Political Crisis Deepening in New Delhi : India: Parliamentary chaos erupts again over Hindu-Muslim disturbances.

If Wednesday morning’s somewhat-shortened sessions are any guide, India’s two elected houses of Parliament fairly represent the current state of flux in the world’s largest democracy.

In the Lok Sabha, the lower house, dozens of representatives from opposing parties stood simultaneously to shout insults and taunts, wave arms and fists. They got out a rare small speech, then collapsed again into screaming chaos.

After an hour or so, shrieking members of the opposition surged into the Speaker’s well waving a black flag and a poster calling the prime minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao, the “murderer of democracy.” With that, the Speaker anxiously adjourned the 543-member chamber.

The main difference in the 245-member upper house, the Rajya Sabha, was that the opposition rushed to the well immediately to demand Rao’s resignation. That was more like last week, when Parliament’s attempts to come to order produced pandemonium six times over three days. Both houses then abruptly adjourned for a week to give members time to cool off.

India’s religious and political passions, however, are still boiling 10 days after Hindu zealots demolished the Muslim mosque at Ayodhya, setting off fierce nationwide religious rioting. The bloodshed has stopped for now, with more than 1,200 dead, but the political crisis is only deepening.

Analysts say Rao’s sudden order just before midnight Tuesday to dismiss three elected state governments ruled by the Hindu nationalist opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, has created a backlash that may spark another confrontation with the country’s still-potent Hindu fundamentalist forces.

Indeed, the BJP took the offensive Wednesday, marching to the president’s palace to demand dismissal of Rao’s government and immediate midterm elections. BJP Vice President S. S. Bhandari said the Hindu Revivalist Party will launch a countrywide campaign Sunday to press for the dissolution of Parliament. “We will create a popular role for elections,” he said. “Popular will counts in a democracy.”

The ruling Congress-I party government already had jailed the BJP leadership, including Lal Krishna Advani, official head of the opposition in Parliament, for allegedly inciting the Ayodhya riots. The government also has used midnight raids to arrest more than 3,000 members of five so-called extremist organizations, several of them closely aligned to the BJP, for encouraging communal hatred.

“This is really going to push the Hindu hard-liners to the wall,” warned Rajni Kothari, a prominent political scientist and human rights activist. More worrisome, the heavy-handed midnight crackdown on the BJP, India’s second-largest political party, is pushing moderate Hindus who opposed razing of the Ayodhya mosque to join forces in anger against Rao’s government, he said.

“In the immediate aftermath (of Ayodhya), there was a degree of repentance by Hindu leaders,” Kothari said. “It’s all changed now. Now the mood of belligerence is growing among the militant Hindus, and even the more moderate Hindus are very upset.”

Many Hindus contend that the 16th-Century mosque was built atop an earlier Hindu shrine that marks the birthplace of Rama, a popular Hindu deity. In a nation that is overwhelmingly Hindu, the BJP soon drew a huge, fervent following by fanning anti-Muslim sentiments over the Ayodhya issue and by calling for the creation of a theocratic Hindu state.

The last few days have only increased the threat to India’s secularism, Kothari warned. “We are moving towards all-out polarization,” he said. “I see a bad time ahead. . . . Many who did not want to join the communal frenzy now may get involved.”

The often pro-government Indian Express newspaper agreed in far more fiery terms in a front-page editorial Wednesday. Rao’s dismissal of elected state governments in Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan was “a frenzied rape of the basic law of the land” and was caused by pressure from rivals within Rao’s own bitterly divided party, the paper charged.

“There was no breakdown of law and order . . . (to) even remotely warrant” sacking the three governments, the paper complained. About 200 people were killed in religious rioting in BJP-ruled states, it said. In contrast, more than 800 people died in states run by Rao’s Congress-I party, and the majority of those were Muslims shot by police and paramilitary troops.

The influential Economic Times agreed, calling the move a “ham-handed” tactic that would make martyrs of Hindu nationalists.

Rao’s government holds only a slim majority in Parliament, and the grip is clearly tenuous. In one of the few statements that could be heard above the morning’s tumult, BJP moderate Jaswant Singh insisted that no session could begin until Advani, the party’s hard-line leader, is released from jail.