Why are the petitions filed now? Is it to use them to expand the Mandir-Masjid issue beyond Ayodhya to give BJP a chance to sharpen its Hindutva campaign?
During the Ram Temple agitation days, the war cry of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was, “Ayodhya is just a trailer, the issues of Kashi and Mathura are still pending”. The construction of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya is going on at a fast pace. Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra, the trust which is responsible for the construction of the Ram Temple, has declared that the deadline for completion is December 2023, probably a few months before the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi will contest for the third term.
In this background, the petitions filed in the lower courts of Varanasi and Mathura to ascertain any sign of the Hindu religion in the Kashi-Vishwanath-Gyanvapi Mosque in Kashi and Shahi Eidgah mosque in Mathura raises the question whether we are going to see the repeat of Ram Janmabhoomi - Babri Mosque issue. The bigger question is why now?
The premise of both the petitions is the same. The petitioners claim that the mosques were built on temple land after demolishing a part of the temple premises. The petitions harp on verification of any sign of Hindu religion inside the mosque. If these signs are found, through archegonial evidence or videography, then the petitioners from the Hindu side would claim that these mosques were built atop Hindu temples and so the land should be given to the Hindus.
The process of verification has started in Varanasi when the court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) Ravi Kumar Diwakar has appointed Ajay Kumar Misra as court commissioner and asked him to conduct a survey and videography of Shringar Gauri and other idols located on Gyanvapi premises. The Anjuman IntejamiaMasjid Committee, which takes care of the Gyanvapi mosque, is opposing this move.
Similarly, a petition was filed in the court of Civil Judge (senior division) Mathura demanding the appointment of an advocate commissioner to conducing a spot inspection within the Shahi Eidgah mosque adjoining Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi to find out if there are any signs related to Hindu religion inside the mosque premises.
The pattern of petitions of Varanasi and Mathura are akin to Ayodhya. In Ayodhya, too petitions were initially filed in a lower court of Faizabad (now Ayodhya) and from there the case went first to High Court and then to Supreme Court. On November 9, 2019, the Supreme Court allowed the construction of Ram temple at the disputed site and handed over the entire land to the Trust for the construction of the Temple.
Interestingly, the intrigue of filing a petition is not limited only to Shahi Idgah in Mathura and the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, as Court cases are ongoing over the Qutub Minar and the Tile Waali Masjid in Lucknow. Here too the claims are being made that Qutub Minar and Teele Wali Masjid are being built over Hindu temples. Last week, activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad chanted Hanuman Chalisa at the compound of Qutub Minar in New Delhi.
These petitions raise a big question. Why now? Is it a subtle move to keep the temple issue alive? On December 1, 2021, a month before assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya put up a tweet saying: “Ayodhya hui hamari, ab Kashi-Mathura ki baari’. (Ayodhya is ours. Now, it is the turn of Kashi and Mathura). This was a clear indication that through these petitions, efforts are being made to keep the Mandir-Masjid issues alive. This would definitely give the BJP an opportunity to sharpen its Hindutva campaign by widening the Hindu-Muslim chasm.
Superficially, the Kashi and the Mathura issues may look similar to Ayodhya but there is a difference in their character. First, the Ayodhya case was built up by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) with its firebrand leaders like Ashok Singhal and Praveen Togadia taking the lead. The Rath Yatra of Lal Krishna Advani in 1989 gave a political colour to this campaign and it slowly emerged as a people’s movement. In the 1980s there was a frenzy over the name of Ram Mandir. The BJP took it to a higher pedestal to counter former Prime Minister VP Singh’s ‘Mandal’ issue and thus, the contours of the Ram Janmabhhomi agitation changed.
In the case of Kashi and Mathura, that frenzy is not visible. The VHP is still to enter the fray, though its leaders have demanded that the acquired temple land should be returned to Hindus. Moreover, the character of Ayodhya is different from Kashi and Mathura. In the case of Ayodhya, Muslims had stopped offering namaz inside the Babri Mosque in the 1940s while in the Gyanvapi mosque in Kashi and Shahi Eidgah in Mathura Muslims offer prayers regularly and the area is demarcated as a Place of Worship.
Legal luminaries believe that in the Ram Janmabhoomi- Babri Mosque judgment of November 9, 2019, the Supreme Court has interpreted the significance of the Place of Worship Act saying the law prohibits conversion of any place of worship. The Judges said that the character of a place of public worship shall be preserved and not be altered.
The question raised is whether these sentiments would be applicable to Kashi and Mathura because prayers are being offered in both the mosques under litigation. Secondly, the Supreme Court held High Court Judge DV Sharma’s views as erroneous. Justice Sharma, one of the three judges who decided the Ayodhya dispute in the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court, had said that if a religious dispute was about a declaration or about a right that was recognized before the enforcement of the Places of Worship Act, it could be entertained as per the law.
According to the Supreme Court, the Places of Worship Act is a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution. “Above all, the Act is an affirmation of the solemn duty which was cast upon the State to preserve and protect the equality of all faiths as an essential constitutional value, a norm which has the status of being a basic feature of the Constitution,” it said.
The controversy on the Taj Mahal, which some believe a Shiv Temple called Tajo Maholaya took a curious turn when some petitioners filed a plea in 2015 saying they should be allowed to carry out “darshan” and “aarti” throughout the monument because it is a Shiv Temple.
The petitioner was Sri Agreshwar Mahadev Nagnatheswar Virajman Tejo Mahalaya Temple Palace. The controversy was first stirred by Purshottam Nagesh Oak, a historian, who claimed that the Taj Mahal initially was a Shiva temple and a Rajput palace named Tejomahalaya, which Mughal emperor Shah Jahan seized and adopted as a tomb.
The argument was debunked by a number of historians, and even Supreme Court in 2000 rejected a petition by Oak to declare that the Taj Mahal was constructed by a Hindu king. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), in August 2017 said that the Taj Mahal was not a temple but a tomb constructed by Shah Jahan within the reminiscence of his queen on land obtained from Raja Jai Singh, grandson of Raja Maan Singh, the Maharaja of Jaipur.
(The writer is Political Editor, The Pioneer, Lucknow edition.)
(The views expressed are personal.)
