This madness must stop

SC unleashed genie of ‘surveys’ under mosques and has responsibility to pull it back

Alok Tiwari

If the last few weeks have felt like India has travelled back in time to the chaotic days of late 80s and early 90s, you can be excused. Those were the days when Babri Masjid-Ram Temple dispute was building up and our minds were full of dark forebodings. It led to razing of the Masjid, bomb blasts, Godhra arson attack, Gujarat riots and many more. Now something similar threatens to happen again, only this time the turbulence might be much worse. Because communal flames are being fanned not just in one place but several. The crucible for re-enactment of that dangerous reaction is again Uttar Pradesh, but the resulting upheaval will be felt all over the country.

A small glimpse of it was seen on Nov 24 when five youths were gunned down during a protest at a mosque in Sambhal, UP. They were part of a crowd protesting a survey of the mosque ordered by a local court on a petition moved by a Hindu group saying it was built on a temple. The court showed extraordinary haste, not waiting to even hear the side of mosque management. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) team too descended as if just waiting for the order. The development roiled passions among the worshippers who saw this as a threat to the mosque.

Such cases follow a set template. Obscure Hindu groups approach local court alleging that a particular mosque was built by razing a temple relying on thin evidence. The courts oblige by asking ASI or state archaeological agency to conduct a survey thus igniting an issue that leads to tension between Hindus and Muslims. It is obvious which party and which groups benefit from this. We have seen this toolkit being implemented in Varanasi and Mathura. The fresh iterations have come in Sambhal and Badaun in UP. Even the Ajmer dargah, where legend has it that Akbar the great had prayed for a progeny, has not been spared. A local court is hearing a case alleging existence of temple under it.

Each of these cases has the potential to ignite a bloody communal conflagration locally and tear apart what remains of social harmony nationally. If allowed to continue, it has the potential to undo years of economic progress and deny further growth of India as a modern country. These developments are ill at ease with our projection of a nation on the march. The great irony lies in the fact that the very government and the party projecting the shining new face of India is also encouraging these flashpoints that can do nothing but drag the country backward.

There might be less known Hindu groups behind individual petitions in each case but there is no denying that they have encouragement and blessing of the larger Sangh Parivar. While on the one hand the Parivar leadership makes the right noises, the foot soldiers are encouraged to take another route. In this case too, RSS chief Mohan Bhagvat told his ranks that they should not go looking for temple under every mosque. That does not seem to have deterred the rank and file from approaching the courts to do precisely that. This has echoes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling gaurakshaks who kill Muslims on streets goondas but doing nothing to rein them in.

This can only mean two things. One, both RSS and Modi have no control over the myriad Hindu groups. In that case they have lost the moral authority to speak on behalf of Hindus, as they often do. Two, which is more likely, they say one thing for public consumption while allowing and promoting the exact opposite of that behind the scenes. The drug of communal hatred, like all drugs, needs ever higher doses to produce the same high. This was evident during the last elections when the building of Ram Temple in Ayodhya failed to produce the hoped for electoral dividends for Modi-government. So now it is being administered in multiple doses at multiple locations.

As has already been pointed out, implementing this playbook would not have been possible but for the Supreme Court sanction to conducting such survey. The apex court, already mulling the challenge to Places of Worship Act 1991 that freezes the status of all places of worship in the country as on August 15, 1947, in its infinite wisdom still allowed “surveys” of individual cases. Now, to be charitable to the court, it may have been led by pure academic curiosity of finding out what lies beneath each building in the country. However, it should have foreseen the terrible consequences such pursuits would lead to. Even if the court then did not have the perspicacity to see it, it has the responsibility to act now. It must undo its error post haste and on its own.

The Places of Worship Act was meant to put a lid on just such disputes. Nobody is denying places of worship were not destroyed by conquering armies in the past. That was the way of the past and it was wrong. At the dawn on Independence, India accepted a new charter that clearly said this was not right. There is no reason to now appease some extremists by literally digging up the past. Else, this will continually threaten not just mosques but even temples, churches, and gurudwaras and keep pitting one group against another.

Such genies, once let loose, are difficult to put back in the bottle. Yet, it is for the institutions of secular India to assert themselves on this count. The Supreme Court needs to order an end to all ongoing and future surveys of this nature by recognizing that their only motive is to foment communal hatred. Though I have no hope of it happening, the Modi government too should seize an opportunity of redeeming itself a bit by backing the court in this move.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Dec 4, 2024