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Court clears India's deputy PM

This article is more than 21 years old
One Hindu leader has escaped conviction for the razing of Ayodhya mosque, but seven others face trial

The Indian deputy prime minister, Lal Krishna Advani, was cleared yesterday of inciting the 1992 demolition by Hindu zealots of the 16th-century Mughal mosque in Ayodhya.

But the special court in Uttar Pradesh state told seven other prominent Hindus that they would be tried on similar charges.

They include a fellow member of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government, the human resources development minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, who has since tendered his resignation.

They will be charged on October 10 with offences likely to include incitement and unlawful assembly.

The charges relate to the ransacking of the mosque in Uttar Pradesh, which was attacked by tens of thousands of Hindu activists with spades, crowbars and their bare hands.

The attack led to nationwide riots in which 2,000 people died, and a decade of tension between Hindus and Muslims.

Last year further rioting claimed 1,000 - mainly Muslim - lives in the western state of Gujarat after Muslims set alight a railway carriage carrying 60 Hindu pilgrims and activists from Ayodhya.

Yesterday's verdict seems to be a political reprieve for Mr Advani, who is regarded as a successor to the prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

If the court had convicted him he would have had little option but to resign from the government. But to cheers from Hindu activists, the judge simply declared "Advani is discharged", giving no reason.

Mr Joshi's offer to resign awaits the decision of Mr Vajpayee when he returns to India from a foreign tour at the end of the month.

The BJP has made it clear that it does not want him to step down, because the case, it says, is "politically motivated and doesn't involve moral turpitude or allegations of corruption".

Though relieved Mr Advani appeared to be uncomfortable with the ruling.

"I can't analyse why this distinction between me and my colleagues," he said.

"Earlier, the case was one of conspiracy, so one could understand such distinctions being made. But now the charges related essentially to making inciting speeches provoking the demolition.

"To the best of my knowledge, no speeches were made that day. Not by me, not by Mr Joshi, nor anybody else."

Mr Advani is credited with having brought the BJP to power by taking up the radical Hindu demand for the construction of a temple dedicated to the Hindu god Ram in place of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya.

Hindus believe that the mosque, named after the Mughal emperor Babar, stood at the very site where Ram was born.

Though opinion polls show that he still lags far behind Mr Vajpayee in popularity, his leadership of the Ayodhya movement did much to give him national prominence as a hardline Hindu leader.

But in recent times, even while maintaining that he is "proud of whatever I've done", he has been seeking to develop a less hard-edged political profile, more acceptable to the majority of Indians.

This inevitably made him a target of radical Hindu leaders, especially from the VHP (the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council), which is at the forefront of the Ram temple movement.

The VHP leader, Praveen Togadia, reacting to the judge's orders, said yesterday: "What's happening in India. This is a matter of great surprise. One minister has been let off, while another is being charged."

The VHP has already threatened that if its demand for a special session of parliament to legislate on the construction of a Ram temple is not accepted by October 15, it will summon its activists to Ayodhya for another huge show of strength.

But the court's unexpected decision has put the BJP in a quandary. With state assembly elections due in crucial north Indian states in November, it was hoping to gain some political advantage from the Ayodhya case.

If all the leaders had been put on trial, the party would have sought a sympathy vote. If all had been discharged, it could have claimed proof that the case was fabricated.

But now that Mr Advani has been let off while other senior leaders are to be charged, the political fall-out from the case appears to be that much more complicated.

Those facing trial include the BJP leaders of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh states, and three leaders of the VHP.

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