Hard-line pro-Hindu rhetoric colors Indian elections

Human rights activists say the pro-Hindu state government was complicit in these revenge riots. Hundreds of Muslims were killed in their homes, and many of the survivors fled to refugee camps across the state. But the violence has not been entirely one-sided. A September attack by Islamic gunmen at the Akshardham Temple in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, killed some 32 Hindu worshippers.

Complicit or not, Mr. Modi hardly cast a conciliatory tone. He argued that Hindu anger was "understandable," and carried on a gaurav yatra, or pilgrimage of pride, to boost the morale of his statesmen. In a recent interview with the Delhi-based Asian Age newspaper, Modi said this election is a choice between nationalism and terrorism - and denied that the Hindu riots of last spring could be equated with terrorism.

"Remember one thing," he said. "There cannot be a Hindu terrorist. The day there are Hindu terrorists, you would not see Pakistan on the world map."

The opposition Congress Party has largely copied Modi's hardline politics. Sidelining their longtime state party leader, a secularist, Congress has chosen an unabashed pro-Hindu newcomer, Shankersinh Vaghela, hoping to attract alienated Muslim voters as well as Hindus who blame the BJP for Gujarat's failing economy in the past year. In his campaign speeches, Mr. Vaghela said he would defend Hindus and their culture, although he would not antagonize the Muslims.

Whether either of these strategies, hard or soft Hindutva, will work, remains to be seen. Heading into today's elections, where state police have been placed on high alert, opinion polls predicted a close race. The leading India Today magazine gave the BJP the narrow edge of 12 to 15 assembly seats. Other polls predicted that Congress would win by that same margin.

Ultimately, the violence of the past decade may be an expression of how five decades of democracy are finally chipping away at India's millenniums-old caste system, which preserved the power of rich landowners and priests and kept shopkeepers, farmers, and laborers in their place. As lower castes increasingly exert themselves at the polls, upper-caste Hindus have tried to reassert power by uniting Hindus under a saffron flag.

"The elite of India is being displaced, and there is a tremendous inferiority complex here toward the lower castes," says Saeed Naqvi, a columnist for the Indian Express newspaper.

"These people [the upper castes] have lost out in liberal democracy, but if the relations between Hindus and Muslims are so divided, with 9 percent Muslims on one side and 91 percent Hindus on the other side, then it's a cakewalk."

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