate between its policymakers and hard-liners. The BJP can continue to try and straddle this ever-widening divide or choose to essentially abandon one of these factions. Either way, its control over the country will take a hit.
The next round of national elections is still two years away, but an increasingly ineffective BJP will lose ground to its opponents, assuming it can continue clinging on to power. This will hamstring the government's domestic and foreign policies. The BJP's need to focus increased attention on domestic matters, as well as the return of the more anti-U.S. Congress Party, will likely slow India's engagement with the United States.
The VHP's compromise was the first relief to the Indian government since the tension over the use of the site erupted last week when 58 Hindu activists were killed while traveling by train from Ayodhya. The destruction of the Muslim mosque in 1992 triggered widespread Hindu-Muslim riots throughout India that left 2,000 dead. The VHP had originally planned to march to the site on March 15 and begin constructing the temple on the mosque's ruins, even if it meant a confrontation with Muslim groups and security forces there.
The VHP is one of several Hindu nationalist parties that rose to power in India during the late 1990s. The BJP is the largest of these, as it holds the post of prime minister and forms the biggest bloc in the lower house of parliament.
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(Story Source)
(c) 2002 Stratfor, Inc.
Related Stories:
* Riot victims buried in mass graves
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Thursday, March 7, 2002
* India's interior minister under pressure as riot toll rises
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Friday, March 8, 2002
* Sonia Gandhi visits Indian riot sites as death toll reaches 678
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
Friday March 8, 2002
Dan
India: Riots Force Identity Crisis In Ruling Party . . .