Undeterred by the niceties of parliamentary codes or the rule of law, the extreme wing of the parivar, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has already been clandestinely orchestrating the preparation, for construction, of a glorious temple in the name of Lord Ram. Last month, a controversy erupted in Parliament when The Week published a story detailing how the temple was being crafted at two different sites — three remote villages in Rajasthan and outside Ayodhya. With the full compliance of the local police, columns were/are also being regularly transported to Ayodhya already in preparation for the construction, the report had detailed.

Embarased by the controversy, the BJP’s liberal and moderate Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee gave an assurance to Parliament in mid-June that his government would abide by the Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya issue. Within days, BJP spokesperson, K.L. Sharma and union minister, Uma Bharati made obvious the Prime Minister’s isolation within the party. Reflecting the BJP’s actually thinking on the issue of the Ram temple, both functionaries, on separate occasions, made it clear that in case the Supreme Court adjudicated against the construction of the Ram temple, so what? The government would simply pass a law to reverse the verdict and facilitate the construction!

Meanwhile, working president of the VHP, Ashok Singhal continues to make headlines every other day with blasé and threatening statements. "VHP will take a final decision on the temple construction after the Dharm Sansad in October" reads one, "Temple delay to anger Sadhus" reads another, "Temple will stand for 2,000 years:VHP" and finally, "The VHP will construct the temple at any cost". The last statement which is consistent with the VHP’s public stand for some time now is that with or without the backing of the Supreme Court’s verdict the VHP would construct the temple at the site within 3 years. Not to be left out, the RSS chief, Rajendra Singh, has also said that the "temple must be constructed at all costs."

This sustained and aggressive rhetoric among large sections of the sangh parivar to keep the Ram temple issue alive has also been successful in keeping the communal cauldron simmering. The All India Babri Action Committee has reactivated itself in UP. On June 27, its leaders who were banned by Kalyan Singh’s-BJP government in the state from visiting the site, defied the ban and were arrested. They have alleged that the government’s attitude in selectively preventing Muslims and their leaders from visiting Ayodhya is discriminatory. Needless to state, the leaders and representatives of the RSS, VHP and other sangh parivar outfits have visited the city several times and not been stopped.

To strengthen their stand in support of legislating to remove/alter/replace inconvenient or politically inexpedient laws with others, the sangh parivar has been shrewdly making continuous reference to the enactment of the Muslim Women (Protection on Divorce) Act, 1986 by the then Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress government. In the wake of the uproar among sections of the Muslim leadership following the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Shah Bano case according maintainance to a Muslim woman, the central government had enacted this legislation excluding Muslim women from the purview of sections of the Indian Penal Code that were being applied by Courts to accord maintainance in divorce cases to women.

P.S. Muslim males from families residing in Ayodhya have had their proposals struck down by the families of prospective brides from other regions. Over 20 such cases have occurred in the month between June-July 1998 alone. " It’s too dangerous to send our daughters to Ayodhya where there will be riots and curfew. Our daughter would rather stay single," Rais, an LIC agent from Basti told The Telegraph.

P.S. 2) Japan-born Buddhist monk Bhadant Arya, Nagarjun Surai Sasai has claimed that the disputed site at Ayodhya belonged to a shrine dating back to the times of Lord Buddha and has demanded the construction of a Buddha vihara there.

The state police has been suggesting that the ubiquitous Pakistani ISI was responsible for engineering a conflagration. On the other hand, Muslims from Andhra Pradesh argue that the BJP-Telugu Desam Party alliance at the Centre has emboldened the communally-prejudiced sections of the police in Andhra. They cite several recent instances of police atrocities in Hyderabad, Mehbubnagar, Anantpur and Adilabad districts to support their charge. Assuming there is some truth in the police version, what is totally inexplicable is its own inaction. While a riot erupted on June 5, the pamphlet had been in circulation since June 2 and intelligence officials had repeatedly alerted the police to the likelihood of an outbreak of violence. Why did the police take no steps — identifying and acting against the printer and distributors of the pamphlet, deploying additional police in sensitive areas — to nip the "mischief" in the bud? Why did the police not act against the rampaging Muslim mob — even a report in the Jamaat-e-Islami organ, Radiance Viewsweekly, blames the police for this inaction — on June 5? And, why did the same police subsequently resort to indiscriminate arrests in some cases in its belated attempt to identify the ISI-elements responsible for the riots? Many in Hyderabad believe that the riot was the response of some political party to the recently forged BJP-TDP understanding in the state. Until recently, Andhra chief minister Chandrababu Naidu and before him his father, N. T. Ramarao, had enjoyed the confidence and support of Muslims in the state. This had acted kept matters under check in the otherwise communally-volatile Hyderabad. But with growing police talk of some Muslim groups having been brought into existence by the ISI, and growing Muslim complaint of police bias is ominously reminiscent of Coimbatore, and before that, Mumbai.

More than anything else the proceedings of the court-martial and the resultant findings reveal how essential it is for the law and order machinery whether it be men in army or police uniform, to be held accountable for their conduct in such situations.

This BSF court of inquiry, the first of its kind is presently drawing to a close and final orders against the DIG and three others are expected to be issued later this month, E. N. Rammohan, DG, BSF recently told The Indian Express who broke this story "The BSF is ashamed of this incident when innocent civilians were killed and there is no question of the perpetrators of the crime being spared."

Incidentally, the court of inquiry that has also found deputy commandant R.P. Bhukal, head constable Gajjan Singh and constable Uttam Singh guilty, has charged Sharma with "omission of effective command" and control over his troops which led to the death of civilians." The other charges are culpable homicide (not amounting to murder) and causing grievous injuries. Sharma has also been charged with committing an outrage on the modesty of a woman, another repeated allegation made by Kashmiris against the members of the Indian security forces since their presence in the state since 1990.