NEW DELHI : Government Teeters
Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh’s government hangs in the balance as India’s ethnic tensions mount over the determination of Hindu revivalists to break ground today for a new temple on the site of a 16th-Century mosque sacred to the country’s 100 million Muslims.
Singh has deployed tens of thousands of heavily armed police to head off violence around the northeast temple town of Ayodhya, but clashes appear inevitable despite the arrests of more than 50,000 Hindus en route to the site.
Among those arrested: the leader of India’s powerful Hindu fundamentalist party, which has kept Singh’s coalition government in power for the past year. The arrest may well bring down the government at a vote of confidence next week.
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