After a brief hiatus, the disputes over religious sites have started grabbing headlines again in the country, with an Uttar Pradesh court passing an ex parte order for a survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal on November 19. The court order followed a petition filed by a group of lawyers claiming that a Harihar temple stood at the place of the mosque. All hell broke loose as violence broke out in the area during the survey, taking the lives of four persons. The Supreme Court has now ordered a halt to all proceedings in the trial court, but tensions remain high.
Almost at the same time, a similar suit was filed in a Rajasthan court, in which the petitioner claimed that the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, visited by thousands of devotees cutting across religious divides every day, was a Hindu temple and demanded a survey of the structure. The court admitted the plea and issued notices to the dargah committee, the central government, and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
Both Sambhal and Ajmer were the latest in a series of such claims made by the right-wing Hindu groups that grew louder during the last decade, especially after the Supreme Court’s Ram Janmabhumi verdict, worryingly raising questions over the effectiveness of the Places of Worships Act passed in 1991.
What does the law say?
The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 prohibits the conversion of any place of worship and provides for the maintenance of the religious character of such places as they existed on August 15, 1947.
“No person shall convert any place of worship of any religious denomination or any section thereof into a place of worship of a different section of the same religious denomination or of a different religious denomination or any section thereof,” it says. The Act, however, has excluded the decades-old Ram Janmabhumi–Babri Masjid dispute, which was resolved through an order of the Supreme Court in 2019.
However, the new claims and lawsuits, right from the Gyanvapi to the Ajmer dargah, have largely rendered the law, passed with the aim of tackling the rising religious strife, toothless. What worries the liberals most is that the apex court has admitted a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Places of Worship Act.
Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, a lawyer, has filed a petition in the top court challenging sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Act. While section 3 bars the conversion of a place of worship from a particular religion or sect into another, section 4 declares that the character of a place of worship will be determined as it was on August 15, 1947. Section 2 defines the terms like “places of worship” and “conversion”.
The Supreme Court will examine mainly three questions while hearing the plea: If the law violates Articles 14 and 15 and the guarantee of equality in the Constitution; if it violates Articles 25, 26 and 29 and the basic feature of secularism in the Constitution; and if the temples “destroyed by invaders” are still temples in law or maintained under personal laws.
Did Justice Chandrachud open a Pandora’s Box?
As the Sambhal-Ajmer row gathers steam, the opposition alleges that the comments made orally by former Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud while hearing the Gyanvapi case in 2022 have opened a Pandora’s Box. Justice Chandrachud, while refusing to halt the suit, had said ascertaining the religious character of a place of worship was not barred under the Places of Worship Act.
In the Gyanvapi case, both the trial court and the Allahabad High Court adopted the same reasoning to admit the suit. In the Mathura in the Krishna Janambhoomi-Shahi Idgah case, too, the high court adopted the same arguments aired by Justice Chandrachud to uphold the maintainability of the suit.
"This is unfortunate. The oral observations made by the former CJI (DY Chandrachud) on May 20, 2022, seem to have opened a Pandora's box. The Places of Worship Act, 1991, passed by both Houses of Parliament and gazetted in September 1991, must be implemented in letter and spirit," Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in an interview to PTI Videos.
Ramesh’s views were echoed by several other leaders, including PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti and AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi. Mufti said though the Supreme Court ruled that the status quo should be maintained as it existed in 1947, Justice Chandrachud’s observation has paved the way for surveys of these sites potentially leading to increased tension between Hindus and Muslims.
Not only the opposition, even from the legal fraternity, fingers have been pointed towards the former CJI. Early this week, eminent lawyer Dushyant Dave told Karan Thapar in an interview that Justice Chandrachud had done a “great disservice” to the Constitution and the country by permitting a survey of the mosques.
What’s happening in Sambhal and Ajmer?
Sambhal holds special significance in Hindu mythology as Kalki, the tenth and final incarnation of Lord Vishnu, is destined to take birth here to mark the end of Kaliyug.
The Shahi Jama Masjid in this otherwise tranquil town was one of the three major mosques constructed during the reign of the first Mughal emperor, Babar—the other two being Babri Masjid and Panipat mosque. Built in 1526 AD, the Jama Masjid is arguably the oldest surviving Mughal-era mosque in South Asia, though some historians claim remnants of a Harihar temple at the site.
The recent controversy erupted after a group of lawyers, including Vishnu Shankar Jain, who had been involved in the Gyanvapi and Krishna Janmabhoomi disputes, filed a petition seeking a survey of the mosque. The petition alleged that the current structure was built after demolishing the temple and that the same has been documented by historical texts like ‘Baburnamah’ and ‘Ain-e-Akbari’.
The petition further demands unrestricted access for Hindus to the mosque.
Admitting the petition, Civil Judge Aditya Singh on November 19 ordered a survey of the structure, and, in a surprising and unusual move, the authorities began the survey within hours of the court order. Protests erupted in the area, and, on November 24, they snowballed into large-scale violence after hundreds of people gathered near the mosque to resist the survey. Four people were killed and scores of others, including 30 security personnel, injured as the protesters clashed with police.
The mosque committee moved the Supreme Court against the survey. On November 29, the top court directed the Sambhal trial court to temporarily halt all proceedings in the case while ordering the Uttar Pradesh government to maintain peace and harmony in the town.
In Ajmer, a civil court issued notices to the Sharif Dargah committee, the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs, and the Archaeological Survey of India on November 27 on a plea seeking to declare the shrine a temple.
The petition was filed by Hindu Sena president Vushnu Gupta, who claimed a Shiva temple had existed at the site of the dargah of Sufi saint Moinuddin Chishti. The plea was filed in September, and the next hearing is scheduled on December 20.
"Our demand was that the Ajmer dargah be declared a Sankat Mochan Mahadev Temple, and if the dargah has any kind of registration, it should be cancelled. The survey should be done through ASI, and Hindus should be given the right to worship there," plaintiff Gupta told reporters. He further claimed that he had conducted research for over two years on this subject and referred to a book by academic Har Bilas Sarda to buttress his arguments.
Will PM Modi intervene?
As the latest temple-mosque row rages, a group of former bureaucrats and diplomats has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention in these disputes, which they claim are an "ideological assault" on India's civilisational heritage. The letter notes that little-known fringe groups claiming to represent Hindus have been demanding archaeological surveys of mediaeval mosques and dargahs.
"Despite the clear provisions of the Places of Worship Act, the courts too seem to respond to such demands with undue alacrity and haste," it said.
Whether Modi will heed their prayer is what remains to be seen. Following the resolution of the Ram Janmabhoomi case, the RSS, the ideological mentor of the ruling BJP, had asserted that “we shouldn’t look for Shivling in every mosque”, but the vicious statements being made by those in the party betray the government's intent.