INDIA: The Indian parliament was adjourned in uproar yesterday. The Hindu nationalist-led government was accused of defending an attack by its supporters on a state legislature in the controversy to build a temple on the ruins of a mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya.
Opposition deputies stormed the well of the Lok Sabha (lower house) after the session began, demanding a debate about Saturday's attack by Hindu militants on the Orissa state legislature.
The 500-strong mob, armed with tridents, which vandalised the state legislature in the capital Bhubaneshwar was angered by criticism of the campaign to build a temple to the Hindu god Lord Ram on the site of a mosque at Ayodhya, 450 miles east of New Delhi. The Orissa legislators wanted Hindus to await the Supreme Court's judgment on the temple issue.
Hindu zealots razed the 16th-century Babri mosque a decade ago believing it to be the birthplace of their mythological god, Ram; 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, died in ensuing riots.
And earlier this month the temple issue caused riots in western Gujarat state in which 700 people, mostly Muslims, were burnt or hacked to death by mobs in what the opposition, human rights groups and the media termed "ethnic cleansing". The killings began after a Muslim mob burned alive 58 Hindus returning from Ayodhya.
"Words are not enough to condemn this incident," the federal Home Minister, Mr Lal Krishna Advani, told parliament, referring to the attack on the Orissa legislature. "We will provide all assistance to the state to identify and punish the culprits," he added, in a statement that few in the opposition believed.
Opposition deputies said the government, already under attack for the Gujarat riots, had failed miserably to rein in its hardline allies.
Meanwhile, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) or National Volunteer Corps, which provides guidance to the ruling BJP party, warned Muslims that their safety and goodwill depended on Hindus. "Let the Muslims understand that their real safety lies in the goodwill of the majority," the RSS resolution said at its annual conclave that ended on Sunday.
The RSS's founding principle is to defend Hinduism by keeping it "pure" from outside influences like Islam and Christianity. It daily imparts basic military drill to its cadres and involves them in ideological discussions in hundreds of neighbourhoods across India.
The assassins of Mahatma Gandhi were educated in such a school.