In the preceding years, India was tormented by communal riots over all kinds of issues, most of them unrelated to Ayodhya. The demolition led to a br… - Koenraad Elst

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In the preceding years, India was tormented by communal riots over all kinds of issues, most of them unrelated to Ayodhya. The demolition led to a brief round of Muslim revenge actions plus the Shiv Sena retaliation in Mumbai, but then rioting stopped for nine long years. The demolition clearly had a cathartic effect on the rioters. To be sure, Islamic terrorism has continued, but Hindus refused to be provoked. They did not take out their anger on their Muslim neighbours after the Mumbai blasts of March 1993, nor after any of the numerous massacres of Hindus and Sikhs in Jammu and Kashmir, nor after the bomb attack in Coimbatore, nor after the attacks on the parliament buildings. Hindus have shown remarkable restraint... My favourite among Indian Prime Ministers is definitely Narasimha Rao. He undid the Nehruvian legacy and stemmed the rising tide of the fateful consequences of Nehru's follies. He actually implemented the BJP programme, just as Atal Behari Vajpayee is now implementing the Congress programme. Rao started liberalizing the economy, lifting the stifling socialist controls. He opened diplomatic relations with Israel. He defeated the Khalistani terrorists, nipped the beginnings of Tamil Tiger separatism on Indian soil in the bud, and pushed back Kashmiri terrorism to the point where the Kasmiri people stopped supporting it so that it is now manned entirely by foreign mercenaries. And he allowed the demolition of the Babri Masjid... After that event, general Perwez Musharraf seriously counted with an Indo-Israeli attack on its nuclear capability, even with the destruction of the Pakistani state. So he saw no way out but to offer his services to the US. But he made it clear, in an Urdu speech to his people, that he was not becoming America's friend. He related how the Prophet Mohammed had used alliances as stratagems in order to eliminate other allies: using the Jews to eliminate the Pagans of Medina, than befriending the Pagans of Mecca to eliminate the Jews, and finally breaking his treaty with the Meccans to defeat them. But since the CIA has explained that none of its employees know Arabic, I guess they didn't pick up those Urdu hints either. Imagine, in the war on terrorism they don't care to learn the two languages most commonly used by terrorists. Musharraf is taking the Americans for a ride. I understand that president Bush wants to keep the Muslim world divided by enlisting some Muslim regimes in his own crusade, but I doubt he will outwit them. I think he is in for a serious humiliation. I admit this sounds like the old European armchair scepticism of American interventionism. But let's face it: American foreign policy is utterly confused, and mere muscle-flexing cannot be a substitute for a coherent vision.