The nation is in the grip of fear/anxiety, as the Allahabad High Court gears up to deliver judgement on the Ayodhya Title Suit. Allahabad High Court has been declared a no-access zone, with barricades erected about 100 meatres all around it, and hundreds of reporters have gathered around the Court.
UP has been turned into a war zone, with the intelligence network on high alert in the state, Rapid Action Forces having been deployed, 2,000 personnel of the CRPF on guard at the Ram Janmabhoomi Complex, as well as several other companies of police and armed forces having been deployed at strategic points.
Plus, with 1992 having scarred public memory like no other incident in history, Mumbai is on alert as well. The media has been unprecedentedly vocal about the need to maintain peace, and Hindi film stars have pitched in with their web/sound bytes about "maintaining restraint".
As for Hyderabad, recent communal riots as well as the region's tiresome habit of breaking out into violence have caused A K Khan and his team to
beef up security all over.
The kind of anxiety that is enveloping the nation is unparalleled in nature, given that the tension isn't even confined to one particular region, and it remains to be seen whether India has indeed moved on from its demons of 1992.