MODULE 15:    MODERN INDIA AS A NATION-STATE (1947-PRESENT)

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS:

      An introductory overview of modern India as a nation-state has already been given  in Modules 1 and 2, focussing on the people, government, languages, cultural regions, geography, climate, political economy and religions.  In this final Module the focus is on recent political history and some of the more salient political and religious issues that modern India faces.

THE TRAGIC CREATION NARRATIVE OF PARTITION

      In speaking about India as a modern nation-state, it must always be stressed that in August of 1947, the old British Raj gave birth not to one but, rather, two independent Dominions, namely, India and Pakistan.  India became a "Sovereign Democratic Republic" when its Constitution came into effect on 26 January 1950, and Pakistan became the "Islamic Republic of Pakistan" when its first Constitution came into effect on 23 March 1956.   Partition was the defining event  in the creation of modern, independent India and Pakistan, and it is no exaggeration to suggest that that tragic breach  continues to be the defining event of modern India and Pakistan even now after fifty years of independence.  Possibly up to a million died during the break-up, and many thousands more have died in subsequent years in the regions of Punjab, Kashmir and Bengal because of the festering sore of Partition.  Most of the conflicts in the South Asian region, ranging from Hindu-Sikh problems in Punjab, Hindu-Muslim problems in Kashmir, Hindu-Muslim tensions in India generally over minority discrimination and differences in personal law, outright war between India and Pakistan in 1948, 1965, 1971 and very nearly again in 1999, and the current nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan, are all products of the tragedy of Partition.  Whether one blames Partition on British "divide and rule" policy, or on a too-hasty withdrawal of the British from the subcontinent  at the end of World War II, or on long-standing  hostilities between Hindu and Muslim elites that go back centuries, or on minority fears of political powerlessness in the newly emerging nation-state, or what is most likely, some combination of all of these factors, the fact remains that India's modern political history is inextricably tied to that of Pakistan.

      In what follows the focus is primarily on India as a modern nation-state, but it should be remembered that almost all events in India's modern political history must be interpreted with reference to Pakistan and the tragic breach of Partition.   

RECENT POLITICAL HISTORY OF INDIA         

      The Republic of India has had twelve prime ministers since independence in the following order:

            Jawaharlal Nehru (1947-1964)
            Lal Bahadur Shastri (1964-1966),
            Indira Gandhi (1966-1977),
            Morarji Desai (1977-1979),
            Charan Singh (1979-1980),
            Indira Gandhi for a second time (1980-1984),
            Rajiv Gandhi (1984-1989),
            Viswanath Pratap Singh or simply V. P. Singh (1989-1990),
            Chandra Shekhar (1990-1991),
             P. V. Narasimha Rao (1991-1996)
            Atal Behari Vajpayee (15 May 1996-28 May 1996),
            H. D. Deve Gowda (1 June 1996-11 April 1997),
            Inder Kumar Gujral (21 April 1997-14 March 1998) and
            Atal Behari Vajpayee for a second time (15 March 1998-present). 

 This gives the somewhat misleading picture of a great variety of leaders since independence, when, in fact, there have really been primarily only two, namely, Nehru, for seventeen years, and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, for sixteen years, both of whom were from the Indian National Congress, or simply the Congress party.

Jawaharlal Nehru guided the newly independent nation through the formative years of constitutional consolidation  (achieved with the adoption of the new Constitution on January 26, 1950), the integration of over 500 princely states into the new independent nation-state of India, states reorganization (based on cultural and linguistic identities, achieved in 1956), and the fashioning of a centrist consensus based on "socialism," "secularism," and non-alignment. 

With M. K. Gandhi's assassination in l948 and the deaths of Subhas Chandra Bose in l945 and Vallabhbhai Patel in l950, the leading voices for alternative models for the newly emerging nation-state had been silenced, and Nehru was thus largely free to develop his own ideas and to fashion his own consensus. Gandhi had wanted a decentralized political system with a focus on developing India from the village level upwards.  Subhas Chandra Bose was a proponent of a strong authoritarian system under the control of great leader.  Vallabhbhai Patel had wanted a strong, centralized Hindu state.  Nehru, in contrast, with his Fabian socialist ideas derived from his time in Great Britain, wanted a democratic and secular socialist-cum-capitalist political economy with the government in control of the "commanding heights," a firm policy of import substitution, a strong Center and a foreign policy of non-alignment; and Nehru's vision became the ruling blueprint for the new nation.        

Nehru was prime minister during the first Indo-Pakistani war over Kashmir (l947-l949) and during the Chinese military incursion into Indian territory, also in the Kashmir region, in l962.  Lal Bahadur Shastri, Nehru's successor and also a member of the Congress party, served for only two years and died suddenly of a heart attack in l966 while negotiating the end of the second Indo-Pakistani war over Kashmir which had begun in l965.  Shastri was succeeded in l966 by Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi, who was selected mainly because she was perceived at the time as a weak interim figure who could serve until  Congress party leaders could resolve their various quarrels regarding a stronger successor.

Mrs. Gandhi, however, slowly began to consolidate political power, won the elections of l967 with only a slim margin, took on the party bosses directly in l969, split the party and formed her own subsection known as Congress (I)("I" for Indira) without the old party bosses, and proceeded to win the election in l97l on a platform of "Eliminate poverty!" ("garibi hatao!") with some 43.7% of the vote and a sizable majority of 352 seats in the Lok Sabha or House of the People.  Her impressive victory in l97l was soon followed by another major success, also in l97l, namely, her decisive victory over Pakistan in the third Indo-Pakistani war which issued in the secession and partition of East Pakistan from West Pakistan and the creation of the new state of Bangladesh. 

Under her leadership the reorganization of the Punjab took place on November l, l966 creating the State of Haryana in the southeastern region of the territory with a Hindi speaking Hindu majority and the State of Punjab in the northwestern region with a Punjabi speaking Sikh majority, and transferring yet some additional territory to Himachal Pradesh.  She negotiated a Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union in August of l97l, and in negotiating the final settlement with Pakistan over Bangladesh she also negotiated the so-called Simla Agreement, signed in l972, whereby Pakistan and India agreed to the "line of control" (LOC) between Pakistan and India in Kashmir and agreed that further negotiations over Kashmir would be handled bilaterally (or, in other words, not involving outside agencies such as the United Nations).

By the mid-l970s Mrs. Gandhi became increasingly concerned with her own personal power and set about transforming both party and governmental structures from independently functioning agencies into highly personalized fiefdoms based on personal loyalties.   She was attacked by political opponents from various sides for alleged election frauds and, finally, on June 26, l975 called upon the President of India to proclaim an Emergency, setting aside democratic procedures and giving special authoritarian powers to the prime minister. 

The Emergency was eventually lifted on January l8, l977 and new elections called.  Other political parties, both from the moderate left (but with the exception of the two Commmunist parties) and from the right, then united to form the new Janata Party ("People's" party) in oppostion to Indira Gandhi's  Congress (I), and in March of l977 for the first time since independence the Congress party was thoroughly defeated in a general election.  Morarji Desai became the new prime minister under the banner of the new Janata coalition.

The Janata coalition, however, was exceedingly unstable, inasmuch as it combined an utterly unworkable congeries of political positions, ranging  from the moderate left (various socialist parties for laborers, farmers and so forth) to the conservative right (the Swatantra, an "Independent" party of big business interests and landowners, and the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, an "Indian People's Party" founded in l95l and representing conservative Hindu elements from the old Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS).  Quarreling began almost immediately, and in little more than two years, following a brief interim prime ministership for Charan Singh for a few months after July of l979 , Mrs. Gandhi returned to power in January of l980 with some 42.7%  of the vote and a comfortable parliamentary majority of 353 seats.

Interestingly, it was in these years when she was out of power that Mrs. Gandhi sought support from various regional areas, in the south of India and in the region of the Punjab.  In the Punjab she needed a power base apart from the Akali Dal (the "eternal party," the main political organization of the Sikhs in the Punjab region), which had vigorously opposed her Emergency.  She and some of her supporters in the Congress (I) then encouraged a young charismatic Punjabi Sikh leader to develop a political base in the Punjab separate from the Akali Dal in the hope that eventually Congress (I) could use such a base to build an alliance against the Akali Dal.  The young  Sikh leader's name was  Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

Within a few years Bhindranwale developed his own power base quite apart from the Congress (I) and began to emerge as the key figure in the Sikh separatist movement that was demanding a new independent state for Sikhs in the Punjab, an independent state to be known as "Khalistan" (the "Land of the Khalsa" or the "Land of the Pure").  He and his followers took control of the Sikh Golden Temple and the Akal Takht (the "Eternal Tower"), the central shrine and symbol of the Sikh faith, in Amritsar early in l984, stockpiling huge caches of weapons and apparently preparing for armed insurrection.  In June of l984 Mrs. Gandhi responded by unleashing the Indian Army against the Golden Temple in Amritsar, under the code name, Operation Blue Star, a bloody encounter in which thousands of Sikhs were killed within the temple grounds, including  Bhindranwale.  The Sikhs were furious over the destruction of their sacred precinct, and some months later a group of angry Sikhs took their vengeance, persuading  two of Indira Gandhi's body guards to assassinate Mrs. Gandhi on October 3l, l984.  India erupted in fury to the assassination, especially in Delhi.  At least a thousand Sikhs were murdered by angry Hindus, and some 50,000 became refugees.

Mrs. Gandhi was succeeded by her son, Rajiv Gandhi, thus continuing the Nehru "dynastic" line.  Rajiv had been an Indian Airlines pilot and for the most part uninterested in politics.  His younger brother, Sanjay, had been heavily involved in politics, especially during the Emergency period in l975-l977, but he had died suddenly in an airplane accident, and Indira Gandhi was eventually successful in persuading  Rajiv to leave Indian Airlines and join her in the political arena.  When Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated, Rajiv was immediately sworn in as successor and shortly afterwards in the general elections in December of l984 received a huge wave of support with some 48.l% percent of the popular vote and an overwhelming 4l5 seats in the House of the People.  l984, however, was to bring yet one more major tragedy for India, the famous Union Carbide accident  (December 1984) at Bhopal in the State of Madhya Pradesh, killing at least 2000 and injuring thousands more.

On the political front Rajiv was at first successful in negotiating a settlement with a key leader of the Sikhs in the Punjab, Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, a settlement known as the Punjab Accord and signed in July of l985.  One month later, however, Longowal was assassinated by Sikh extremists.  Elections were nevertheless held in the State of Punjab, and Longowal's wing of the Akali Dal, the main Sikh political party, came into power under the chief ministership of Surjit Singh Barnala, a disciple of Longowal.  By May of l987, however, factional squabbling, extremist violence and the failure of Rajiv Gandhi's government to follow through on the agreements of the Punjab Accord led to the dismissal of the Barnala government and the imposition of President's Rule from Delhi.  Elections were held again in February l992 with Congress winning most of the seats largely because the elections were universally boycotted by the Sikh majority.  Eventually by the time of the election to the Punjab Assembly in February 1997, however, the situation in the State of Punjab has begun to settle down, and political rule has again returned to the Sikh majority. 

There was also separatist trouble with Kashmir as well as in the tribal regions in the North-East (Assam and Mizoram).  A separatist problem was also developing in Sri Lanka where some four million Tamil Indians in the north of the island were feeling increasingly alienated from the majority Sinhalese Buddhist population.  An armed guerilla movement, known as the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam), was pushing for the development of an independent Tamil nation on the island.  Rajiv Gandhi negotiated what came to be known as the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Agreement in July of l987 in Colombo with President J. R. Jayewardene, the leader of Sri Lanka, involving greater autonomy for Tamil areas in Sri Lanka but mainly involving an agreement to send some l5,000 Indian Army troops (later to be increased to some 40,000) into Sri Lanka (the so-called IPKF or Indian Peace Keeping Force) to disarm the Tigers.   The effort was a huge failure, and eventually, after sizable casualities on all sides, Indian troops were withdrawn.  

Just as Mrs. Gandhi paid the price of assassination for her intrusion into the Golden Temple, so Rajiv Gandhi was to pay the price of assassination for his actions against the Tigers, for it is clearly the case that the group responsible for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi on May 2l, l991 at Sriperumbudur, some twenty miles outside of Madras in the State of Tamil Nadu, had direct links with the Tamil Liberation Tigers.  The trouble in Sri Lanka continues down to the present time, and the current president of Sri Lanka (since 1994), Chandrika Kumaratunga, has yet to find a peaceful solution to the violent insurgency.

Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister from l984 to l989.  He was welcomed initially for his fresh ideas in such areas as high tech development and liberalization of the economy and for his expressed desire to bring new faces into the political process.  He also enjoyed widespread support out of sympathy for the tragic assassination of his mother and for his willingness to carry on the Nehru "dynasty."  By l989, however, his popularity had greatly slipped.  A number of scandals developed, including disclosures that large industrialists were not paying taxes and the discovery of a wide-ranging  kickback scheme among government officials (and possibly including the prime minister's office) over the procurement of military hardware from a Swedish armaments company named Bofors, a kickback scheme involving huge sums of money.

In October of l987, V. P. Singh, a political figure from Allahabad in the State of Uttar Pradesh and former finance and defense minister in the cabinet of Rajiv Gandhi, after having been forced to resign from his cabinet posts and having been expelled from the Congress (I), mainly for having called attention to the growing corruption in the Congress (I), formed a Jan Morcha (a "people's movement") in opposition to the Congress (I).  The Jan Morcha eventually united with the Janata Dal ("People's Party") and other opposition groups to oppose Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress (I) in the general elections of l989. 

Rajiv Gandhi and his Congress (I) were defeated, and V. P. Singh became prime minister in December of l989 under the banner of the National Front, an electoral alliance of opposition parties, including the Janata Dal ("People's Party"), the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or DMK, a Tamil nationalist party, the Telugu Desam (from the State of Andhra Pradesh or the "Telugu Regional" party), and the Asom Gana Parishad or AGP, an Assamese party from the North-East.

Unfortunately, the V. P. Singh alliance controlled only l45 seats and had to form a minority coalition government.  On the left, V. P. Singh made an alliance with both Communist parties, that is, the CPI, the Communist Party of India, a party closely related to the so-called Moscow line, and the CPM (M for Marxist), a more indigenous Communist movement which has been in power in the State of West Bengal since l977 and is a close rival with Congress in the State of Kerala.  On the right, V. P. Singh formed an alliance with the BJP, the Bharatiya Janata Party, formed after l979 (from followers of the older Bharatiya Jana Sangh, originally founded in l95l), a conservative Hindu party, closely related to the conservative Hindu RSS, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the "National Assembly of Volunteers" (first founded back in l925), and the VHP, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or the "World Council of Hindus" (founded in l964).  Congress (I) became, of course, the opposition party, and Rajiv Gandhi, the leader of the opposition.

As might well be imagined, such a coalition had difficulties almost from the beginning, and by November of l990, just eleven months after taking office, V. P. Singh's government was defeated with a no-confidence vote of 356-l5l in the House of the People (or Lok Sabha).  The primary reason for the defeat was the withdrawal of support for V. P. Singh by the conservative  BJP.  In addition to the continuing separatist problems in the States of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, the V. P. Singh government also had become entangled in two other major cultural and religious crises, the crisis related to V. P. Singh's decision to implement some of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission regarding  job reservations for Other Backward Classes in central government posts (in August of l990) and the emerging crisis at Ayodhya in the State of Uttar Pradesh concerning a Muslim mosque (the Babri Masjid) on the site of the sacred birthplace of the Hindu Rama (the Ramjanmabhoomi or "birth-place of  Rama").

The V. P. Singh coalition was followed by an even more unstable coalition put together by Chandra Shekhar in November of l990 and lasting only until March of l99l. 

Thereafter new elections were called, and in the middle of the election campaigning on May 2l, l99l Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur, as already mentioned. The elections were finally resumed and in June of l99l the Congress (I) returned to power, undoubtedly helped by the sympathy vote created as a result of the tragic assassination.  Yet again, however, a coalition was required, since Congress (I) only won some 2l3 seats.  P. V. Narasimha Rao, a loyal Congress (I) supporter from the Dravidian south (the State of Andhra Pradesh) who had served as chief minister in Andhra Pradesh (l962-77) and then minister of external affairs (l980-84 and again l988-89) and defense minister (l984-85) on the national level under both Mrs. Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, was sworn in as India's ninth prime minister on June 2l, l991, and he continued in office until 1996.   Some measure of stability was achieved under Rao's leadership, although the destruction of the Babri Masjid by Hindu militants in December of l992 nearly brought down his government.  It is generally agreed, however, that even though  many of the separatist troubles and cultural crises remained unresolved, conditions in India under Rao's leadership were remarkably stable.  Especially noteworthy was the economic liberalization inaugurated by Rao and his Finance Minister, Manmohan Singh, from 1991 onwards, a liberalization policy that greatly increased the rate of India's economic growth.  

What has followed, however, has been anything but stable.  Narasimha Rao's Congress government, charged with corruption and mismanagement in late 1995 and early 1996, was succeeded by the conservative pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Atal Behari Vajpayee which lasted, however, for only twelve days in May of 1996.  A United Front then emerged, largely made up of coalition of center-left parties along the lines of the old National Front of V. P. Singh under the prime ministership, first, of H. D. Deve Gowda, a non-Brahmin businessman from Bangalore (in office from June of 1996 through April of 1997) and, then, second,  of Inder Kumar Gujral, a secular socialist originally from the Punjab region of what is now Pakistan (in office from April 1997 into March 1998).  On March 15, 1998 the conservative pro-Hindu BJP again came into power with a coalition of parties under the prime ministership of Atal Behari Vajpayee.  This government collapsed again in the spring of 1999 but was returned to power in an unstable coalition of some 24 political parties (known together as the National Democratic Alliance or NDA) on October 13, 1999, a coalition government which remains in power up to the present. 

Two deeply worrisome sets of events have scarred the recent history of India in 1998 and 1999.  The first set was the decision taken by India in May of 1998 to test nuclear weapons in Pokharan, a desert region of Rajasthan in western India.  Five tests were held, three on May 11 and two more on May 13 with prime minister Vajpayee commenting: "Let the world know we have a very big bomb."  Pakistan, as was anticipated, likewise tested some five nuclear weapons shortly thereafter in Baluchistan. 

A second set of disturbing events occurred in summer and fall of 1999 with Pakistani soldiers and Muslim separatists occupying  Indian territory in the high mountains of Kashmir known as the Kargil region.  This triggered an on-going military encounter between India and Pakistan which finally issued in Pakistani withdrawal; but the debacle brought about the fall of the Nawaz Sharif government in Pakistan in October of 1999 and a military takeover of Pakistan led by General Pervez Musharraf.  The coup in Pakistan occurred one day (October 12) before Atal Behari Vajpayee's unstable National Democratic Alliance was sworn into power in New Delhi on October 13, 1999!

SOME IMPORTANT CURRENT CRISES IN INDEPENDENT INDIA

Among the many issues and problems facing India as a modern nation-state, three issues are especially salient or symptomatic of the sorts of problems that India will be facing in the coming years.                    

THE SIKH COMMUNITY IN THE STATE OF PUNJAB 

The origin of the Sikh tradition in the fifteenth century under Guru Nanak (l469-l539) and its transformation under the tenth Guru, Gobind Singh (l666-l708) into a militant spiritual-cum-political movement has already been briefly sketched in Module 2, and the relation of the movement to other religious traditions within the Indo-Islamic context was briefly discussed in the Module (14) on the Indo-British period. 

After the long and painful struggle of the Sikhs against the Mughals (especially Aurangzeb) in the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century was a period of growing Sikh political power in local areas of the Punjab, culminating in the emergence of a major Sikh kingdom towards the end of the eighteenth century under the remarkable Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who ruled over most of the Punjab region from l799-l839, or, in other words, almost to the time of the annexation of the Punjab by the British in l849.  The Sikhs remained loyal during the l857-58 "Mutiny" (or North Indian rebellion) and were a great help to the British in putting down the rebellion, thereafter becoming a favored group for recruitment into the Indian military under the British Raj.

From the beginnings of the tradition in the fifteenth century, as a small minority religious tradition that was neither Muslim nor Hindu, though nevertheless influenced by both traditions, the key issue for the Sikh community has been one of maintaining a distinct identity, to avoid, on the one hand, the power of the Muslims (both political and military), and, on the other hand, absorption or assimilation by the huge Hindu population that surrounds the community on all sides.  The formation of the Khalsa (the "pure" or "distinct" community) and its code of conduct (known as the Rahit), the so-called "five K-s" (unshorn hair, comb, steel bangle, dagger and special undergarment), the special rituals of initiation, the centrality of the gurdwara or "temple" for group worship and devotional singing, the separate Sikh scripture known as the Adi Granth or the Guru Granth Sahib ("The Book of the Lord") in a unique script called Gurmukhi (which differs from the Arabic-Persian-Urdu script of Muslims and the Devanagari script of Hindus), the common meal from the "kitchen" (langar) in the gurdwara in which all partake regardless of caste, and so forth, are all obvious and apparent symbolic markings designed to set Sikhs apart from other traditions, especially Hindu traditions.

In the twentieth century there have been primarily four periods in which the relations between the Sikh community and the state have reached crisis proportions: (a) the period l920-l925, in which the Khalsa Sikh community finally succeeded in establishing clear spiritual and institutional control over the network of gurdwara-s in the Punjab region, culminating in the consolidation of the authority of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (the SGPC), the "Supreme Temple Management Committee," and the emergence of the Akali Dal political organization as the primary spiritual-cum-political vehicle for articulating Sikh concerns; (b) the period l946-l966, in which the Sikh community actively sought either a separate state (at the time of Partition) or at least a distinct linguistic cultural region, the so-called "Punjabi suba" or "Punjabi state," which was finally granted under Indira Gandhi in l966; (c) the period l973-l984, in which the Sikh community sought to implement the Anandpur Sahib Resolution of October of l973, which included, among other items, securing the city of Chandigarh as the capital of the State of Punjab, greater autonomy within the Indian nation-state, institutional control of all gurdwara-s in India, and so forth, culminating in the tragedy of Operation Blue Star and its aftermath; and (d) the period l985-present, in which continuing efforts have been pursued to implement the provisions of the Punjab Accord (signed in l985 but never implemented) and to reestablish full Sikh participation in the politics of the State of Punjab and in the nation generally.

 If the crisis of the first period was centered largely on developing a cohesive spiritual and institutional identity for the community, then it can be said that the crisis of the second period (l946-l966) was to center on then determining the manner in which the Sikh community would locate itself over against other communities in the Punjab region and within the newly independent Republic of India.  As Partition became ever more likely, the Sikhs felt ever more isolated and ignored.  On one side Muslims were calling for Pakistan.  On another side Sikhs were continually being absorbed into the older amorphous Hindu environment.  On yet another side militant Neo-Hindus of the Arya Samaj variety were pursuing active campaigns of re-conversion and performing "purification"-ceremonies (shuddhi) among Indian Muslims, Christians and Sikhs for readmission into a reformed Neo-Hindu fold.  And, of course, there was the continuous pressure for conversion from the ever-present Protestant evangelical missionaries.  The Sikhs, indeed, had good reason to think that their survival as a distinct religious community was seriously threatened.

The Sikh Panth (community) did not want Partition, for they realized that that would seriously divide their communities in the Punjab.  In order to head off the Partition proposal, the Akali Dal first presented a counter-proposal to create an "Azad Punjab," a "Free Punjab," made up of carefully balanced groups of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs with no one community having a majority. The proposal was largely ignored by Indian political leaders.  In l946  Master Tara Singh (l885-l9657), leader of the Sikh Panth, then wrote a memorandum, arguing against Partition because it would seriously divide the Sikh community, but then saying that if Partition were to be implemented, there should also be provision for a separate Sikh state which would have the right to federate with either India or Pakistan.

The demand for a "Sikhistan" or "Khalistan" was ignored, and, thus, just as Partition was the tragic creation-narrative for both India and Pakistan, so it was for the Sikh community, except that in the case of the Sikh community Partition was even more wrenching, inasmuch as no appropriate place was provided for what was being created, no special provision was made for an autonomous status of any kind, yet the community was forced to undergo a cultural upheaval and trauma as great or greater  than that for Hindu India or Muslim Pakistan.

Even though no special status or place emerged because of Partition, the political situation for the Sikhs in terms of demography and representation was greatly altered as a result of the community migrations.   Before Partition Punjab had been 26 percent Hindu and l3 percent Sikh.  After Partition  Punjab was to be 60 percent Hindu and 35 percent Sikh, a tremendous increase in the presence of Sikhs. Almost immediately, then, Master Tara Singh and his chief lieutenant, Sant Fateh Singh, together with the Akali Dal, began to push for greater regional autonomy, and, under the states reorganization plan, for the creation of a Punjabi-speaking linguistic-cultural region (or, in other words, a "Punjabi suba") on analogy with other linguistic-cultural regions coming into existence in the mid-l950s such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and so forth. The effort was fully justified under the provisions of the new Constitution which allowed for the protection, preservation and autonomy of religious and linguistic minorities.  Nehru, however, was unsympathetic and considered the Sikh demands religious and "communal" instead of simply linguistic and cultural, and the report of the States Reorganization Commission in l955, undoubtedly under Nehru's influence, recommended that Punjab remain bilingual (both Punjabi-speaking and Hindi-speaking).  Akali agitations continued, however, for a "Punjabi suba" (an "entity" or "state"), until finally under Indira Gandhi in l966, partly as a reward for Sikh support in the second Indo-Pakistani war in l965, two new States were created, a Hindi-speaking and Hindu-majority State of Haryana and a Punjabi-speaking and Sikh-majority (originally 54%, but in more recent years, 60%) State of Punjab.  The city of Chandigarh was to serve initially as the capital of both States but would eventually become, according to an alleged promise made by Mrs. Gandhi, the capital of the State of Punjab.  The Sikh community had finally achieved one of its important goals, a region, a "Punjabi suba" in which they could have an autonomous, majority status.

The third and fourth periods, namely, l973-l984 and l985-present, are best treated together, since they represent a twenty-year continuing process of deterioration and alienation between the Sikh community and the Indian nation-state characterized by cynical political maneuvering, extremist rhetoric, strident hostility and excessive violence on both sides.  Neither the Republic of India nor the Sikh community can be proud of the events of the past twenty years.  The Golden Temple and the Akal Takht, proud symbols of a great religious heritage, were occupied and desecrated by armed religious extremists and thugs led by a young Sikh preacher, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, and then nearly destroyed by the tanks and troops of Operation Blue Star.  The prime minister of India, Indira Gandhi, was ruthlessly assassinated in 1984.  Thousands of innocent Sikhs were slaughtered in the resulting Hindu rage, a rage at least partly orchestrated by Congress (I) leaders.  Sikh assassins attacked public officials and innocent civilians with impunity throughout the Punjab and even outside the Punjab, in the city of Delhi and elsewhere.  Indian Army troops, police and paramilitary forces in retaliation turned much of the State of Punjab into an occupied territory in which civil liberties have been set aside with alacrity.  People on all sides have suffered, and worst of all, even now after twenty years of brutal conflict and violence, and even though elections have been held and there is a great weariness over the continuing conflicts, there continues to be a good deal of misunderstanding on all sides, although it must be admitted that the situation has greatly calmed since the elections of 1997.

THE CONTINUING CRISIS IN KASHMIR

The basic background surrounding the crisis in Kashmir is somewhat  simpler than the long and complex Sikh story, but the overall crisis is no less fundamental and tragic. Since the time of Ashoka (third century B.C.E.) Kashmir had been ruled either by Buddhist or Hindu rulers and it was not until the fourteenth century that it came under Muslim dominance.  Kashmir became part of the Mughal Empire under Akbar in l586, was for a time under Afghan rule from l756 onwards, and was finally annexed to Ranjit Singh's Sikh Empire in the Punjab in l8l9.  In l820 Ranjit Singh transferred the area of Jammu to Raja Gulab Singh, a Hindu ruler of Dogra (Rajput) ancestry, and in l846 under the Treaty of Amritsar the Kashmir Valley also came under the control of Gulab Singh and the Dogras.  In these years, of course, the British presence was greatly expanding, and British supremacy was rapidly being recognized and would continue to be recognized until the time of independence in l947.

Before Partition, the princely state of Kashmir was the largest in land area as well as the most populous among the princely states.  Following Partition, it came to be known as the State of Jammu and Kashmir.  It included not only the Kashmir Valley itself, a relatively small area some 85 miles across from east to west and some 20 to 25 miles from north to south (making up about l0% of the total region), but also the Jammu region to the south (making up about l5% of the total region), the vast Ladakh region to the east (making up over 50% of the area), and the mountainous area to the far north, including Gilgit, Baltistan, and so forth. 

The Kashmir Valley, though the smallest region in area, has the largest population with some four million Kashmiri Muslims (about two-thirds of the entire population of the State), who were and are mainly peasants, service workers and artisans, and a very small but influential percentage of Hindu Kashmiri Brahmins known as "Pandits" (from which latter group, as has been mentioned, the Nehru family derives), who were a learned and educated elite community of administrators, educators and managers (and many of whom, perhaps most, have left during these continuing  years of turmoil). The main languages in the Valley are Urdu and Kashmiri, and the Valley's most important city, Srinagar, serves as the summer capital of the State. The Jammu region in the south is the homeland of the Hindu Dogra (Rajput) ruling family and a mainly Hindu population of under 2 million.  The main languages in Jammu are Dogri and Punjabi, and the most important city, Jammu, is the winter capital of the State.  The remaining regions of the State are sparsely populated.  In addition to the majority Muslims and the smaller Hindu community, the State also has some l30,000 Sikhs and some 70,000 Tibetan Buddhists.  The State of Jammu and Kashmir is the only Muslim majority State in the Indian Union.

The struggle for freedom and a distinct identity for Kashmiri Muslims was a problem long before Partition during the extended period when Kashmiri Muslims were controlled by the minority Hindu Dogra dynasty and by the numerically small but remarkably influential Kashmiri Brahmin Pandits.   Moreover, in earlier times as well, before the nineteenth century, Kashmiri Muslims had seldom been trusted by earlier rulers for any sort of political or administrative leadership.  Even in Mughal times,  Kabuli Muslims (from Afghanistan) and Punjabi Muslims were brought into the Kashmir Valley to govern the Kashmiri Muslims. Even then, members from the small Kashmiri Brahmin community were regularly utilized for key leadership roles. Likewise during the periods of Afghan and Sikh rule, outsiders were regularly brought into the Valley for purposes of administration and combined with Kashmiri Brahmins.  Thus, the Kashmiri Muslims have always been a neglected, rather isolated and distinct Muslim community, largely under Sufi influence, distinct not only from Hindu traditions but from other traditions of Islam as well.   Kashmiri Muslims, in other words, are in language, culture and religion a unique and unusual community in South Asia.

The first stirring of cultural and political awakening occurred in the early l930s with the emergence of one of the most remarkable characters of twentieth century South Asian history, Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah (l905-l982), who eventually came to be known as the "Lion of Kashmir." Sheikh Abdullah took a science degree from the Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh (the place, it may be recalled, for the emergence of modernist yet separatist Neo-Muslim sentiment) and after returning to the Valley formed a political movement in l932 called the All-Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference, the name of which by l939 was changed to the All-Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, or simply the National Conference. The original purpose of the movement was to improve the situation of Kashmiri Muslims, but very quickly it became the symbolic rallying point for a variety dissident groups, including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and so forth, all of whom were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the autocratic Hindu Dogra Maharaja.  Sheikh Abdullah was a vigorous opponent of Maharaja Hari Singh whom he considered to be not only high-handed and dictatorial but utterly illegitimate in view of the overwhelming Muslim majority in the region.

Early along, Jawaharlal Nehru, who was more than a little interested in developments in the Valley because of his Kashmiri ancestry, came to appreciate Sheikh Abdullah's efforts against the Maharaja and involved the Sheikh in the larger freedom movement of the Indian National Congress.  Sheikh Abdullah and Nehru became close friends, and the friendship endured throughout the lives of both men, even though Nehru would in later years have the Sheikh arrested and imprisoned for years on end.  In any case, in l946 as Partition and independence were approaching, Sheikh Abdullah mounted a "Quit Kashmir" movement against Hari Singh, and the Maharaja responded by having Sheikh Abdullah arrested and imprisoned.

This created a double-bind problem for Maharaja Hari Singh at the time of Partition in August of l947.  On the one hand, as a Hindu monarch ruling over a Muslim majority population, the prospect of acceding to Pakistan was obviously not attractive.  Similarly, however, especially with Sheikh Abdullah, Nehru's good  friend, currently in jail, the prospect of acceding to India was hardly more attractive.  Hari Singh was inclined to push for independence from both Pakistan and India, but Lord Mountbatten made it clear that independence was not an option.  Hari Singh's only immediate alternative other than accession either to India or Pakistan was to arrange a "standstill" agreement, that is, a period of delay.  By the end of September 1947 Hari Singh finally released Sheikh Abdullah from jail, and shortly thereafter Nehru invited Sheikh Abdullah to Delhi for a visit.

By the middle of October, Hari Singh was unable to delay a decision any longer.     Armed Pathan tribesmen with the tacit approval and apparent support of Pakistan had launched an assault to take Kashmir for Pakistan on October 22, l947, and by October 24 were within fifty miles of Srinagar. Hari Singh fled from Srinagar to Jammu and immediately indicated a willingness to accede to India.  Accession to India was finally negotiated and an instrument of accession signed on October 26, l947 with the understanding that Sheikh Abdullah would be put at the head of a new state administration (eventually to become interim prime minister).  Moreover, accession was to be only in the areas of defense, foreign affairs and communications with the remainder of government functions to be left in the hands of the Kashmiris.  Most important of all, Nehru insisted that accession was to be conditional upon a plebiscite being held in which the population would confirm the accession to India.

It is crucial to note that at the time of accession the reason for the provision of a plebiscite had nothing to do with any worries over what the people of Kashmir would choose.  The Kashmiri Muslim population under the leadership of Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference together with the smaller Hindu population would have overwhelmingly supported accession to India with proper safeguards.  The provision of a plebiscite, rather, was to make clear to the Maharaja that accession could not be granted solely on the basis of his (the Hindu Maharaja's) decision apart from the will of the people.

The attack by the Pathan tribesmen, sponsored by Pakistan and destined to become the first Indo-Pakistani war, continued even after accession, and the soldiers of a "peace brigade" sponsored by the National Conference under Sheikh Abdullah's leadership together with the Indian Army were finally able to turn the tide in favor of India against Pakistan.  In the meantime Nehru took the issue to the United Nations on December 3l, l947, hoping to put pressure on Pakistan to force the Pathan tribesmen to withdraw from Kashmir.  Finally, after the war dragged on for almost l5 months, a ceasefire was negotiated by the U. N. in January l949.  A "line of actual control" between the forces of India and Pakistan was established, in effect partitioning Kashmir, with some 60% of the old princely state, including the Kashmir Valley, Jammu, and most of Ladakh together with some 75% of the total population remaining with India, the remaining portions, mainly farther to the north and representing some 40% of the old state and some 25% of the population, to be under the control of Pakistan and known as "Azad Kashmir" or Free Kashmir.

Over the years the United Nations has attempted to get both Pakistan and India to withdraw all forces from the Kashmir region and to establish a "neutral" interim government for a period of time, with the understanding that shortly thereafter a plebiscite would be held in the region under international supervision.  Such a plebiscite has never taken place.  As has been mentioned earlier, there was a second Indo-Pakistani war over Kashmir in l965 which failed to resolve the impasse between Pakistan and India.  Moreover, a third Indo-Pakistani war in l97l (mainly over East Pakistan or Bangladesh) also to some extent touched upon the Kashmir issue in the sense that in the final settlement of that third war, the ceasefire line agreed to on December l7, l97l in Kashmir became the new "line of control" (LOC) in the region between Pakistan and India.  Furthermore, in the July l972 Simla Agreement between Mrs. Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto it was determined that future conflicts over Kashmir would be handled through bilateral peaceful negotiations between India and Pakistan, which India has chosen to interpret as thereby excluding third-party international agencies such as the United Nations.

Kashmir also became an issue in yet another international dispute, this time between India and the People's Republic of China, involving a desolate piece of land known as the Aksai Chin in the eastern region of Ladakh in what India considered to be part of Kashmir.  In the late l950s when China was taking Tibet, a road was built by the Chinese across the Aksai Chin in order to maintain ease of access to Tibet from south China.  When this was disputed by India, the Chinese attacked and occupied the region in l962, badly bludgeoning the Indian troops in the area.  The region continues to be disputed between the two countries to the present day.

To return, however, to the internal situation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, following accession in October l947, Sheikh Abdullah returned to Srinagar as head of the new interim administration.  As just mentioned, his first task was to defeat the pro-Pakistani tribal incursion.  With that finally resolved by the U. N. ceasefire of January l949, Sheikh Abdullah then set about the task of governing, which involved both setting up a new government and consolidating the precise terms on which the accession of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to India would be finalized.  He instituted a number of reforms, including a popular land reform program known as "land to the tiller." 

Regarding accession to India, he tried to mediate the various positions in the region.  There was some minor support among some Muslim groups for accession to Pakistan.  There was some support among other groups for total independence.  There was other support, largely among Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs in Jammu and other places outside the Valley, for total integration into India under India's new Constitution.  Sheikh Abdullah and his National Conference opted for a compromise position, rejecting, on the one hand, either accession to Pakistan or independence, but also, on the other hand, rejecting total integration into India.

The National Conference under Sheikh Abdullah's guidance decided to agree with accession to India precisely as the original instrument of accession drawn up by the Maharaja had stipulated, that is to say, only in areas of defense, foreign affairs and communications, with the remainder of legislative powers belonging to the State.  Moreover, Sheikh Abdullah took the position that a final settlement would have to be worked out by a soon to be appointed Constituent Assembly.  In the interim before a Constituent Assembly could finish its work, a compromise was worked out between India and the State of Jammu and Kashmir whereby the State would have a special status within the Indian Union unlike any of the other former princely states.  This special status is spelled out in Article 370 of The Constitution of India and includes the right of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to have its own constitution.

In l95l the Constituent Assembly was formed but by that time Sheikh Abdullah was already beginning to waver in his attitude towards the nation-state of India.  He trusted Nehru, but he began to worry about what would happen to the Kashmiri Muslim majority after Nehru.  He began to worry about the heavy hand of the developing state and the emergence of conservative Hindu and Neo-Hindu forces such as the Bharatiya Jana Sangh (founded in l95l).  He was not in favor of complete independence for Jammu and Kashmir, which he thought would be unworkable, but he did begin to favor some degree of independent status for Jammu and Kashmir within the Indian Union.   He began to advocate a theory of confederation between India, Pakistan and Kashmir that would allow a loose federation between the three states in a framework of basic independence for all three.

Sheikh Abdullah informed the Constituent Assembly in l953 that it had three options, that is, (a) accession to Pakistan, (b) accession to India, or (c) independence.  By this time officials in India, including Nehru, were becoming impatient and irritated with what appeared to be dangerous vacillation on the part of Sheikh Abdullah and the National Conference.  Sheikh Abdullah was accused of backsliding, tilting towards Pakistan and betraying India's good faith.  Nehru was at first supportive of his old friend but then slowly and reluctantly came to be persuaded that Sheikh Abdullah was a serious obstacle to final resolution of Kashmir's accession.  Finally, in August of l953 Sheikh Abdullah was arrested and imprisoned, and he was to remain in jail for many of the next eleven years.

With Sheikh Abdullah out of the picture, India invited Bakshi Gulam Mohammad to form a second interim government in l953.  A former associate of Sheikh Abdullah, he continued the reforms that had been set in motion, but he was also more willing than the Sheikh had been to compromise with India over the accession arrangement.  By l956 the new state constitution was adopted, and while it still clearly articulated a special status for the State of Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian Union in keeping with Article 370 of the Constitution of India, it also declared directly that the state would be an integral part of the Indian Union.

The new constitution for the State of Jammu and Kashmir came into effect on January 26, l957, and shortly thereafter Bakshi Gulam Mohammad was sworn in as the State's first chief minister.  Many, however, including Sheikh Abdullah, were deeply dissatisfied with what appeared to be a contrived and coerced settlement and with the failure to follow through on the promised plebiscite.  A "Plebiscite Front" was formed by dissident Kashmiri Muslims in order to press the demand for a general plebiscite.  Sheikh Abdullah never joined the Front, but many of the dissidents looked to him for inspiration.

The government of Bakshi Gulam Mohammad was succeeded in l963 by the more enlightened one of G. M. Sadiq, a socialist intellectual and reformer, and shortly thereafter  Sheikh Abdullah was released from prison.  His return to Srinagar was greeted with mass demonstrations of support.  He was in touch with his old friend Nehru, and he travelled to Delhi at Nehru's invitation in order to plan yet another compromise over the Kashmir issue.  He and Nehru discussed the old idea of confederation.  Sheikh Abdullah was also invited to visit Pakistan, and Nehru encouraged him to go and try out the idea of confederation on the Pakistanis.  Ayub Khan, Pakistan's prime minister, was uninterested in the idea of confederation, but there evidently was some willingness to discuss the issue of Kashmir.

Unfortunately, however, while Sheikh Abdullah was in Pakistan in May l964 visiting Pakistan-controlled "Azad Kashmir," Nehru suddenly died, and any plan for further compromise or accomodation was no longer possible.  Later in the same year, much to the consternation of the government of India, Sheikh Abdullah also met with the Chinese leader, Zhou Enlai, and articulated his hopes for Kashmiri self-determination.  His continuing dissident behavior infuriated officials in Delhi, and yet again Sheikh Abdullah was arrested and imprisoned.

l965 brought the second (and largely indecisive) Indo-Pakistani war over Kashmir,as has already been mentioned, and even the third war in l97l, though immediately about East Pakistan and Bangladesh, did also involve renegotiating the "line of actual control" in Kashmir in December of l97l and the Simla Agreement of l972.  In l968 Sheikh Abdullah was once again released from jail, and by l972, Indira Gandhi, greatly strengthened because of her significant election victory in l97l together with her decisive defeat of Pakistan over Bangladesh, decided to try once again to settle the Kashmir issue.  She negotiated with Sheikh Abdullah the Kashmir Accord, the text of which was announced in parliament on February 24, l975, providing that Jammu and Kashmir would be a "...constituent unit of the Union of India" governed under the terms of Article 370 of the Constitution, that Jammu and Kashmir would have powers of legislation for its own welfare and development but that all matters of territorial integrity would be controlled by the legislative power of parliament.

As a result of the accord, on February 25, l975 Sheikh Abdullah was sworn in as chief minister of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, and he remained in that position until his death on September 8, l982.  Sheikh Abdullah supported Mrs. Gandhi during the Emergency period (l975-l977) and supported her again in her return to power against the Janata coalition in the l980 elections. He continued to vacillate, however, regarding the status of Jammu and Kashmir in the Indian Union, as did his son and successor, Farooq Abdullah, who took over leadership of the National Conference after the death of his father in l982. 

There was still much resentment in the Valley that a plebiscite had not yet been held together with a growing suspicion that a plebiscite would probably never be held.  There was growing resentment over what was perceived to be the increasingly heavy hand of the Indian state along  with growing resentment against the elite Kashmiri Brahmin Hindu minority. There were also Kashmiri Muslim dissident groups of one kind or another, some wanting complete independence from India or Pakistan, some wanting some sort of linkage with Pakistan.  In later years there were widespread complaints about corruption and ineptitude directed against Sheikh Abdullah, and, of course, as was true in the Punjab in the same period, there was a continuing  rivalry between local political parties (for example, the National Conference and various Muslim political groups) and Congress (I) in the State.

Shortly after Mrs. Gandhi took action against the Sikhs in the State of Punjab with Operation Blue Star in June of l984, she also moved against Farooq Abdullah's National Conference government in the State of Jammu and Kashmir in July of the same year.  In both cases she was convinced that dissidents were becoming too strong, that the Centre was losing control and that outside forces (most of all, Pakistan) were meddling in the internal affairs of the country.  In the State of Jammu and Kashmir she engineered the fall of the government of Farooq Abdullah by instructing her appointed governor, Jagmohan, to dismiss Abdullah and to install, instead, G. M. Shah, as chief minister.

She acted with almost total disregard to ordinary due process and the various special provisions in place for the State of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370.   People throughout the State exploded in protest as did many in other parts of India as well.  Police and paramilitary forces from the outside had to be brought in to control the rioting and resulting disorder. A few years later in l987, after Mrs. Gandhi's assassination and under the new Congress (I) government of Rajiv Gandhi, Farooq Abdullah was allowed to return to power with an electoral alliance between the National Conference and the Congress (I).  Unfortunately, in the interim all of the opposition Muslim parties and other dissidents had joined forces to form a new Muslim United Front, and it was anticipated on all sides in the State of Jammu and Kashmir that the dissidents would easily win.

The election, however, was hardly fair.  Charges of widespread manipulation and outright fraud were levelled, so that the Farooq Abdullah National Conference-Congress (I) "victory" was altogether hollow and unconvincing to the entire population of the State. Demonstrations began almost immediately, and Kashmiri Muslim dissident groups began to grow and gain prominence.  Two in particular came to be especially prominent: the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (the JKLF), which seeks total independence for Jammu and Kashmir apart from India or Pakistan, and the Hizb-ul-Mujahadin, a Neo-Muslim dissident group wanting to establish linkage with Pakistan. Both groups have become increasingly violent since l987, making use of aggressive street demonstrations, kidnappings, assassinations and a variety of other guerilla tactics throughout the Valley.

In December of l989, when the new V. P. Singh government had just come into power at the Centre, Kashmiri Muslim militants kidnapped the daughter of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, himself a Kashmiri and recently appointed home minister in V. P. Singh's cabinet.  As ransom for her release the militants demanded that their jailed activist colleagues be released.  The V. P. Singh government acquiesced in the ransom demand.  The activists were released from jail, and the daughter of the home minister was set free. 

Shortly thereafter, however, in January of l990 in order to send a signal that the new government was not acting out of weakness, the hard-line and intensely disliked Hindu administrator and former governor, Jagmohan, was sent to the State again as the new governor.  Farooq Abdullah, who had been desperately trying to hold the situation together in the State and remembered only too well his previous experience with Jagmohan, immediately resigned as chief minister.  Jagmohan thereafter dismissed the state legislature, imposed strict curfews, instituted house-to-house searches and ordered thousands of dissidents arrested.  It is estimated by the U.S. State Department that some 2293 people lost their lives in the State during l990. 

As many or more have been killed in l99l and l992 with the carnage continuing down to the present day.   V. P. Singh finally dismissed Jagmohan in May of l990 and replaced him with G. C. Saxena, a much more moderate figure.  In July of l990 President's Rule was established in the State, and the State was ruled with a heavy military hand from the Centre for the next several years, under  the governorship  of retired General K. V. Krishna Rao. Finally, in 1996, a reasonable semblance of an election was held with the National Conference winning a decisive victory and with Farooq Abdullah again becoming chief minister. 

Human rights abuses continue to be common, however, and hundreds of those arrested have been  tortured and executed, according to the reports of human rights organizations such as Asia Watch and Physicians for Human Rights. Like the State of Punjab in the early 1990s, the State of Jammu and Kashmir is for all intents and purposes an occupied territory.  Unlike the Punjab, however, where the situation has largely settled down, in Jammu and Kashmir the Kashmiri Muslims of the Valley appear to be overwhelmingly opposed to the Indian state.

The crisis in Kashmir, both in terms of the internal political situation as well as in terms of the resulting tension with Pakistan over the issue, is probably the single most crucial issue facing present-day India.  Moreover, the crisis has recently been exacerbated (1) by the open declaration of the possession of nuclear weapons by both India and Pakistan in May 1998, and (2) the military coup in Pakistan in October 1999. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MOSQUE (BABRI MASJID) IN AYODHYA

One other event calls for comment in terms of understanding  some of the more important cultural crises that India must deal with in the coming years, namely, the destruction of the Babri Masjid in the city of Ayodhya in the State of Uttar Pradesh.  The event is symptomatic of the tensions that exist in India between the majority Hindu population and the minority Muslim communities.

The background can be briefly summarized as follows.  According to conservative Neo-Hindu groups, in the year l528 in the city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh in north India, a certain Mir Baqi, a lieutenant of the first Mughal emperor, Babar, tore down a temple that marked the birthplace of Rama (hence, the expression "Ramjanmabhoomi" or "birth-place of Rama") and built in its place a mosque in honor of the Emperor Babar (hence, the expression "Babri Masjid" or "the mosque of Babar"). 

There is very little evidence prior to the nineteenth century to support this particular claim. There is, of course, evidence of Muslim armies destroying Hindu temples in Mughal times as well as earlier, and it is undoubtedly the case that in some instances mosques were built from the ruins of older Hindu temples.  There is also considerable evidence of Hindu temples having been built from the ruins of older Buddhist and Jain temples in various parts of India.  Whether or not the Babri Masjid itself, however, was built from the ruins of an original Hindu temple to Rama and whether or not this particular place in ancient times was considered the birth-place of Rama (Ramjanmabhoomi) are matters impossible to determine.   Inconclusive "evidence" can be and has been cited on both sides of the controversy.

Very little is known about the city of Ayodhya in ancient times, even whether there was such a place in the fabled "time" of Rama.  It has been conjectured that Ayodhya was originally the fictional city of the epic hero and heroine, Rama and Sita, and only later became identified with a specific geographical place.  The specific geographical place with which Ayodhya became associated was the city of Saketa on the Saryu (or Saraya) river in the region of Kosala in north India, a city and a region that had been sacred not only to Hindus, but to Buddhists, Jains and Adivasis (the "original or first inhabitants" or, in other words, the tribals) as well.  A portion of the site is also known as "Sita ki rasoi" (meaning something like "Sita's kitchen") suggesting that the original site may have been the center of some sort of chthonic vegetation or fertility ritual.

In any case, by the fifth century of the Common Era, Ayodhya or Saketa had become the capital of the Hindu Gupta dynasty and was associated with the revival of the Indo-Brahmanical and the emergence of Indic ("Hindu") traditions after centuries of Indo-Shramanical (mainly Jain and Buddhist) hegemony.  It was probably in this period that the cult of Rama as an "incarnation" (avatara) of the high god, Vishnu, was getting started. It was not until many centuries later, however, probably some time in the tenth century, that Ayodhya became a major center for Vaishnava spirituality; and it was even later, towards the end of the seventeenth century and thereafter, following the advent of Islamic civilization and the interaction between Sufi traditions with exuberant Hindu bhakti  traditions, when Vaishnava Ramanandi ascetics, known as Vairagis (or Bairagis), popularized the cult of  Rama, as it is known and practiced today all across north India, and focussed their activities in such sacred places as Varanasi and Ayodhya.  

At the time, interestingly enough,  Shaiva traditions (and probably Nath Yogi traditions) were dominant, and the Ramanandis had to take Ayodhya by force.  This was also the period of the oppressive rule of the Mughal, Aurangzeb (ruled l658-l707), and it could well have been in this period and after, that is, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when north Indian Hindu traditions were reacting defensively not only against the older oppressive order of Muslim rule (especially that of Aurangzeb) but also against the new oppressive order of the British, that the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi story as we know it today got started.

However one wishes to interpret the ancient evidence, it is nevertheless the case that by the nineteenth century many believed that the location of the Babri Masjid was on the site of the Ramjanmabhoomi.  Armed conflict between Hindus and Muslims regarding the site occurred in l853, again in l855 and during and after the North Indian rebellion of l857.  The British quickly realized that both religious communities had to be accomodated.  A compromise was, therefore, worked out whereby both religious groups could worship at the site of the mosque, with Hindus using a raised platform (chabutara)  for their puja in the outer enclosure of the mosque by the eastern gate or entry to the site, and with Muslims continuing to use the interior of the mosque but only by entering through the northern gate of the site.

Tensions of one kind or another continued over the next decades, but it was not until shortly after Partition in l947 that a major conflict was to arise.  On the night of December 22-23, l949 Rama and Sita idols "appeared" inside the mosque.  According to Hindu accounts, the appearance was a miracle.  According to Muslim accounts, a Hindu mendicant had gotten inside the mosque and deposited the idols.  According to the only police report, by early morning of December 23 a group of fifty or sixty Vaishnava Hindus had broken into the mosque, had deposited the idols, and were already singing devotional songs when the police arrived.

The District Magistrate, K. K. Nayar, immediately notified higher authorities about the incident, and he was instructed to have the idols removed immediately.  He refrained from having the idols removed, however, claiming that the removal would cause needless violence.  Instead, he had the area declared "disturbed," ordered the Imam to leave the mosque and had the mosque locked.  Hindus, however, were allowed to continue to offer puja outside the locked structure. Thus, in effect, the mosque had been turned into a Hindu temple, for it obviously could no longer be used by Muslims for worship, locked or not.

Later, on December 29, l949 the District Magistrate put the mosque into receivership under the supervision of the chairman of the Municipal Board, Mr. Priya Datt Ram.  Concerned Muslims in Ayodhya then sent a delegation to Prime Minister Nehru in New Delhi asking that the idols be removed from the locked mosque, and Nehru requested the State government of Uttar Pradesh to remove the statues.   In the interim, however, a civil suit was filed (on January l6, l950) asking for a declaration of a right to worship by Hindus, and on March 3, l95l a civil judge ordered that the idols not be removed and that worship be permitted.

The situation remained the same until the early l980s, a time, it may be recalled, when separatist and minority problems (as in the States of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir) were generally becoming exacerbated and a time when Mrs. Gandhi had returned to power following the failure of the coalition Janata party (l977-l979).  A Ramjanmabhoomi Action Committee was formed in October of l984, and a "tala  kholo" ("Open the lock!") campaign was begun.  The campaign also included a "chariot journey" (a rath yatra), a religious procession to call attention to the Ramjanmabhoomi issue. The campaign was aborted, however, because of the political confusion over the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi on October 3l, l984. 

The campaign was resumed a year later (October l985) with the additional demand that the Babri Masjid (the mosque) be torn down and a temple to Lord Rama be constructed on the site.  Moreover, the resumed campaign was now also sponsored by the conservative VHP (the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or "World Council of Hindus") together with the tacit support of the conservative Hindu RSS (the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the "National Assembly of Volunteers") and the newly reorganized conservative Hindu political party, the BJP or Bharatiya Janata Party.  The Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi controversy, in other words, was rapidly becoming a major political issue and a symbolic rallying point for conservative Hindu and Neo-Hindu sentiment fed up with the supposed appeasement and favoritism continually being shown to minorities such as Sikhs and Muslims.

There was considerable support even within the Congress (I) government of Rajiv Gandhi for the Ramjanmabhoomi cause, and in January of l986 an application was filed by a lawyer in Faizabad (near Ayodhyå) to remove the restrictions on the puja, or, in other words, open the locks on the mosque.  No action was taken at the local level, but the matter was appealed to the District level. The District Judge of Faizabad, K. M. Pandey, after briefly inquiring into the law and order situation at the mosque and being assured by the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police that there would be no violence, gave an order to unlock the gates.

In the interim between February l986 and December l992, the political situation grew increasingly tense, and the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi controversy came to dominate almost every aspect of public life.  Muslims reacted to the l986 order by forming the Babri Masjid Action Committee (the BMAC) together with other spin-off (as well as rival) groups in order to stop the Hindu onslaught on the Babri Masjid.  Civil suits of various kinds were filed.  Muslims were becoming especially alarmed over the increasingly powerful and vocal conservative Hindu sentiment.  Conservative Hindus for their part kept up the pressure for a new temple to Rama at the site of the Babri Masjid.  The VHP sponsored an additional campaign to collect bricks from all over Hindu India in order to construct the proposed Rama temple.  Supposedly some 200,000 villages sent bricks, and the foundation stone for the proposed temple to Rama was laid on November 9, l989.

In December of l989 the new coalition (National Front) government of V. P. Singh came into power, a minority government supported by the Communist parties on the left, and the increasingly powerful BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) on the right.  In that election the BJP, which had previously had only a handful of seats, now had a remarkable 86 seats and had become a major support for the V. P. Singh government.  The reason for the BJP's growing popularity was clearly its vigorous support for the Ramjanmabhoomi cause.  In October of l990 yet another "chariot journey" (rath yatra) was announced, this one to begin at the sacred site of Somnath in Gujarat (a site reclaimed by Hindus shortly after Partition with the strategic support of deputy prime minister Vallabhbhai Patel) and to proceed through the State of Bihar and, finally, to Uttar Pradesh and the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi site at Ayodhya.  Moreover, this new "chariot journey" was to be led by the president of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the powerful Lal Krishnan Advani, a Hindu from Sindh in what is now Pakistan who had to flee from his homeland at the time of Partition and who has been heavily influenced by the conservative Neo-Hindu ideology of the RSS.

The National Front government of V. P. Singh, even though one of its essential supports was the BJP, warned Advani that the "chariot journey" would not be allowed to proceed to Ayodhya because of the serious threat to law and order.  Advani and the BJP proceeded anyway, and on October 23, l990 Advani was arrested and taken to jail.  The BJP, of course, immediately removed its support from the V. P. Singh government, and the no confidence vote was held in parliament on November 7, l990 with V. P. Singh losing the vote 356 to l5l. V. P. Singh officially resigned on November 8, l990.

As already mentioned, the short-lived Chandra Shekhar government was only a brief interim between the National Front government of V. P. Singh and the Congress(I) government of P. V. Narasimha Rao.  Chandra Shekhar was successful in getting the various protagonists in the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi controversy to negotiate with one another on a continuing basis, and so likewise was P. V. Narasimha Rao successful initially in fostering discussion and debate about the issue.  Everyone appeared more or less to agree that the ultimate resolution of the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi controversy should be left to the courts to decide.  The land, after all, was "nazul" land (land owned by the state), and surely some compromise could be worked out whereby the site could be maintained as some sort of national monument in honor of both Hindu and Muslim traditions.

The BJP, however, was continuing to gain political momentum over the whole issue.  In the elections of June l99l (following Rajiv Gandhi's assassination on May 2l, l99l), for example, the BJP's representation at the Centre jumped from 86 to ll7 and its share of the popular vote nearly doubled from ll percent to 20 percent.  Moreover, BJP governments were in power in the key States of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.  The BJP continued to hammer away at what it called the "pseudo-secularism" of the Congress(I), a "pseudo-secularism," according to the BJP,  that is little more than a cynical coddling and appeasement of minorities (especially Muslims and Sikhs) for the sake of maintaining political power.

In December of 1992 a group of conservative Hindus supported by the BJP, the VHP and the RSS, asked then prime minister Narasimha Rao for permission to hold a peaceful rally at the Babri Masjid site on Sunday morning, December 6.  The prime minister granted permission on the condition that the rally remain nonviolent, but the "peaceful" rally turned into a screaming mob that with hammers and bare hands demolished the Babri Masjid in a period of some six hours.  By the end of the day the Babri Masjid was a heap of rubble. 

Hundreds died in the resulting riots all over India, especially in Bombay.  As might be expected, Muslim communities suffered the most in the resulting carnage.  The prime minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao, was enraged at the BJP, the VHP, the RSS and other conservative Hindu groups together with the various BJP State governments, the leaders of all of which groups had promised the prime minister that the gathering of "volunteers" in Ayodhya on December 6 would be a peaceful rally.

The resulting violence and perceived betrayal led Narasimha Rao to ban the activities of the BJP, the VHP and the RSS, but since that time the ban has been lifted.  Also, the prime minister dismissed the four BJP State governments (in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan) and imposed President's rule.  New elections in the four States and the Delhi-area were finally held in November of l993. Interestingly, the Supreme Court in a ruling on March 11, l994 upheld the prime minister's decision to dismiss the four BJP State governments in December l992 on the grounds that the BJP governments at the time of the crisis had acted in a non-secular manner, that is, they had failed to maintain a separation between religion and the state. 

Up to the present time no final decision has been taken by the government as to when or where a new mosque or a new temple is to be built in the vicinity of Ayodhya.   The conflict continues to be unresolved to the present time. 

In summary, it can well be said that Hindu-Muslim tensions as symbolized by the Babri Masjid incident, the unresolved issues with the Sikh community in the Punjab, the crisis with the Muslim majority community in Kashmir, and the on-going  tensions with Pakistan represent fundamental agenda  items for determining the future viability of India as a modern nation-state.