THE PUBLIC REACTION TO AYODHYA TEMPLE VERDICT WILL BE CRITICAL: THE ASTUTE BLOGGER SCOOPS THE NYTIMES BY A DAY

NYTIMES TODAY:

India itself. Dating from 1950, the legal battle between Hindus and Muslims over a religious site in the city of Ayodhya began as a little-noticed title dispute. With a ruling finally expected on Thursday, the case has become something altogether different: a test of India’s secular soul.

A police officer patrolled last week outside a temple in Ayodhya. Thousands of security officers have been deployed to the city.

The test is not so much in the verdict, which will deal with a handful of issues, including the central question of which side controls the site of a 16th-century mosque known as the Babri Masjid. Rather, the test will come in the public reaction. In 1992, an enraged mob of Hindu extremists destroyed the mosque, asserting that the site was the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Ram. Riots erupted, claiming about 2,000 lives, mostly Muslims, and horrifying a nation founded on the ideal of religious tolerance.

For the past month, the Indian government and leaders of major political parties, including right-wing Hindu leaders who stoked the 1992 violence, have asked people to remain calm and refrain from violence. Thousands of security officers have been deployed to Ayodhya, though the authorities concede that riots could occur anywhere. The verdict is considered so politically combustible that an emergency appeal to delay the verdict until after the Commonwealth Games in October was sent to India’s Supreme Court last week — and rejected on Tuesday.

Later on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on the nation to “maintain peace, harmony and tranquillity.”

The verdict could determine whether the mosque is rebuilt on the site or if a Hindu temple is erected there instead. Yet despite the official concern, many analysts believe that India has matured since the violence in 1992. Hindu nationalism, a potent political force in the 1990s that fueled the campaign to tear down the Babri Masjid, is now far less potent. Last year, when the government released the findings of a long-awaited investigation into the violence, the public response was largely a shrug.

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