ERRATUM In the article titled 'Mandal, Mandir aur Masjid: "Hindu" Communalism and the Crisis of the Indian State' by Sukumar Muralidharan/ published in Social Scientist, Issue no. 210, October 1990, page 43 should read as follows. The error is regretted. allow electoral calculations to distract him from the far more vital mission of ensuring communal peace in the country' (emphasis added). Later, as it became apparent that the man of impeccable upbringing was, indeed, pandering to religious fanaticism to bolster his vote bank, the TO I became, in turn, plaintive and accusing—plaintive towards Rajiv Gandhi, accusing towards the opposition parties. In its editorial of October 21, 1989, it argued that the Congress promotion of Hindu revanchism was 'regrettable', but the electoral understandings being worked out by the Janata Dal and the CPI(M) were, respectively, 'pathetic' and 'tragic'. In a gesture of surpassing cynicism, Rajiv Gandhi inaugurated his election campaign at Ayodhya on November 3, 1989, with the promise to usher in a Ram Rajya if re-elected. By then it was clear that the secular boot was on the other foot—it was V.P. Singh who was making the more definitive statements on Ayodhya, it was V.P. Singh who was offering to go to the disputed site on November 9, to try and stop the threatened demolition of a place of worship. But the TOJ was firm in its editorial policy of unrequited love towards Rajiv Gandhi, as the following excerpt from its editorial of November 7 shows: 'It is still not too late for Mr. Rajiv Gandhi to call the VHP's bluff. Even today, it is possible for Mr. Rajiv Gandhi to set aside momentarily his electoral preoccupations and go along with his political adversaries in order to defuse the tensions building up at Ayodhya.' After the completion of the Ram Shilanyas at Ayodhya on November 9, the TOJ's editorial sigh of relief could be heard for miles around. It was now possible to be a lap-dog of the Congress(I), while still maintaining a pretence of secularism. In an astonishing display of political amnesia/ the TOJ proclaimed editorially that 'the foundation stone-laying ceremony would not have passed off as peacefully as it did, had the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mr. N.D. Tiwari, fully backed by the Union Home Minister, Mr. Buta Singh, not worked assiduously behind the scenes' (November 10, 1989). Curiously, Rajiv Gandhi was, at around the same time, making the breathtakingly mendacious assertion, that the 'credit' for the peaceful 'passage of the foundation-laying ceremony at Ayodhya' should go to his party and its government (The Hindu, November 10, 1989, page 1). Was there any coordination between 'his party and its government', and the TOJ in simultaneously publishing this astounding claim, one wonders. And why were 'his party and its government', not to mention their hirelings in the press, not quite so keen on owning up responsibility for the 400 lives that had been lost in the run-up to the shilanyas7 The Congress(I) stands condemned for its role in fomenting the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi controversy for narrow electoral gains. Astoundingly, of all the parties that today dot the Indian political