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Hindu nationalists demand building of temple in one year

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January 20, 2001 

ALLAHABAD, JAN 19 (UNB/AP) - A Hindu nationalist group on Friday served a one-year ultimatum to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government to hand over the site of the demolished 16th century Babri mosque to build a Hindu temple in its place in northern India.

"Otherwise, we will forcibly take it over," Swami Chinmayanand, a top leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, told reporters in Allahabad, where millions of Hindu devotees have congregated to bathe in the Ganges River during a festival that falls once every 12 years.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad also decided to announce on Saturday the date for building the temple at the site of the demolished mosque in Ayodhya, a town 550 kilometers (350 miles) east of New Delhi, said Ashok Shingal, another top leader of the council known by its Hindu initials as VHP.

Chinmayanand is a member of the national Parliament from Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party.

His announcement came shortly before the VHP began a three-day assembly, in the midst of Kumbh Mela festival, to decide the date for building the temple.

The VHP set up a 51-member committee, headed by Ramchandra Param Hans, chairman of the Ramjanambhoomi Trust, to get the one-year ultimatum endorsed during the three-day congregation.

The decision could whip up tensions between the majority Hindus and the minority Muslims, whose leaders have refused to talk to Hindu nationalist groups to find an out of court settlement of the temple dispute.

The demolition of the Babri mosque at Ayodhya in 1992 sparked religious riots between Hindus and Muslims that killed 2,000 people across India. Hindu nationalists claim the ancient mosque had been built at the site of the birthplace of Rama, Hinduism's principle deity.

Muslims deny the claim.

The VHP is a religious affiliate of the party of Vajpayee, but the prime minister has not usually pushed the temple issue because he heads a coalition government including parties that oppose the Hindu nationalist agenda.

Last month, Vajpayee touched off a storm of protests by the opposition and Muslim organizations when he said that building the temple on the disputed site was "an expression of the national feeling" and part of his government's "unfinished agenda."

He survived a censure motion in Parliament, brought by the main opposition Congress party, after backtracking on his statement. He promised his alliance partners that he would abide by an expected Supreme Court decision on whether a temple had existed at the site of the mosque, which was pulled down by thousands of Hindu nationalists on Dec. 6, 1992.

The VHP has chosen to rake up the temple issue at a time when millions of people are gathered at the Kumbh Mela, being described as the greatest spiritual spectacle of the new millennium. The party has put on display a model of the proposed new Rama temple and pilgrims line up to view it during the festival.

The VHP has an eye on the state elections later this year or early next year in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state where the VHP plans to build the temple and the site of the Kumbh Mela. With nearly 140 million people, the state controls the biggest chunk of 85 seats in the 545-seat Lok Sabha, the most powerful house of