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Posted Sunday, Dec. 8, 2002; 2.02 p.m. GMT
India's Hindu right is on the rise again, and with elections due on Dec. 12 in the politically sensitive state of Gujarat, 2003 could see a return to the dark days of 1992, when Hindu mobs razed an ancient mosque, leading to bloody riots and a series of bomb blasts as Muslims retaliated.
Ironically, Hindu fundamentalism has been kept in check recently by the Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. But extremist passions have been inflamed by attacks on Hindu pilgrims in Kashmir by Muslim separatists backed by Pakistan. Riots broke out in Gujarat last February after the murder of 58 Hindus by a Muslim mob.
The state's Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, refused to condemn the two-month carnage that followed, in which hundreds of Muslims were killed by his party's sup-porters. If Modi returns with a huge majority, as some polls predict, it would blot India's image as a secular state.
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