300-year-old Vadodara shrine was target of riots since ’69, cops under fire

The razed dargah near Champaner gate, over which violence broke out in Vadodara on Monday, stood in the middle of the road. Local Muslims say it was of a Sufi saint called Syed Rashiuddin Chishti, a descendant of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer.

The razed dargah near Champaner gate, over which violence broke out in Vadodara on Monday, stood in the middle of the road. Local Muslims say it was of a Sufi saint called Syed Rashiuddin Chishti, a descendant of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti of Ajmer. They claim the shrine was some 300 years old.

Little else is known about the shrine, except that it has been attacked in all communal riots in Gujarat since 1969.

But Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC), which is controlled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), seemed to have been intent on removing it—and on Monday itself—to prove a point. All along the BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had been building up pressure to have it demolished, if only to show that the ongoing demolition drive against illegal structures was not targeting only Hindu shrines.

The local Muslims leaders’ decision to oppose the demolition on the ground that it was a ‘‘historical structure’’— dargahs are generally not considered places of worship by Muslims— only seemed to have increased the political pressure.

This was evident from the presence of BJP leader Nalin Bhatt and councillors Rakesh Patel, Arvind Patel, Chandrakant Thakkar, Lalit Raj, Harish Shevani, Yogesh Patel and Mahesh Rana during the demolition.

But the situation had been made volatile even before. An open letter from the VHP had taunted the municipal administration for failing to take action against Muslim shrines while removing those of Hindus.

Muslims had made official representations against the demolition on Saturday. They’d also faxed a memorandum to the National Minorities Commission on Sunday quoting the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which they ensures status quo to religious places built before 1947.

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Municipal commissioner Rohit Pathak’s statement on Monday evening mentioned the demolition of 20 Hindu temples with people’s co-operation. What it did not mention was that the Muslim community, too, had co-operated during the removal of a smaller dargah in the Danteshwar area.

So the dargah near Champaner gate became one that was prominent enough to drive home the point that demolitions would continue come what may. To declare the dargah an illegal structure, municipal authorities latched on to the fact that it does not have ownership papers nor is it a protected monument. Only the city survey of 1911 by the then Baroda State makes mention of the dargah.

Police officers admit that hastening the removal guaranteed violence. Given the politicisation of the issue, the conversion of the attack against the authorities into communal violence took little time — something for which the police seemed ill-prepared, as indicated by how the violence spread to several areas in the walled city.