When the Supreme Court of India passed its verdict in November 2019, in what is popularly known as the Babri Masjid case, it was a slight beacon of hope for all backers of the idea of India. Though the Court ended up giving the plot of land to the party that was responsible for the desecration and demolition of the mosque, the Court’s glowing reference to the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 was like applying a little balm to an embattled soul. It promised to shut the door with a finality on further contentions of other places of worship, notably the Gyanvapi Masjid in Varanasi and the Shahi Idgah in Mathura.
The unanimous view of the five-judge Bench was, “In providing a guarantee for the preservation of the religious character of places of public worship as they existed on 15 August 1947 and against the conversion of places of public worship, Parliament determined that independence from colonial rule furnishes a constitutional basis for healing the injustices of the past by providing the confidence to every religious community that their places of worship will be preserved and that their character will not be altered. The law addresses itself to the State as much as to every citizen of the nation…The Places of Worship Act imposes a non-derogable obligation towards enforcing our commitment to secularism under the Indian Constitution....Non-retrogression is a foundational feature of the fundamental constitutional principles of which secularism is a core component. The Places of Worship Act is thus a legislative intervention which preserves non-retrogression as an essential feature of our secular values.”
A peace that prevailed for only a while
The light for peace and harmony burned bright. Not for long though. Over the next year or so, petitions began to be filed for the so-called liberation of Hindu temples where the mosques in Mathura and Kashi stand. These mosques have been on the radar of Hindutva forces ever since the Babri Masjid-Ramjanambhoomi agitation began, when the oft-heard slogan was, “Ayodhya to jhanki hai, Kashi, Mathura baqi hai (Ayodhya is a mere trailer, Kashi and Mathura are still left”). The Kashi mosque now faces almost 15 identical petitions; the Mathura mosque has 12 petitions.
More petitions have been filed in the lower judiciary against mosques such as the Shamsi Jama Masjid in Badaun, Teele Wali Masjid in Lucknow, Kamal Maula mosque in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, Adhai Din ka Jhonpra in Ajmer, the Jama Masjid in Srirangapatnam, and even the Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid at the Qutub Minar in New Delhi. The claims of the mosques having been built after restructuring or demolishing ancient temples have been questionable. If in the case of Badaun, the protesters were not sure whether the mosque was built after demolishing a temple or merely restructuring one, in the case of Kamal Maula Masjid, an idol was sought to be placed in September last year to buttress the contention that the mosque was an 11th century temple dedicated to the Hindu goddess Saraswati. There was no proof to back any of the contentions by little-known right-wing activists but the petitions were still admitted in various district courts.
Surveys and hearings
These were new territories being tested by revanchist forces. Barring a rap on the knuckles, as in the case of Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid, the district and High Courts were silent in what amounted to a deliberate challenge to the Places of Worship Act which the Supreme Court spoke so glowingly of in the Babri judgment. They probably got their encouragement from an oral remark made by the Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud who is reported to have stated, “the ascertainment of the religious character of a place as a procedural instrument may not necessarily fall foul of the provisions of sections 3 and 4 of the Act of 1991”. The remark probably opened a Pandora’s box.
Almost on cue, when the Allahabad High Court ordered a survey of the Gyanvapi mosque, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court upheld the decision. The religious character of Gyanvapi could indeed be ascertained. It did, however, earlier this year, stay the Allahabad High Court’s order for a court-monitored survey of Shahi Idgah Masjid in Mathura.
Further, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a clutch of petitions against the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act itself. Even as it maintained that the pendency of petitions did not affect the maintainability of the Act, its action of admitting the petitions itself was a signal that nothing was above debate. One of the petitioners even objected to the cut-off date of August 15, 1947, something the top court had spoken glowingly of in the Babri verdict. The petitioner, a former spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Delhi, insisted that the cut-off date should be 1206, the time when Qutbuddin Aibak laid the foundation of the Delhi Sultanate. That his objection was not dismissed at the first stage was of significance.
The petitions seeking the restoration of places of worship to their alleged status three to eight centuries ago should not have come as a surprise, but the speed and the frequency of petitions at various levels were a little alarming. The courts were probably prepared. In 1994, barely three years after the Places of Worship Act came into force, the top court expressed its apprehensions over the provisions of the Act being flouted.
Drawing a parallel with the razing of the Babri Masjid by those unconcerned with the provisions of the Indian Penal Code for violating a place of worship, the Court said, “Similarly minded people are as little likely to be deterred by the provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991”. Incidentally, the Places of Worship Act, which made an exception for the Babri Masjid, virtually envisaged the conversion of the Ayodhya mosque, but, in the same breath, wanted to put an end to demands on other monuments. With the Babri mosque having lapsed into history, challenges to the Act of 1991 itself amount to a breach of public trust. These petitions are being used as a political weapon today. They help further a certain political narrative in the run-up to the general election 2024. The public gets excited, and fringe leaders become vocal and aggressive.
A moment to ponder
Even as petitions pile up in courts across the country, let us not forget what happened in Ayodhya in 1986. It was the order of a district court in Uttar Pradesh which kick-started the flow of events that ultimately led to the destruction of the mosque and the final possession of its land by the assailants. The district court’s permission changed the way India looked at places of worship. The question today is this: will the Supreme Court step in to uphold the integrity of the Places of Worship Act? Or, will the continued extensions granted to the Union government to specify its stance pave the way for the repeal of the Act by Parliament? Noises against the Act are already being heard in the Lok Sabha. It is the silence of the top court which is unsettling.
ziya.salam@thehindu.co.in
