Is Gyanvapi Mosque Another ‘Babri’ In The Making?

By Aftab Alam, New Age Islam 23 August 2023 Gyanvapi Masjid ------ The “history of any nation cannot haunt the present and future generations…to the point that succeeding generations become prisoners of the past”, observed the Supreme Court (SC) in February 2023 while dismissing a PIL seeking to rename historical cities that have been named after foreign invaders. Notwithstanding the above observations, the SC on August 4 refused to stay the order of the Varanasi District Judge (DJ) to conduct a detailed scientific survey, including excavations, wherever necessary, of the Gyanvapi mosque premises by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), to determine if the structure was built upon a temple. The SC, however, directed that "no excavation" at the site would be done during the survey and assured the Muslim side that there would be no damage to even a brick of the mosque's wall or structure. Earlier, the SC bench headed by the Chief Justice, in the same case, had observed that the ascertaining of the religious character of the place of worship is not barred by the 1991 Places of Worship Act (PoW), and the ASI survey was purely investigatory and would not affect the mosque’s religious character. Unfortunately, by permitting the ASI survey, the SC has opened Pandora’s box. It is most likely to give rise to new disputes over other Muslim mosques and monuments, which have so far remained suspended due to the PoW Act. This was enacted to freeze the status of religious places of worship as they existed on August 15, 1947, and prohibits the conversion of any place of worship and ensures the maintenance of their religious character. One must not forget that this may also give rise to demands for reclaiming Buddhist sites of worship, as many Hindu temples were constructed after destroying them. Recently, Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya has called for an archaeological survey of Hindu temples to determine if they were built after destroying previously existing Buddhist structures. Historian DN Jha, in his new book Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance, and History has provided a detailed account of the desecration, destruction, and appropriation of Buddhist stupas, monasteries, and other structures. The first Sunga emperor Pushyamitra (ruled c.185-c.149 BC), is claimed to have destroyed as many as 84,000 Buddhist stupas and learning centres. The courts must realise the larger implication of their orders, as the more we reopen old wounds, it will create more disharmony and “keep the country on the boil” permanently, as Justice K. M. Joseph recently observed. The SC, while settling the Ayodhya dispute in favour of Hindus, whom the court also found responsible for the damage to the Babri Masjid in 1934, its desecration in 1949 leading to the ouster of the Muslims, and its eventual destruction on December 6, 1992, which constituted ‘an egregious violation of the rule of law’, yet had seen the PoW Act as an assurance against the same methods being used elsewhere. The SC emphatically said that history and its wrongs should not be used as instruments to oppress the present and the future. The five-judge Constitution bench of the SC, which included the present Chief Justice, in the 2019 Babri Masjid – Ramjanambhoomi judgement not only upheld the unqualified validity of the PoW Act but also positioned it within the basic structure of the Constitution. The SC bench said, “The Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism under the Indian Constitution. The law is hence a legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution. Non-retrogression is a foundational feature of the fundamental constitutional principles, of which secularism is a core component. The Places of Worship Act is thus a legislative intervention which preserves non-retrogression as an essential feature of our secular values.” Thus, it virtually closed the door on any possibility of repeating Ayodhya in Varanasi or Mathura. Earlier, on August 3, the Allahabad High Court said that the DJ order was ‘just and proper’, and no interference was warranted from it as the ‘scientific survey is necessary in the interest of justice, ‘and there is no reason to not believe the ASI's assurance that the survey won't cause any damage to the structure. To allay the fear of the Muslim side, the HC, however, directed that no digging should be done on the mosque's premises. The Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee (the mosque committee) - the caretaker of the mosque and a respondent in the Gyanvapi cases, had opposed the survey on the ground that the petition is barred by the PoW Act and the ASI survey may cause damage to the mosque. Though an old issue, the current controversy over Gyanvapi mosque re-surfaced in August 2021 when a group of women filed a suit in the Varanasi civil court seeking the right to worship on a daily basis Maa Shringaar Gauri located on the outer western wall of the mosque and all other visible and invisible deities present in the Gyanvapi mosque complex. On their plea, the ‘videographic survey’ of the mosque complex was first conducted on May 6-7, 2022, on the order of the Civil Judge of Varanasi. The leaked report of this survey stirred controversy when petitioners claimed that a Shiv lingam had been found in the mosque complex. The mosque committee, however, claimed that the alleged structure was a fountain where Muslims used to perform ablutions before offering Namaz. Most surprisingly, without waiting for the survey report and hearing the mosque committee, the Civil Judge, on May 16 ordered the sealing of the Wazu Khana. Against this order of the Civil Judge, the mosque committee approached the SC, which clarified that the Shiv lingam must be protected but without restricting Muslims’ right to perform Wuzu. The CJI, who headed the SC bench, held that this ‘maintains a balance between both parties’ interests’. If we look at the sequence of events and the way things are unfolding in the Gyanvapi case, many people fear that it is slowly but surely moving in the direction of the Babri Masjid- Ram Janmabhoomi title dispute, which had fuelled Hindu-Muslim tension in the country for decades, eventually culminating in the destruction of the mosque on December 6, 1992, by a frenzied mob that had triggered the worst nationwide communal riots since India’s independence, killing thousands of people. Despite the deep feeling of injustice, the Muslim community accepted the SC verdict calmly and gracefully. They decided to move on with the hope that this would put an end to all such disputes relating to mosques and temples. Muslims were assured by no one other than Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself: “Kashi and Mathura are not on our agenda, they will never be…when we are saying that it’s not on our agenda, you need to trust us…Hum Ayodhya Ki Punaravritti Nahin Hone Denge, Yah Hum Bilkul Saaf Baat Kahna Chahte Hain. (We will not let another Ayodhya happen. We want to state it clearly). But today’s realities belie Muslims. After the SC’s 2019 Ayodhya judgement, there has been a sudden rise in the number of court cases filed against Muslim monuments and places of worships, alleging that they were destroyed by the Muslim rulers and must be handed over to Hindu plaintiffs for worship. The violent slogan of the 1990s, Ayodhya To Jhanki Hai, Kashi Mathura Baqi Hai” (Ayodhya is a trailer, Varanasi and Mathura are yet to come), is again gaining momentum. In May, a senior BJP leader K. S. Eshwarappa claimed that the Mughals had destroyed 36,000 Hindu temples and that they would “reclaim all those temples one by one”. Though such claims are politically motivated and, in the words of Eaton, a professor of Indian history at the University of Arizona simply “outlandish, irresponsible, and without foundation”, still they raise a wave of concern among Muslims across India, especially in view of the raging religious polarisation, exponential rise in hate speech against them, calls for their genocide and economic boycott, criminalization of their prayers, and their systematic invisibilisation. One fails to understand that if the status of the religious place cannot be changed, then why did the SC not stay the order of the DJ to investigate what kind of religious place was there earlier. The question as to what was beneath the mosque or was it built on the exact site where ancient Kashi Vishwanath Temple existed is irrelevant in the present case as the PoW Act freezes its status. What is important in the present case is what existed as on August 15, 1947. It is an indisputable fact that Gyanvapi mosque has existed at the disputed site for more than three hundred years, and where Namaz is being offered uninterruptedly five times a day since its establishment. Many rightly fear that the ASI survey will create a political condition for seeking an alteration of the mosque. It will also open the floodgates for similar cases being filed against other historic Muslim monuments and mosques. It may set a narrative about the temple’s destruction, brewing strong public sentiment to restore the Shiva temple, as it happened in the case of the Ram temple, which ultimately led to the destruction of the Babri masjid. It is an incontrovertible fact that in the past, invaders and Indian kings alike, had destroyed several temples, as they were considered a symbol of power and wealth. Targeting places of worship or converting them by the invading forces, irrespective of their religious beliefs, was a regular practice across the world. The primary consideration behind attacking temples was the plundering of wealth and displaying the political and military might of the invaders. However, the basic question is, can the wrongs of the past be corrected today? And, if yes, from where or which time period would we start? The raking up the issue of historical injustices would only foment communal tension in the country. ------ Aftab Alam is Professor at Aligarh Muslim University and heads its Strategic and Security Studies Department. URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/gyanvapi-mosque-babri/d/130501 New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism