On a cool, sunny day in February — typical weather for this time in India’s Gangetic plains — loud chants of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ ring through the air inside the heavily guarded Kashi Vishwanath temple in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi, one of the oldest living cities in the world. Devotees try to weave their way in. There is another line of pilgrims, who have purchased a ticket worth ₹300 each to get a sugam darshan (comfortable view) of the deity, Shiva. Each of them is first frisked by security personnel before being let in.
Outside, there is tension in the air. Harassed-looking policemen form a human barricade. Hundreds of Muslims have just finished the Friday prayers in Gyanvapi mosque, which sits next to the temple.
“Jaldi aage badho (walk fast),” says a policeman to a group of Muslim boys who stop at a shop outside the temple where some Hindu boys are chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram’. “Nara mat lagao (don’t raise slogans),” he says firmly.
