Attack On The Gyanvapi Mosque Is An Attack On The Existence Of Muslims

As a Varanasi Court ordered the survey to attack yet another mosque, it has again shown that the Indian judiciary synchronously works with the RSS. This time, it is helping RSS fulfil a promise it made long back.

Historian AG Noorani writes: “The RSS set up the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) at Mumbai on Aug 29, 1984. In 1986 at Allahabad, a World Hindu Sammelan (conference) was held. Eventually, the VHP adopted an 18-point code of conduct which explicitly called for the ‘liberation’ of the birthplaces of Ram at Ayodhya and of Krishna at Mathura and also for the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir at Varanasi to be ‘liberated’ from the Gyanvapi Masjid”. Now that Babri Masjid has been “liberated”, the Varanasi court is simply helping RSS in removing Gyanvapi Masjid.

I see people questioning the constitutional validity of the court order. People are saying that it violates the Places of Worship Act. The act says that “the religious character of a place of worship existing on the 15th day of August 1947 shall continue to be the same as it existed on that day”. To me, it’s as futile as saying CAA should be opposed because it’s unconstitutional. After all, the devil is in the details.

The thing is, why couldn’t the Places of Worship Act save Babri Masjid from getting demolished when it was a mosque on the eve of independence? It is because the act has two exceptions. It doesn’t apply to historical monuments. And it doesn’t apply to places of worship that are in dispute. The Varanasi court order has just exploited the second exception. The order says: “The prime purpose of the Archaeological Survey shall be to find out whether the religious structure standing at present at the ‘disputed site’ is a superimposition, alteration or addition or there is a structural overlapping of any kind, with or over, any other religious structure”.

By calling it a “disputed site”, the court has simply opened the room to bypass the Places of Worship Act. Come to think of it, the act itself was systematically implemented to ensure that it doesn’t go against the RSS promise. It was implemented after 5 years of its promise when India’s prime minister was Congress leader Narasimha Rao. But it wasn’t enough. A BJP leader has now challenged the constitutional validity of the Places of Worship Act itself and the Supreme Court has already sent a notice to the Centre. It seems like they are in no mood to even have unuseful constitutional safeguards. There are major takeaways from here.

The Constitution cannot help Muslims in defending themselves from the direct attack on their very presence in India. The attack on mosques is actually an attack on the existence of Muslims. In such a situation, getting involved in legal acrobats is a trap laid by those who don’t want a systematic change. When they say it’s against the constitution, it implies that the fault lies in the court rather than the system itself. This way, nothing really changes.