Election is final test for man known as 'Hindu bin Laden'

Election is final test for man known as 'Hindu bin Laden'

Muslims have voted for their survival as a state of enemies and victims await the results on a 'battle for India's soul'. Nick Meo in Delhi reports

The future of a demagogue politician blamed for thousands of deaths in the riot-torn state of Gujarat will be known today when the results of a crucial state election are announced. The outcome is expected to determine whether India's decade-long experiment with bigoted Hindu nationalism has stalled, or whether it has revived as a political force, and the contest has been billed in usually sober publications as nothing less than a battle for India's soul.
At its centre is the man blamed for the mayhem and murder that engulfed his state earlier this year, Chief Minister Narendra Modi, a man loved by supporters as a Hindu saviour and hated by his enemies as a Hitler figure.

After polling booths shut last Thursday night, the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the secular Congress Party appeared to be neck and neck after an election that has seen surprisingly little violence but much hysterical campaigning.

At stake for the BJP is the future of Hindutva, the semi-fascist ideology that casts Hindus as victims and Muslims as an enemy, alien group. If they fail to win a convincing victory, Hindutva may be dropped by the party. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the national leadership in New Delhi have been quietly edging away from their radical roots for years, and a failure in Gujarat -- nicknamed the Hindutva laboratory -- could hasten that process.

But to many in the party the BJP without Hindutva is a weak, poor political specimen without much to offer the voters, and ambitious young party members are keenly watching to see if the programme of hate and fear served up to Gujarat's voters in the last few months has paid off at the polls.

If it has, India may have to brace itself for a return to the nightmare of 10 years ago, when a national outpouring of Hindutva sparked communal riots and terrorist attacks. Much is at stake for the Muslims of Gujarat, too. Textile trader Abdul Shaikh said: 'Muslims will vote 100% and with a vengeance. It's a question of their survival, no less. Congress must win. Modi is a killer.'

The extraordinary mobilisation of the Muslim vote has confounded many Hindu extremists who had hoped the minority community would be too traumatised and intimidated to turn out after more than 2000 people were murdered in savage anti-Muslim pogroms earlier this year. It all started on February 27 when a train full of Hindu extremists were burned to death in an attack, apparently by a Muslim mob, at a train station.

For weeks afterwards Gujarat burned in India's worst episode of Hindu- Muslim rioting for years. The police stood by as well-organised mobs systematically hunted down innocent Muslims for revenge. To the Hindu bigot -- a frighteningly common creature in India -- the smoking ghettos littered with corpses meant the Muslims had been 'shown their place'.

T he two communities have rarely been so polarised -- each in fear of the other. Whipping up the Hindus -- almost 90% of the population -- was Modi. An independent tribunal of retired judges has accused him of ordering the police to give the mobs a free hand.


Their report states: 'Modi was the one who directed the police and the administration not to act. He refused to help people who were butchered. He refused shelter and succour to victims of the carnage. He refused, and continues to refuse, basic human amenities and was using coercion and other tactics to wind up refugee camps.'

The chief minister has had to temper his rhetoric a little for this election, and the strict regulation of India's Election Commission has ensured the vote was fair. But Modi still waged a hysterical campaign, constantly harping on the threat from Islamic terrorism and Pakistan. He blamed Muslims for bringing the slaughter down on their own heads and missed no chance to inflame anti-Muslim sentiment.

But Modi's antics in Gujarat have roused the fear of the metropolitan elite too -- almost as much an ene my to Modi and his supporters as the Muslims and Christians. Commentator Prem Shankar Jha said: 'Modi has metamorphosed into the precise Hindu counterpart of Osama bin Laden. He has turned his back on modernity. Instead he's built an ideology out of an inferiority complex towards Western cosmopolitanism and an alternative way of life that is in some twisted sense 'purified' of its Muslim, Christian and Western elements.'

But there is some evidence that the voters are getting fed up with the rhetoric. Jobs and water in the drought- ridden state are the most important issues for most, and the shocking slaughter in Gujarat's cities seems to have brought many to their senses. Congress worker Madhusudan Mistry said: 'There is no Hindutva wave here. Religion doesn't work on an empty stomach.'

The polls seemed to be tipping the BJP to win, just. Many are praying that doesn't happen. But if Modi has just scraped home and failed to win a convincing victory, that could be enough to stop the nightmare of Hindutva spreading.

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