Our November 30, 1991 cover

There are weeks when there is a drought of what we in the trade refer to as "hard news". This week there was a deluge. Predictably, there was confusion in Uttar Pradesh following the assembly election results. No sooner had that subsided than the spectre of Ayodhya rose again with the grisly incident in Godhra. The return of the communal riot overshadowed the budget, aptly described as low-risk, low-return.

But politics preoccupies us this week as the BJP is confronted with problems on all fronts. Having been battered in the elections it is now trying to cope with the fallout of the very issue which put it in office in the first place. The party has always suffered from periodic identity crises. It seems they have reached such a moment yet again. Its core supporters refuse to acknowledge that there is a difference between the agitations of the early 1990s and the demands of government. The BJP and its allies have lost seven major states in the last six years and are now left ruling four tiny states. Their last stronghold, Gujarat, is today in flames.

A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani have taken a firm line on the VHP in Ayodhya but the soul of the BJP is divided. The offshoot of this tussle is renewed communal tension that has put a question mark on the ability of the Government to work effectively.

The images of burnt bodies in Godhra and trident-carrying sadhus in Ayodhya are the last things India needs to see today. They reduce us to a cliche of a country trapped in religious medievalism. Worse, they distract attention from far more important issues-to name just one, serious economic problems in the country.

Our cover story this week investigates the civil war within the BJP. Long-time BJP watchers Managing Editor Swapan Dasgupta and Associate Editor Ashok Malik in Delhi and Special Correspondent Uday Mahurkar explain where the incidents of this week will leave the ruling party. Malik fittingly borrows from Hindu cosmology to call this the BJP's pralay (day of destruction). Let it not be India's.

(Aroon Purie)