A small piece of land in Uttar Pradesh

Curfew starts in fifteen minutes in Hyderabad, whose population is nearly 60% Hindu and 40% Muslim. Apparently all major roads are already blocked outside. The reason? Predicted backlash from today's court decision concerning Hindu claim to a Muslim site in Ayodhya. From the NYT:

"The case has existed almost as long as independent India itself. Dating from 1950, the legal battle between Hindus and Muslims over a religious site in the city of Ayodhya began as a little-noticed title dispute. With a ruling finally expected on Thursday, the case has become something altogether different: a test of India’s secular soul.

The test is not so much in the verdict, which will deal with a handful of issues, including the central question of which side controls the site of a 16th-century mosque known as the Babri Masjid. Rather, the test will come in the public reaction. In 1992, an enraged mob of Hindu extremists destroyed the mosque, asserting that the site was the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Ram. Riots claiming about 2,000 lives, mostly Muslims, and horrifying a nation founded on the ideal of religious tolerance.

...

Later on Tuesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called on the nation to “maintain peace, harmony and tranquillity.” Perhaps the only person eager for the verdict is Hashim Ansari, a Muslim tailor in Ayodhya who is the case’s oldest surviving plaintiff. He is 90 and tired of waiting. Mr. Ansari, who joined the case as a plaintiff in 1961, said in a telephone interview that he did not want any tumult or violence, just closure."