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Article: India - a hard passage back; fundamentalism aflame.
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- December 13, 1993
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1993 The Nation Company L.P. 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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FUNDAMENTALISM AFLAME
One year ago, on December 7, 1992, a startling image came flashing across our television screens in India: Thousands of Hindu fundamentalists--kar sevaks--surged up the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya swathed in militant orange, wielding sticks on iron bars. Within hours, the mosque would be reduced to rubble; within hours, the country was engulfed in some of the worst violence seen in decades. Even now, many months later, tensions have yet to abate on the subcontinent.
Two days after the mosque storming, six weeks into my stay in India, I found myself crouching in the balcony shadows of a Calcutta house, listening to the boom of tear gas ...