India Arrests Hindu Party Chief, Sparks Crisis : Religion: The government is pushed to the brink of collapse. At issue is a proposed temple at a Muslim site.

NEW DELHI —  Indian Prime Minister Vishwanath Pratap Singh, culminating a campaign to block construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a 16th-Century Islamic mosque, pushed his government to the brink of collapse Tuesday with the arrest of the leader of the party that forms a key element in his political coalition.

Lal Krishna Advani was arrested in the remote village of Samastipur as he led a Hindu group headed for the site of the proposed temple, which the Hindus plan to erect after destroying the disputed mosque. Carrying out such a plan, Singh has warned, could trigger a nationwide Hindu-Muslim blood bath.

The arrest plunged India into its gravest political crisis in years. In New Delhi, Advani’s Hindu fundamentalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or Indian People’s Party, promptly announced that it was withdrawing its support of Singh’s 10-month-old government, which has relied on the party’s 86 seats in Parliament.

The party also called for a nationwide strike today to protest Advani’s arrest, and shops and markets throughout the capital began closing their shutters. The strike is expected to be widely supported.

Advani’s supporters made it clear that they are deliberately moving to bring down the Singh government, which Advani had promised to do if any attempt were made to block his effort to build the temple to Rama, Hinduism’s most popular demigod. The party general secretary, Atal Behari Vajpayee, said at a news conference:

“By arresting our president . . . Mr. V. P. Singh has declared war not only on the Indian People’s Party but on the Indian people themselves. If I had been in the place of Mr. V. P. Singh, I would have simply resigned.”

Singh told reporters, however, “I have not resigned,” and he ordered an emergency session of Parliament to test his mandate.

Under the law, the president of India serves as a kind of referee in such crises, but it was not clear whether he would call on Singh, who controls 143 of Parliament’s 422 seats, or his rival, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who controls 192, to try to form a new government.

“It is a very tense moment,” Singh conceded in an emotional television address. He said the crisis should be resolved on the floor of Parliament and not in the streets. But already there were reports of violence, with at least one dead.

“It is not a question of government but of principle,” Singh said. “You have to decide whether you run this country with love and affection or by force and hatred. It is a time of decision for all of us.”

The Hindu fundamentalists leading the campaign to destroy the mosque and build a temple in its place take the position that the mosque was built deliberately by Mogul invaders atop an older temple that marked the birthplace of Lord Rama.

Muslim leaders have warned that if the Hindus are allowed to proceed, it could drive many of India’s millions of Muslims into the streets in protest.

In the last few days, Singh has sanctioned the arrest and detention of more than 20,000 Hindu volunteers en route to the temple site in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

More than 100,000 Hindus have vowed to be present for the temple rites scheduled for next Tuesday, and many have armed themselves with three-pronged ceremonial spears. To intercept them, the government deployed thousands of police to seal off the site and roads leading into Uttar Pradesh.

The police have set up machine guns and sentry posts and dug deep trenches, even across fields of sugar cane in remote areas.

All this has been condemned by Hindu leaders, who supported Singh before the temple issue came up. Singh made it clear that the precautions were meant to show that he would rather fall from power than permit what many fear could be the worst Hindu-Muslim violence since partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947.

Singh, who succeeded Rajiv Gandhi a year ago, in part because Gandhi underestimated the Muslims’ outrage in connection with the temple controversy, spelled out his position in a televised address Monday.

“This is Mahatma Gandhi’s land,” Singh had said, referring to Mohandas K. Gandhi, the champion of equal rights for all Indians. “He has shed his blood to save this country, and now I am asked, ‘Can I save this government?’ This is the time to save the country, not the government.”

Singh warned the Muslims: “Religious fanaticism is the first step toward the foundation of a theocratic state. It will be the death of India as a secular nation.”

Of India’s 850 million people, more than 80% are Hindu, only slightly more than 11% Muslim. Indians take pride in the provisions of their constitution that define India as a democratic and secular state in which the Hindu majority and all the religious minorities are guaranteed equal rights.

In reality, though, the Hindus and Muslims have become increasingly polarized in recent years, and there have been clashes that have taken scores of lives.

The tension has been fueled by India’s rough-and-tumble politics. Advani’s party has built a huge power base almost overnight by appealing to the Hindu vote, and Singh has sought to find support among the Muslims by taking a strong stand on such issues as the temple controversy.

Indeed, the dispute, which has taken 1,000 or more lives since it erupted during last year’s election campaign, has become the main battleground for religious polarization. More and more, independent analysts say, it threatens to transform India into the world’s first theocratic Hindu nation.

Advani and his right-wing Hindu party have taken the lead in promoting the temple matter as a political issue. Many say they seek to capitalize on a Hindu revivalist movement.

Last weekend Advani interrupted his procession--the “Lord Rama chariot parade,” it is called--to tell reporters he would be willing to accept a compromise, proposed by Singh, to build the temple on a site adjacent to the mosque.

But he said the final decision is up to groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parashad, or World Hindu Council, which has organized the revivalist movement and the temple campaign. On Sunday the council’s general secretary, Ashok Singhal, rejected the idea.

“We will not rest content until we construct the temple (at Rama’s birthplace), and in this holy war Lord Rama is with us, so our victory is certain,” Singhal declared.

After his arrest Tuesday and just before the police removed him by helicopter to an undisclosed location, Advani pointed out that his procession has been peaceful, “a shining example of our tradition of national integration.” He appealed to his followers “to remain calm under all circumstances and not be provoked by my arrest.”

But he added: “Let us all redouble our pledge to rebuild (the temple). Let us not relax our efforts.”