WEST ASIA-Fresh Setback

claimed that there was "no breakdown of law and order" in the BJP-ruIed states to warrant the dismissal of the governments there, totally ignoring the holocaust in Bhopal and other parts of Madhya Pradesh, from the curfew bound areas of which state news of massacre of Muslims (with the active connivance of the state police) are trickling out. One of course agrees that the centre, on the same grounds, should have dismissed the Con- gress(l) governments in Maharashtra and Assam, But that perfectly justifiable com' plaint cannot be an excuse for demanding that the BJP state governments should not have been touched, particularly after what had happened in Madhya Pradesh and after the way the chief ministers of these states continued to flaunt their loyalty to the RSS, a banned organisation. It is difficult to see how the continuance of state governments headed by chief ministers can be accepted once their organisation (the RSS to which they publicly profess their loyalty) has been banned under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Signs of retreat are also evident on the other issue of rebuilding the mosque at the original site. After all the initial promises (by the centre) and the demands (by liberal intellectuals), now all sorts of compromise formulae are being peddled. One is that a mosque and a temple should be built close together on the same spot