Tensions are running high in the wake of the right-wing's electoral victory in Gujerat, reports Iffat Malik from Islamabad The importance of the recent elections in the Indian state of Gujerat cannot be overestimated. The result -- victory for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the secular Congress -- is expected to have ramifications for national politics and hence foreign relations, especially with Pakistan. The elections on 12 December were called just over a year after the last polls. The BJP won 2001's contest and its leader Narendra Modi was sworn in as chief minister of Gujerat in October 2001. However, in July Modi resigned his post and announced that he would be seeking a fresh mandate from the people of the state. He was forced to do this by pressure from opposition groups, strongly critical of his handling of recent communal riots. In February this year, a train carrying Hindu pilgrims was set on fire in Godhra, central Gujerat. Fifty-eight people perished in the ensuing blaze. The attack was blamed on Muslims and led to the worst Hindu- Muslim violence in India in over 10 years. The overwhelming majority of post-Godhra victims were Muslims. In many parts of Gujerat pogroms were carried out in Muslim neighbourhoods: hundreds were hacked or burned to death. Thousands more fled their homes. What made the violence infinitely worse was its organised nature and the clear involvement of the authorities. In some areas Hindu mobs had lists of Muslim and Hindu households and businesses. They systematically destroyed only the Muslim ones. Police and security forces became notorious for standing by while mobs went on the rampage -- they even abetted in the violence. The chief minister of the state also stood by and made no effort to prevent the slaughter of Muslims. Hence the calls for his resignation. The BJP state government's actions were consistent with its radical creed of Hindutva. This basically conceptualises India as a Hindu state, in which minorities must either adopt the practices of the majority culture or leave the country. There is no room in Hindutva for pluralism or secularism. In the past two decades the BJP has made massive electoral gains on this Hindutva platform. Its campaign to destroy the Babri Mosque at Ayodhya and build a temple to Ram on the site was particularly effective. Narendra Modi is one of the most extreme leaders in a party renowned for its extremism. The Gujerat elections were thus, on the one hand, a referendum on Modi's handling of the communal riots. On a wider level, they were a referendum on the issues determining Indian politics: identity and ideology versus "conventional" issues like jobs and the economy. Modi fought the elections on the former: his speeches were full of Hindu rhetoric, attacks on Muslims ["Musharraf's progeny"] and accusations against Pakistan [sponsoring terrorism]. Modi focused exclusively on winning the votes of the state's Hindu population. The main opposition to Modi was Congress candidate, Shankersingh Vaghela, strongly backed by party leader Sonia Gandhi. Congress fought its campaign on "bread and butter" issues. It criticised the rise in unemployment during Modi's watch, and the decline in industrial output. From being the third most industrialised state in India, Gujerat has now slipped to eighth. Much of the loss is related to concerns about security and stability. In the early stages of the campaign, Modi seemed to be far ahead of his Congress rival. His anti-Muslim, anti-Pakistan rhetoric appeared to have struck a chord with Hindu voters. But as polling day drew closer, Congress made up a lot of ground. The combination of Sonia Gandhi personally campaigning in the state -- she drew crowds of 50,000-100,000 -- and Muslim mobilisation ensured a tight race. Muslims lost their early apathy and mobilised in large numbers to vote for Congress -- many saw the party as their only hope of salvation from the BJP. Despite this late rally by Congress, exit polls were predicting a marginal victory for the BJP's Narendra Modi. This was partially confirmed by the results on Sunday: Narendra Modi won the election, but not marginally -- he secured a landslide. The party did best in areas where there was the most anti-Muslim rioting. Its stance of hard-line Hindu nationalism clearly paid dividends. Modi will soon be sworn in as chief minister for the second time. The BJP's win in Gujerat has immense implications for politics in the rest of the country. For a start, the BJP will use the same Hindutva platform to campaign in other forthcoming state elections. It will go all out for the Hindu vote, to the exclusion of Muslims and other minorities. Irrespective of whether this brings it to power, such a strategy will undoubtedly polarise populations into Hindu and Muslim communities and could even cause the violence seen in Gujerat to be replicated in other states. In short, victory for the BJP in Gujerat has pushed India further away from the officially secular state espoused by Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's first prime minister, and further towards the officially Hindu state espoused by Madhav Golwalkar, the ideologue who inspired the BJP. Muslims, Christians and even low-caste Hindus will find such an India a far more insecure place to live. Victory for the BJP in Gujerat has also strengthened the party's coalition government in the centre, thus ensuring that it calls the shots in national policy-making. Two of the key policy areas that will be affected by the strong BJP government are Kashmir and Pakistan. Mufti Saeed's People's Democratic Party recently took power in Kashmir. It has been trying to follow a reconciliatory approach to dealing with the state's 13-year-old separatist movement. The BJP, in opposition in Kashmir, advocates a hard-line, suppression- through-force approach. The strengthened BJP government in New Delhi will now put even more pressure on Saeed to abandon reconciliation and use force to crush separatism. Narendra Modi made liberal use of anti-Pakistan rhetoric during his campaign. He was echoed by national party leaders: Lal K Advani even urged Pakistan to fight a fourth war with India. Now that the BJP has become stronger in the centre, it is highly unlikely to try and normalise or improve relations with its neighbour. Rather, it is likely to strike a belligerent posture towards Pakistan. Given the two countries' history of animosity leading to conflict, and given that both are nuclear powers, victory for the BJP does not bode well for peace and stability in south Asia.
