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A new debate has begun. According to it, Hindu kings and other groups destroyed several Buddhist monasteries and Jain temples in pre-Muslim India! Such sites, strewn all over India, must be revisited, surveyed, excavated and returned to the communities that owned them originally
By Shujaat Ali Quadri
“It is not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long possession, the world can never be at peace for a day. The laws of all nations have wisely established a time of limitation, after which titles, however illegitimate in their origin, cannot be questioned.”
–– Thomas B. Macaulay in his essay on ‘Frederick the Great’.
The mosques, temples and any other place of worship in India evoke reverence. This is the foremost national feeling. However, they often turn into communal flash-points as we have witnessed in past weeks. Had the Supreme Court not intervened timely, the mayhem unleashed in Sambhal city of West UP, only 160km away from capital New Delhi, might have engulfed more cities, vitiating the already pessimistic atmosphere in a country that is trying to make rapid strides towards a global leadership role.
As the gung-ho reverberated seeking surveys or outright rights of Hindu prayers in certain Muslim places of worship, after a sudden such exercise was conducted inside Sambhal Jama Masjid in late November, the apex court, wisely, put a pause on any such move on December 12, while hearing petitions challenging the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991.
The Act essentially seeks to prevent claim on any place of worship for its conversion into a place of worship of any other denomination than what existed on August 15, 1947.
In a highly significant and far-reaching judgement, the Supreme Court barred civil courts across the country from registering fresh suits challenging the ownership and title of any place of worship, or, ordering surveys of disputed religious places until further orders, and made it clear that no “effective” orders can be passed.
The bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sanjiv Khanna actually “rolled back” what was “allowed” by former CJI DY Chandrachud, who, through his oral observation on May 21, 2022, held that a survey to ascertain the character of a place of worship didn’t violate the Act. It effectively set the stage for civil suits in over 10 cases – from Varanasi and Mathura, to Sambhal and Ajmer.
One noted commentator in India summed it up by saying that the December 12 ruling has nipped the experiment of digging below mosques and shrines of Muslims in the bud.
However, will the Supreme Court ruling be sufficient enough to stem the tide of claims over places of worship, and, more importantly, the social and political divisions that this issue has so profoundly sharpened?
Lower courts, however wayward some of them might be, and however mischievously some of them choose to adjudicate on deeply sensitive ‘communal’ matters, also tend to edit themselves once the higher judiciary emphatically sets a bar as the highest court in the land did on December 12. So, on this front, the votaries of a secular and peaceful India, and Muslims, who are often victims of any conflagration, might heave a sigh of relief. Any verdict on pending cases will hopefully be in accordance with the spirit of the Act, with which it was envisioned and put into practice.
Indeed, the politics of ‘the places of worship’ is the ultimate threat to the unity, integrity and diversity of India as was evident within a short span of time in the last few weeks, especially in the Hindi heartland. Clearly, certain forces are relentlessly trying to divide Indians into Hindus and Muslims, and thereby creating a poisonous atmosphere.
Sometimes, they succeed too, almost overnight, leaving a trial of bloodshed, violence, destruction, tragedies, and simmering wounds, in the social collective of both the communities. The almost one sided, and partisan prime-time ‘debates’ on most of the mainstream TV channels loyal to the current regime, and vicious social media outpourings and trolls have made toxic views and images viral.
Daily reports from Sambhal, where the violence snuffed out five young breadwinners of poor families, have been heartbreaking. Around 4,000 Muslims, almost all of them young, minors and women, have been booked for unlawful protest, arson, rioting, stone-pelting, disturbing public peace and other trumped up charges. Police have raided Muslim homes even deep inside faraway localities and arrested even those women who were nursing newborns.
People have locked their houses and run away to unknown places to evade arrest. Those behind the bars are waiting for legal saviours. Daily-wagers could only return to work at least many days after the November 24 violence. The everyday life and livelihood of ordinary citizens was torn apart. The political spectrum of Sambhal was compulsively split into two parts – Hindus and Muslims.
Muslim politicians, city’s MP, MLA and other political fortune-seekers are now positioning themselves as peddlers of their community. From the Hindutva side, local BJP politicians and other Hindu right- wingers are firmly behind those searching for a temple beneath the medieval mosque. The communal history of the city is also being dug up to flame divisions.
Sambhal is an ideal case of how a peaceful city can be torn asunder overnight by fanning communal embers, inciting violence and polarising the entire society.
The legal case of Jama Masjid has taken a backseat after the highest court’s ruling, but the race for reaping political capital will not let the hatchet to be buried. Its grave will be unearthed again and again by vested interests.
Undoubtedly, it is a template that suits the ruling BJP best. The party can camouflage all its failings and failed promises under its garb, or it can inflame the issue, its onlly and most used trump card, whenever it is in need of diversion from any other major national debate, or political setback.
Since the BJP doesn’t seem to be in mood to change its template, as is evident from the overtures of its UP leadership in the Sambhal case, the issue is likely to be brought up again and again in the coming months and years, until a permanent brake is applied on it by a decisive judiciary.
Interestingly, the Act, envisioned, as a fulcrum against future issues (other than the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmbhoomi site), and this point has been so eloquently noted by the Supreme Court in its 2019 Ram Temple judgmen. It had not even found backing from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent body of the BJP and a fountain head of several Hindutva extremist groups. The RSS chief, in his famous “why should we search for shivling in every mosque” speech, actually made it clear that the Hindu community strongly believes in certain Muslim religious sites as their own and that it is a firm claim.
Leaders belonging to fringe Hindu groups and even some BJP leaders have been actually calling for immediate abolition of the 1991 Act.
Meanwhile, as the Hindu groups raised the issue of Hindu temples being razed to build mosques, a new debate has begun. According to it, Hindu kings and other groups destroyed several Buddhist monasteries and Jain temples in pre-Muslim India!
Such sites, strewn all over India, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, must be revisited, surveyed, excavated and then returned to the communities that owned them originally. This should be based in the most-accurately claimed ancient past, some commentators feel, in the same way as Hindus are seeking surveys of mosques and shrines.
Thus, searing the history open and mixing it with mythology is only a recipe for manufacturing a tinderbox whose explosive menace will encapsulate the whole nation. It will foster all-round resentment, hate politics and collective phobia that could detonate for years in vicious and violent feuds between people of diverse faiths.
We have seen this madness in Sambhal recently, our forebears have endured it in the mass tragedy and exodus of 1947 and Partition, and this was witnessed before and after the Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya, leaving a trial of bloodshed, violence and dead bodies. That is why the 1991 Act was promulgated so that no new flashpoint emerges to impede India’s march into the 21st century.
We are already 24 years into this century, 25th on the cusp, with our steps on the moon, our eyes on Mars, and targets set on the sun. We are literally aiming beyond the stars and sky, especially the talented young, who carry no baggage of the past, and are chasing new dreams and new knowledge systems. The future of India belongs to them, and the children of the country. So, truly, it will be absolutely imprudent and regressive to go back into history to bring back alibi for fratricide.
Let 2025 begin on this note.
Top picture: Babri Masjid, Ayodhya.
Middle picture: Ajmer Sharif Dargah.
Dr Shujaat Ali Quadri is Editor, Digital Forensics Research and Analytics Centre.