Hindu nationalist linked to pogrom deaths is arrested

A fiery Hindu nationalist leader linked to the pogrom in the western state of Gujarat two years ago that killed hundreds of Muslims has been charged with sedition. If found guilty he could face life imprisonment.

Praveen Togadia was arrested in Ajmer, Rajasthan, the state bordering Gujarat to the north that is ruled by a Congress Party-led coalition. The Congress Party is the secularist adversary of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which governs both in Gujarat and at the centre in Delhi.

Mr Togadia is the demagogic spearhead of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) or World Hindu Council, one of the hardline militant branches of the Hindu nationalist movement of which the BJP is the political arm. The movement's main symbolic goal is the building of a temple to the Hindu god Ram in Ayodhya, on the ruins of a mosque torn down by Hindu fanatics 10 years ago. But its grand political aim is the creation of a "Hindu rashtra" in India, a state in which Hindus will rule unimpeded and the rest, notably Muslims and Christians, will be expected to bend the knee.

Mr Togadia was arrested after handing out short, sharpened tridents, a symbol of the god Shiva, at a rally on Sunday. He was charged with handling illegal weapons. But now the Rajasthan government has raised the charge to the far more serious one of sedition or "waging war or attempting anti-national activity". Another senior VHP leader, Giriraj Kishore, claimed that the more serious charge was brought merely to deny Mr Togadia bail.

Rajasthan's government fears that Mr Togadia and his colleagues intend to whip up the same sort of communal hatred in Rajasthan that served them so well in Gujarat. Though widely condemned, the pogrom in Gujarat served the the Hindu nationalist chief minister, Narendra Modi, very well, uniting an election-winning majority of the state's Hindus behind his communalist banner and securing him a second term in office.