ABSTRACT
The domination of India politics by the Ramjanmabhoomi agitations – from L. K. Advani’s announcement that he would lead a procession to Ayodhya in November 1989 to the demolition of the mosque and its immediate aftermath in 1992-1993 – is at on one level, a struggle over how and in what ways the Hindus could be represented as core citizenry of the Indian nation, as both a victim and as an avenger (Kaur 2005). It is about how to depict – and to remind the Hindus continuously – of their shame and their need for a spiritual and national rebirth through strategic acts of violence. Yet it is also about how to use ethno-religious imagery and ideology to make electoral gains and, through the state, to legislate for government and to maintain, again through the state, generic levels of law and order (Brass 1997).
