Poll proving a crucial test for India

The potion with which Nar-endra Modi is seeking to woo India is not subtle, but it is strong. He is nearly two hours late, and thousands of people are sitting cross-legged on the ground, patiently waiting for his saffron-clad election bandwagon to make the latest stop in his "Journey of Pride".

Then, to a burst of fireworks, in sweeps his silver four-wheel drive Tata Safari, followed by a convoy of police. The crowd erupts, thrilled to welcome the man they see as the champion of a long-dreamt-of Hindu nation, the uncompromising voice of India's Hinduvta movement. A chant goes up: "Mother India is winning!"

Clad in an enormous saffron turban that dwarfs his white-bearded face, Mr Modi bounds onto the stage and begins to work his magic. He pours scorn on Muslim Pakistan; the Congress party – his opponents in this contest – are Muslim-lovers. The crowd is rapt. One word repeatedly punctuates his speech: Godhra.

To the 50 million people of Gujarat in western India, who on Thursday go to the polls for a crucial state election, this requires no explanation. Godhra is the Gujarati town where, on 27 February, a Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu activists, killing 58.

In the ensuing weeks, truckloads of Hindus clad in saffron scarves and khaki shorts – the uniform of the Hindutva groups – rolled into Muslim neighbourhoods. Brandishing knives and explosives, they went on a rampage, un-checked by police. Women and children were raped and murdered; men were beheaded and disembowelled. Muslim shops, businesses and homes were looted and torched. Unofficial estimates set the death toll at 2,000. Many thousands of Muslims – who form 9 per cent of the state's population – were driven from their homes.

But Mr Modi, Gujarat's chief minister, keeps the focus on Godhra. It is the buzzword of an election campaign in which he, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its hardline associates are seeking to capitalise on sectarian divisions by persuading Hindus that they are under threat. Posters of the burnt-out train have sprung up everywhere.

The BJP hopes this tactic will distract attention from its failures in running a vast state that is seen as India's industrial and economic powerhouse, but has been blighted by crises – from a massive earthquake, to drought and economic stagnation.

Although it leads India's coalition government, under the pragmatic stewardship of the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP rules in only three of India's 28 states. Defeat in Gujarat, the party's bastion for nine years, would bode ill for its chances of winning the national election in 2004. But it is also a test of the future ability of the militant Hindu nationalist movement to engender popular support by preying on sectarian fear and hatred.

India's secular intelligentsia fears victory will prompt the same tactics in future elections. For Supriya Akerkar, a Hindu woman directing a project to help Muslim victims, this election is among the more important to be held in post-independence India. "If the BJP wins, it means it will have succeeded in keeping power by exploiting communal passions," she said.

There is a risk that Islamist militants may do the BJP's work for it. Ten weeks ago, 30 worshippers were killed in an attack on a temple in the Gujarati city of Gandhinagar.

Gujarat – the state of Mahatma Gandhi's birth – is increasingly ghettoised. But there is consensus on one front: everyone agrees these are perilous times.