Oh no, Ayodhya again, was my instant reaction to the act of terrorism. After all, I have reported and followed the Babri mosque-Ram temple controversy right from the time when the mosque gates were opened in 1986 to the day when the Babri mosque was demolished by the fanatic Hindu crowd led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad which soon built a Ram temple where the mosque once stood.

I was filled with horror apprehending another communal blood bath once again engulfing India and building a new divide between Indian Hindus and Muslims. It was essentially the Babri mosque-Ram temple divide that had generated blood bath of Muslims in places like Mumbai in 1993 and later the hatred against Muslims culminated into Gujarat riots in 2002 wherein thousands of Muslims were killed in the state sponsored communal strife.

All sorts of fears and apprehensions clouded my thinking: will it push the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party to once again fish into troubled waters; will communal peace be shattered again; will Gujarat be repeated all over India again? All these questions nagged me. Frankly, I had no clue what exactly would happen until I saw a small TV report on an Indian news channel. The report said that the life in Ayodhya was quite normal after the terrorist attack on the Ram temple compound and there was no panic in the city, which once used to boil with communal rage even with the slightest provocation.

Of course, the BJP had given a strike call and there were all sorts of apprehensions. There was a distinct possibility of communal clashes and all that usually follows in such a situation. But I was quite confident that nothing grave and serious could occur now on the Ayodhya issue inside India. But what has changed India in the last few years? Why the Indian Hindus and Muslims don’t get enraged any more over a temple-mosque controversy?

Well, the answer is simple: they have seen through the machinations of politicians engineering hate to win elections. They have witnessed blood and gore splashed over Indian streets in the guise of a temple-mosque controversy. They have seen an attack by an alleged Muslim crowd on a train culminating into the killings of over two thousand people in Gujarat. But all this madness eventually led to nothing for them while a particular political party attained power.

The average Indian has realised that the Hindus and the Muslims have to live together in India. The Hindus know that the huge Indian Muslim population of 1.5 billion Muslims cannot be thrown into the Indian Ocean. They also know that communal riots and prolonged violence would not only disturb the peace but would also disturb the economic activity. One major riot against Muslim in cities like Mumbai and Ahmadabad leads to massive industrial production and economic losses.  Frankly, the prolonged temple-mosque controversy has produced nothing but heavy economic losses beside bad reputation for India outside the country. Imagine Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was denied visa by the US authorities because they feel he was responsible for Gujarat carnage. 

Both Gujarat riots in 2002 and the demolition of the Babri mosque in 1992 were described by Indian intelligentsia as the "national shame". So Indians are no longer willing to go for the madness that led them nowhere. The Indian mood has changed. India is now keen to emerge as one of the leading economies of the world. It is competing to be the super power in IT sector. Now Indian priorities have changed. Now economy is driving politics. It would not be easy for fanatics to fish into Ayodhya troubled waters in the changed Indian economic scenario.

Besides, India is the largest democracy of the world wherein the numbers game eventually leads to the rise and fall of governments. The BJP much to its chagrin has already experienced the power of the Muslim vote bank in the 2004 parliamentary elections which led to the fall of the BJP federal government in Delhi.

The Gujarat violence angered the Muslim who voted en block against the BJP in the last elections forcing even its one-time hardliner L K Advani to try a soft and secular line for the BJP. Over 1.5 billion Muslim population virtually emerged as the kingmakers in the last elections.  Political parties know that provoking Indian Muslims is a dangerous game. And, the dynamics of the numbers game in a democracy is more important for political parties rather than any other factor. Given this scenario, even the BJP would not like to push the Ayodhya incident too far this time round.

The last but not the least reason why the terrorist attack on Ayodhya would not lead to mass reaction is the very nature of Indian ethos. The idea of India represents a melting pot of many cultures, ethnicities and faiths. Right from the times of Ashoka the Great to Akbar the great in medieval times and Jawaharlal Nehru in modern era, Indian rulers have contributed to secular ethos of the country. Many times in history the country deviated from its middle path of moderation to communal extremes but every time it paid a heavy price to return to its moderate ways.

The 2004 parliamentary elections once again revived the old Indian spirit of the Mughal King Akbar’s sulh-e-kul (peace for all). It would be, indeed, very difficult for fanatics to disturb the Indian ethos of living and adjusting with each other in a peaceful manner. Indeed, the terrorist attack on Ayodhya has shocked every Indian, both Hindus and Muslims. But it doesn’t mean they would listen to extremist leaders like Praveen Togadia of the VHP calling for "an attack on Pakistan". India has moved from the communal madness that gripped it some time ago. It cannot be pushed back to that madness by a terrorist attack in Ayodhya.

Zafar Agha is a veteran Indian journalist and political analyst currently in Dubai