Varanasi/Bengaluru, India – A festive environment engulfed Varanasi, one in every of Hinduism’s holiest cities located on the banks of the river Ganga.
It was the week Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the brand new temple to the Hindu deity Ram the place the Sixteenth century Babri Masjid as soon as stood within the metropolis of Ayodhya, 200km (124 miles) to the north.
In Varanasi, the streets and boats on the river had been decked up with saffron flags bearing illustrations of Ram. Exterior Varanasi’s well-known and historic Kashi Vishwanath temple, the odor of burning camphor and the sound of Indian classical music drifted by means of the air as pilgrims flocked in giant numbers to the temple to supply their prayers.
However subsequent door, in direction of the west of the temple, the carnival-like spirit was changed with a strict and sombre environment, with barricades and cops greeting crowds.
The officers had been guarding the Gyanvapi Mosque – which is broadly believed to have been constructed on the ruins of a Sixteenth-century Kashi Vishwanath temple demolished by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1669.
Whereas the partially ruined Kashi temple has been reconstructed and stands adjoining to the Gyanvapi Mosque, Hindu supremacist teams have been making an attempt to reclaim the mosque for many years.
In Might 2022, some Hindu patrons went to the Varanasi native court docket asking for permission to worship inside the mosque’s advanced after a court-ordered video survey discovered {that a} ‘Shivling’ – an emblem of the Hindu deity Shiva – was discovered close to the wuzukhana, a effectively utilized by Muslim devotees on the mosque.
This case gained momentum in January this yr when a survey from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), amongst different issues, said that a big Hindu temple existed on the positioning earlier than the mosque and that sculptures of Hindu deities had been additionally current within the cellars of the mosque.
Inside a couple of days, on January 31, Choose Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha from Varanasi’s native court docket handed an order ruling that Hindus can be allowed to wish within the mosque’s basement – a bit which had been sealed attributable to safety considerations.
“District court docket Varanasi has created historical past at the moment,” Vishnu Jain, a Supreme Court docket lawyer representing the Hindu facet stated in a submit on X.
A day later, movies and pictures started showing on social media of a priest providing prayers to the Hindu deities contained in the mosque cellar.
#WATCH | A priest presents prayers at ‘Vyas Ji ka Tehkhana’ inside Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, after District court docket order.
Visuals confirmed by Vishnu Shankar Jain, the lawyer for the Hindu facet within the Gyanvapi case pic.twitter.com/mUB6TMGpET
— ANI (@ANI) February 1, 2024
The Anjuman Intezamia Masajid, the committee managing the Gyanvapi Mosque, rejected the native court docket’s order and is scheduled to problem the case on the Allahabad Excessive Court docket within the metropolis of Prayagraj, previously often called Allahabad, on February 6.
“It looks as if the judicial system is towards Muslims,” Rais Ahmad Ansari, an advocate in Varanasi representing the Muslim facet, advised Al Jazeera.
Even amid a heightened momentum amongst India’s Hindu supremacist motion to focus on mosques, usually facilitated by authorities authorities – a centuries-old mosque was razed in New Delhi final week – the case involving the Gyanyavi construction holds deep political significance. Varanasi is the electoral constituency of Modi, who leads the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) that guidelines the nation, but has constructed sturdy relations with the presidents and ministers of Western liberal democracies.
India will vote on the whole elections anticipated to be held between March and Might.
‘You may really feel a Hindu vibe throughout you’
Whereas the court docket order hasn’t stirred any violence or communal riots, a way of tension is prevalent within the Muslim neighbourhoods of the town, in response to advocate Ansari.
“Muslim-owned retailers closed after the [January 31] listening to fearing a dispute. Friday’s namaz [prayers] was additionally greeted with tight safety presence as tons of gathered outdoors the Gynavapi Mosque to supply prayers. There’s a sense of tension in each Muslim’s thoughts,” he stated.
“It’s nonetheless peaceable in Varanasi. However this peace feels uneasy,” he added.
In the meantime, some information channels within the nation hailed the native court docket order and the onset of prayers within the mosque as “an enormous win for Hindus” – a sentiment shared by a number of Hindus in Varanasi.
“We plan to go go to the positioning and see the priest performing rituals on the mosque as quickly as our exams finish,” Ayush Akash and Harshit Sharma, two 21-year-old political science college students on the Banaras Hindu College (BHU), advised Al Jazeera.
Nita*, a Hindu devotee on the Kashi Vishwanath temple, was additionally eager to wish on the temple.
“We really feel nice about it [court ruling]. If we’re let to go to and pray, we are going to go. When Hindus pray in Varanasi, they’ve their very own locations of worship. My brother is a priest and might solely worship in his temple. But when the priest permits us into Gyanvapi, we are going to absolutely go,” she advised Al Jazeera.
“Folks right here have been going loopy for the reason that inauguration of the Ayodhya temple,” Nita stated.
“You may really feel a Hindu vibe throughout you on the streets. It was by no means like this earlier than, however all people is completely satisfied about issues which might be occurring and that the Gyanvapi is a Hindu temple,” she added.
BHU’s Akash identified that folks from all religions in Varanasi have coexisted peacefully for years and are mature sufficient to not riot over the temple-mosque dispute.
“It’d appear to be Hindus are in energy, and sure, some Muslim folks could be sad in regards to the native court docket’s determination on the Gyanvapi Mosque. However on this metropolis, whereas ideologies do differ, it doesn’t cease Hindu-Muslim friendship. That’s how the actual Varanasi is,” he stated.
‘All about politics’
Since Modi got here to energy in 2014, critics and rights teams have accused his authorities of encouraging or facilitating an increase in Hindu supremacy, whereas situations of discrimination and violence towards Muslims – who signify the most important non secular minority within the nation – have grown.
Hindu nationalist teams have additionally more and more launched or intensified authorized campaigns towards a number of centuries-old mosques, claiming they’re constructed on the stays of Hindu shrines.
“There’s a slogan which Hindu nationalists have been utilizing which says ‘Ayodhya Jhaki hain, Kashi-Mathura Baki Hain,’” stated BHU’s Akash. Translated, the slogan says ‘Ayodhya is only a preview, Kashi [Varanasi] and Mathura are left’. It’s a reference to how the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 in Ayodhya has been utilized by Hindu majoritarian teams to hunt related actions with the Mughal-era mosques in Varanasi and Mathura.
“However proper now, in Varanasi, the Gyanvapi case is all about politics. It looks as if the native court docket gave its ruling in time for the upcoming common elections. I really feel the ruling is to unite Hindus earlier than the elections,” he stated.
Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, secretary of the Indian Historical past Congress and professor of medieval historical past on the Aligarh Muslim College (AMU) shared the same view however highlighted that this case shouldn’t be like Ayodhya.
“No person has ever stated that the place the Gyanvapi Mosque stands at the moment, there had been no temple. It’s clear there was a temple and it was demolished. One may even see that with the bare eye,” Rezawi stated.
“The rationale behind why the temple was damaged is the place the rivalry arises for the reason that method wherein the historical past of temple demolitions is presently being introduced is a false narrative.”
Rezawi highlighted how the ebook, Temple Desecration and Muslim States in Medieval India, written by American scholar Richard Eaton, explains that in pre-colonial India, each dynasty had a deity they prayed to. If the ruler of the dynasty was defeated and the dominion was taken over, then the deity and every little thing dedicated to the deity – together with the temple – was destroyed by the triumphant ruler.
“This was an accepted apply amongst kings and is strictly what [the emperor] Aurangzeb did. However the purpose behind why he demolished the Vishwanath temple and constructed the mosque has many theories with some historians saying it was attributable to non secular causes and others claiming it was Aurangzeb’s method of punishing the Hindu household who managed the mosque since they’d helped the Hindu king Shivaji escape,” he added.
“What Aurangzeb did must be condemned. However he lived throughout an period when there was no structure. Now we have an Indian structure which ensures sure rights to folks. So I don’t perceive why the courts and prime minister are ignoring this and committing against the law extra heinous than Aurangzeb,” Rezwai stated.
Constitutionally, India is a secular state. The nation additionally handed a legislation in 1991 known as the Locations of Worship Act, which prohibits the conversion of locations of worship and stresses that their non secular nature must be maintained.
However the ultimate say about the way forward for the mosque lies with the nation’s courts.
Abhishek Sharma, a Kashi temple devotee and coordinator on the Swagatam Kashi Basis, advised Al Jazeera that “folks in Varanasi imagine in ‘Ganga-Jamuna tehzeeb’,” a metaphor for social concord that references the mingling of the waters of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers.
“Now we have at all times believed in residing collectively in sanctity. We pray that this peace shouldn’t be be disturbed in any method,” he stated.
*Some names have been modified to guard identities.
