The BJP Government in Gujarat may have scored a point or two by ensuring a peaceful passage of the controversial stone-laying ceremony "shilanyas" for a proposed Ram temple in Halmodi village and the Christmas celebrations in the tribal-dominated Dangs and other ... districts but it does not ensure a lasting peace in the region

The Sangh Parivar is not reconciled ... and is certain to try to disrupt peace at the slightest provocation ...

What caused particular concern ... was the timings of the Hindu rallies and the "shilanyas" which was originally scheduled for Christmas-eve and to continue on December 25 ..

The Hindu organisations, particularly the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Hindu Jagran Manch have their own explanation for the timing. It was during Christmas that the missionaries indulged in "large- scale conversions" of tribals. Hindu rallies on the same day in the tribal areas had brought down conversions to considerable extent ... Such rallies had been going on in the last five years but they attracted media attention for the first time last year due to "Christian attacks on the rally" the spokesman claimed.

The Government did succeed in forcing a number of concessions from the Hindu fundamentalists starting with advancing the "shilanyas" programme to December 22 and confining the ceremony to just three hours to avoid a possible communal clash. It also compelled the HJM to cancel the post-ceremony community lunch ... They were also made to call off the rally on Christmas Day at Ahwa, district headquarter of Dangs, and other south Gujarat towns having a fair amount of Christian population, and to cancel the protest "Dharma Sabha" in Surat - which the authorities feared was intended at instigating people against the Christian missionaries. In addition, it also warded off another threat of idol installation at a Hanuman temple in Bhilmoda village in the neighbouring Navsari district.

In return, the Government conceded the VHP and HJM demand for the withdrawal of a notification banning religious gatherings of one religion on the major festival days of another religion. Though the notification was applicable to all religions ...

The withdrawal of the notification ... has drawn flak from Christians who ... think that yielding to the VHP-HJM pressure is tantamount to giving an "open licence" to the Hindu fundamentalists to wage a war against the minority communities ...

The Government had no option but to take a strong stand after the loss of image it suffered worldwide for the alleged Christian- bashing by Hindu fundamentalists in the months following Christmas last year. It also faced an enormous setback in industrial development owing to the drying up of investments from the European countries in the aftermath of the Christian bashing.

Because of the serious global implications and the credibility of the Vajpayee Ministry being at stake, the Centre too was keen on the State Government keeping the Hindu fundamentalists in check:

Besides, it was the time the BJP tried to make amends on the minority front since it had already reaped a rich harvest of Hindu votes in the wake of the Hindu-Christian communal divide and had dislodged the Congress(I) for the first time from all the four tribal-dominated seats in south and central Gujarat in the last Lok Sabha elections ...

... The Gujarat High Court on a public interest litigation, held the Government responsible for protecting the lives and property of the minorities and directed it to appoint two senior Government officials as the court's observers for the Halmodi shilanyas and the Dangs Christmas celebrations.

The Government permission for the "shilanyas" has evoked criticism. But an official spokesman claimed that it was the "best solution in the given situation" ...

The shilanyas would have gone unnoticed at any other time. A former converted Christian, who re-converted to Hinduism two years later, the tribal owner of the land, Ukadiabhai Konkani, has shot to prominence ... His major son was opposed to his father donating the land for the Ram temple, just as he was opposed to the donation of another piece of land for a church when he became a Christian in 1995. The plot on which the makeshift church stood was taken back by him earlier and the church demolished but the shilanyas for the temple was performed on a nearby plot and not on the debris of the church (Source: the Hindu, 26 December, 1999)

Building a Temple inside a Church

Editorial, The Statesman, 6 December, 1999

The foundation stone for a Ram temple in the premises of an old Protestant church on Christmas eve .. (rings bells) is not this exactly how the Babari Masjid issue was created? In 1948 three sadhus, in the dead of night, surreptitiously placed an idol of Ram inside the mosque premises. In the morning it was announced that Lord Ram had decided to make a home for himself here and the mosque which until the day previous was used to offer namaz was now a temple. The mosque was sealed by the locai DM supposedly in the interest of law and order and Muslims were prevented from entering the premises, but permission was given for a pandit to carry out puja every day. Even as the courts were moved, politicians conveniently forgot that a wrong had been committed in Ayodhya ... Forty years later in a shameless exhibition of playing politics with religion, Rajiv Gandhi, in his cowardice, opened the locks of the mosque and allowed Hindus to have darshan of the idol. From here the BJP and its affiliated organisations hijacked the issue claiming that it was the precise spot of Lord Ram's birth and as puja had been taking place for the last forty years and the mosque was now being used as a temple, it should be officially handed over to Hindus to build a great Ram temple.

To Advani, the mosque had become only a "structure", which was his to demolish. The fact that namaz was discontinued only because the idol was installed surreptitiously, was forgotten. From 1989, when the foundation stone for a Ram Mandir was laid in the mosque premises to 1992 when the mosque was demolished, the issue was politicised by the VHP the fallout of which was communal riots, damage to the social fabric of the nation, communal polarisation of votes and the BJP's rise in national politics.

With the RSS's attention currently shifted to Christians, the Hindu Jagaran Manch is planning to repeat the Babari Masjid-like situation in Halmodi village in Gujarat ...