Lok Sabha Elections 2024 | Muslims ‘cornered’ in Narendra Modi’s Varanasi

SM Yasin, 68, is a busy man. As joint secretary of the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee, he represents Muslims in a number of disputes over temples and mosques across India, including the Gyambapi Mosque and Kashi Vishwanath Temple case in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

“We no longer have faith in the judiciary. Courts these days are only passing verdicts but not delivering justice,” Yasin said as the case gears up for hearing in April 2024, in the midst of India’s ongoing seven-phase general elections.

“The district judge was due to retire on the 31st (January) and this verdict came just hours before. The barricades ordered by the Supreme Court were removed overnight and the commissioner himself sat with his son and prayed. Now, if something happens in the city, who can we turn to?” Yasin asked, flipping through the case files.

His voice was a mixture of anger and disappointment.

Varanasi in the eastern state of Uttar Pradesh is the constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently seeking a third term from the seat. He is facing Ajay Rai of the Indian National Congress and Atal Jamal of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

In late April, India had already finished voting in the first phase of its general elections. And Assi Ghat, one of Varanasi’s most famous temples, Ghatwas transformed into a live television news set.

In a special programme on a national Hindi news channel, spokespersons from the BJP, Indian National Congress and BSP discussed religion, politics, the Ram temple and the Varanasi elections.

Sita Sahu, 41, was sitting in the front row of the audience, and at the end of the show, the host asked her the following question: “Vikas” On Varanasi’s development under the Modi government: “Words cannot describe how much this city has developed in the last 10 years. This Assi Ghat where we are standing has become a tourist spot. Earlier, no one came here as it was not well maintained. And now let me talk about women…” Sahu said, interrupted by a group of angry students from Benaras Hindu University (BHU) who were in the audience.

She is one of five women who filed a petition in a Varanasi court in August 2021 seeking restoration of their right to perform rituals at the Gyambapi mosque. They argued that the mosque enshrines “Hindu deities Maa Shringar Gauri, Lord Ganesha, Lord Hanuman and other deities.”

“When I was a child, my father told me that several temples, including Baba Vishweshwar’s temple, Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya and the temple at Somnath, were destroyed and mosques were built over them. That was my motivation for filing this case. Till then, we were only allowed to pray to Nandi.J “It’s once a year. I wanted to fix that,” Saff said.

Standing side by side in the heart of Varanasi, the Gyambapi Mosque and Kashi Vishwanath Temple have attracted pilgrims and tourists of all faiths from all over the world for centuries.

The dispute came to a head in 1991, a year before the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, when a petition was filed in a civil court in Varanasi on behalf of Swayambhu Jyotirlinga Bhagwan Vishweshwar and five others, seeking the removal of Muslims from the temple complex and the destruction of the mosque.

However, in 1997, the Varanasi Civil Court ruled that the suit could not be maintained under the Places of Worship Act, 1991, which freezes the status of places of religious worship as of August 15, 1947, prohibits any alteration to any place of worship and ensures maintenance of its religious character.

Subsequently, both the Hindu and Muslim sides filed petitions in the local courts and filed several petitions for review.

In 1998, a district court judge consolidated all the claims and, after considering all the evidence, ordered the civil court to adjudicate the dispute afresh. However, the High Court stayed the Varanasi district court’s order. The stay lasted for 22 years, and the High Court extended it further.

Several new petitions have been filed, including one by Varanasi-based lawyer Vijay Shankar Rastogi, who describes himself as a “close friend” of Swayambhu Jyotirlinga Bhagwan Vishweshwar, who has filed a petition in a lower court alleging that the construction of the Gyambapi mosque was illegal and seeking an archaeological survey of the mosque.

Sita Sahu, along with four other women, filed a separate lawsuit, asking the court to allow them to offer daily prayers at the “shrine behind the western wall of the mosque” and to protect the idol.

Following these developments in the case, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) submitted a report to the court in December 2023.

On January 21, 2024, the court ordered the report to be made public and made available to both sides. A week later, on January 31, Hindus were allowed to offer prayers in the mosque’s basement.

A few days after prayers were allowed in the mosque’s basement, a video of Hindu Samaj Party general secretary Roshan Pandey went viral on social media. In the video, Pandey and several others can be seen pasting a sticker saying “temple” instead of “mosque” on the signboard of the Gyambapi mosque.

Pandey was charged with inciting religious sentiments, among other things, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“When I put up the sticker, some officials came for questioning. I told them that I was only doing what our honourable Chief Minister said. There is a statement by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath going around and he has said in very clear terms that calling Gyambapi a mosque will be controversial and create debate. It is a temple and will always be a temple. So if it is a temple, why did the signboard say mosque?” Pandey questioned.

“Many Hindus here are unaware of their faith. They are unaware of the historical injustices that have befallen our religion. We are organising events and using social media to help them realise what these people (Muslims) have done to us. We are also against love jihad and forced conversions,” he said, adding that the organisation is fighting Gyambapi’s battle outside court.

SM Yasin, however, said the militancy being waged by Roshan Pandey’s Hindu Samaj Party and other organisations was targeting and dehumanising Muslims.

“Teens don’t wear t-shirts, they don’t wear masjids. (Return 30,000 mosques and mazars) is their slogan. This slogan is raised every day near mosques. There are several such slogans…Press it again and destroy Gyanvapi (Press it again and destroy Gyanvapi)“Every day there are forwarded WhatsApp messages comparing us to animals and insects. But what can we do? We tolerate this,” he said. Quint.

Both Seeta Sahu and Roshan Pandey believe Varanasi has come a long way under the Modi government: “Since the temple was built and the Vishwanath dam was erected, at least 200,000 tourists visit Kashi every day. This has boosted other industries, including hotels and the Benarasi sari industry. I think it’s creating jobs.” Autowaller And are other people involved in these industries also not being employed?,” Pandey alleged.

But the reality on the ground does not back up Pandey’s claims. The situation is particularly tough for Varanasi’s Muslim weavers. Ishrat Usmani, a social worker with close ties to the weaver community, said: Quint” bunker “The Varanasi weavers, who make the world-famous Benarasi sarees that played a major role in the Indian economy and the Varanasi economy, are being forced to emigrate. There are many reasons behind this – on the one hand, the rise of cheaper machine-woven sarees and on the other hand, little support from the government.”