fighting continues; greater autonomy for the
region may provide an eventual solution.
A sea change of politics occurred in the spring
of 1998. The decline of the Congress Party since
the late 1980s and the growth of regional state
parties allowed the Hindu nationalist BJP to
become the largest single party in the Delhi legis-
lature after the election was held, though well
short of a majority. The BJP had moderated its
tone to broaden its appeal and make possible the
formation of a coalition of smaller parties which
had, up to then, shunned the party associated with
Hindu extremism. The BJP’s ideology to turn
secular India, the cornerstone of Ghandi’s and
Nehru’s legacy, into a religious state was threat-
ened, 120 million Muslims fearing the danger of
new religious conflicts. In Delhi, the BJP-led
coalition was headed, since March 1998, by Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, whose tone was
moderate. But control can be wrested out of
Delhi’s hands in the states. The worst atrocity
occurred in the BJP-controlled state of Gujarat
whose chief minister Nasendra Modi allowed a
pogrom to take place, killing thousands of
Muslims and driving 100,000 from their homes.
The rise of militants in the BJP threatens the
position of Vajpayee who, already in his seventies,
cannot continue in power for long. The deep-
rooted religious conflict, the struggle for India to
remain a secular country, mars India’s progress in
the new millennium. Its economy since the 1990s
has grown around five per cent, respectable in dif-
ficult global conditions, benefiting the middle
classes, but without a much higher rate of growth
India’s masses are trapped in poverty and, in
2002, the BJP went slow on the highly necessary
programme of economic privatisation to avoid
offending electors. Foreign confidence in the
Indian economy declined. The BJP were also
unexpectedly on the verge of losing power.
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