صراط عشق صراط عشق
Right-wing elements file back-to-back petitions in courts, claiming that UNESCO protected monuments and Mughal-era Mosques are temples. A campaign by the Hindu right-wing groups to claim Mughal era monuments and historic mosques has raised a wave of concern among minorities, historians, and archaeologists across India.
Hindu extremist groups in India are targeting Muslim sites
Hindu extremist groups in India are targeting Muslim sites in the country even the world-famous Taj Mahal, thirty years after the mobs demolished a historic mosque in Ayodhya. Hindutva groups are laying claim to a growing number of sites where Muslim monuments and mosques stand, arguing that temples once stood on the same land.
BJP is pursuing seemingly legal pathways to further their strategy of removing Muslim heritage
While Indians are grappling with a string of serious problems including inflation, unemployment, and a tattered social fabric, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindutva organizations it is aligned with are fuelling anti-Muslim hate-crimes and assiduously pursuing seemingly legal pathways to further their strategy of removing Muslim heritage.
Emboldened under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aided by courts and fuelled by social media, the fringe groups believe the sites were built on top of Hindu temples, which they consider representations of India’s “true” religion.
Babri Mosque
Over the decades, Hindutva activists have laid claim to several Islamic monuments, shrines, and mosques, asserting that they were once Hindu temples. In independent India, this pattern first appeared in December 1949, when activists placed an idol of the Hindu deity Ram inside the premises of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.
Babri Mosque, built by Mughal Emperor Babur in the 16th century, was demolished by a frenzied mob in 1992 as they believed it was the birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama. The frenzied destruction of the 450-year-old building in 1992 sparked religious riots in which more than 2,000 people died, most of them Muslims, who number 200 million in India.
Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi
Almost 30 years after Hindutva activists destroyed the 16th century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, they have their sights set on another Mosque in the state – the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi.
They are claiming that a shivling (a phallic symbol that represents the Hindu deity Shiva) has been found in the mosque complex. Their argument is that the Gyanvapi mosque stands on the ruins of the 16th century Kashi-Vishwanath temple and that this temple was partially destroyed in 1669 on the orders of Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal emperor.
“This means that is the site of a temple,” government minister Kaushal Kishore, a member of Modi’s BJP party, told local media, saying that Hindus should now pray there.
They even claimed that a court-appointed team in a survey has found relics of the Hindu god Shiva inside the pond in the courtyard of the mosque meant for ablutions before the prayers. The Muslim groups had opposed the survey, saying it was against the Places of Worship Act of 1991, which maintains the religious status of any place of worship as of Aug. 15, 1947.
Taj Mahal; jewel of Muslim art in India
Some groups have even set their sights on UNESCO world heritage site the Taj Mahal, India’s best-known monument attracting millions of visitors every year.
Despite no credible evidence, they believe that the 17th-century mausoleum was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan on the site of a Shiva shrine.
“It was destroyed by Mughal invaders so that a Mosque could be built there,” Sanjay Jat, spokesman for the hardline organisation Hindu Mahasabha, told AFP.
Recently a functionary of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajneesh Singh approached a court requesting a directive to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to open 22 rooms inside the world-famous UNESCO heritage monument, Taj Mahal, to ascertain if the claims that the mausoleum houses Hindu idols were true.
Built in the city of Agra, 240 kilometers (149 miles) south of the capital New Delhi, by order of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in 1648 in memory of his favorite wife, the monument is considered the jewel of Muslim art in India.
The court, however, dismissed the petition. Singh’s plea was based on a conspiracy theory supported by right-wing historians, that the 17th-century marvel was an old Hindu temple called “Tejo Mahal.”
Mathura Mosque petition
In another case , a court entertained a lawsuit seeking ownership of the land of 17th-century Shahi Idgah Masjid in Mathura, 57 kilometers (35 miles) north of Agra city. The Mosque is adjacent to a temple, where Hindus believe that the deity Lord Krishna was born.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Niranjan Sahoo, a senior fellow at the New Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation, said the recent electoral victory of the BJP in the provincial polls has emboldened the right-wing elements.
Such controversies create religious polarization, which helps the ruling party shift the goal post from the Ayodhya-Babri Mosque episode.
Bhojshala-Kamal Maula Mosque
The Madhya Pradesh High Court has issued notices to the Centre, state and Archaeological Survey of India over the disputed site of the Bhojshala-Kamal Maula mosque based on a petition that claims that Hindus should be given exclusive rights to pray there.
It is located in Dhar, approximately 250 km from the state capital and considered to be one of the communally sensitive towns in Madhya Pradesh. The movement’s core tenet has long been that Hinduism is India’s original religion, and that everything else is alien.
