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Article: Holy help: India. (ban on Rashtriya Swayamsevek Sangh group lifted)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 12, 1993
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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HINDU nationalism has got on the right side of the law. A court has ended the ban on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), one of a number of militant groups outlawed by the Indian government after the riot in Ayodhya on December 6th, in which a mosque was destroyed and 1,200 people died. The RSS's leaders form the core of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main threat to the ruling Congress party.
The ban on the militants was imposed in a hurry without paying heed to legal niceties, and insufficient hard evidence was presented to support the government's case that the RSS had advocated violence. But it is also true that judges tend to move with the times. They ...