Chipping away at a pact

"The Srikrishna Janmabhoomi temple was destroyed by foreign invaders and we are still unable to get it back. We swear to work with tan, man aur dhan (all our might and money) tolaunch an awareness campaign among the masses for liberation of the temple. This will be our top priority. We pledge to organise at least one satsang for Srikrishna Janmabhoomi’s liberation," was the pledge taken by some 5,000 kar sevaks in the presence of VHP general secretary Ashok Singhal at Govardhan, around 20 km from Mathura.

Singhal has least respect for the 1968 agreement. "It was not signed by the trust but by one member of the trust in his individual capacity. It has no legal sanctity. The entire Katra Keshavdeo area — housing both the Idgah and the temple — belongs to our trust in revenue records. When we have been paying taxes for this place for years, why shouldn’t we have it as well?" he told The Indian Express in Mathura.

The little-known agreement says: "Once the conditions mentioned in the agreement are fulfilled, both parties will file it as a compromise formula in their mutual court cases and the latter will be immediately withdrawn. Both parties will have theright to get the agreement implemented through courts or any other possible means if the other party does not abide by conditions prescribed in the agreement. The other party will have no objection to it and nor would it be able to protest."

With both the signatories to the agreement — Deodhar Shastri, deputy secretary of the Janmabhoomi trust, and Abdul Gaffar Advocate of the Idgah Trust — dead, there are few who can challenge the VHP’s claims. Others like Mohammad Yaqub Aluwale who was part of the Idgah trust when the agreement was signed says: "They (the VHP) are just trying to fan communal feelings in the otherwise calm Mathura city. We have learnt to co-exist peacefully. There were no murmurs here even after Babri Mosque’s demolition in 1992."

Now a Congress leader, Aluwale adds the agreement had been drafted after several rounds of lengthy meetings and heated debates. The then district magistrate, R.K. Goel, and superintendent of police, Girish Behari, had acted as mediators. Accompanied by a mapof the area, the agreement had finally been registered in the court of the Mathura sub-registrar on November 12, 1968, thus bringing to an end all the disputes between the two parties.

The Idgah trust members, incidentally, do not have any complaints against the temple trust, which has built a grand structure at the site that used to have just a chabutara 30 years ago. But they are bitter about the attitude of VHP leaders, who have been raking up the controversy at every possible opportunity. In 1995, the Parishad had organised a Vishnu Mahayagya near the temple, though it was a complete failure. The Sankalp Diwas’ organised on December 6 was yet another attempt to rake up the controversy.

However, the temple trust chairman, Satish Chandra Sharma, blames the Idgah authorities, saying the place where prayers used to be offered only twice a year has gradually been converted into a regular mosque, with namaz five times a day. "This is intolerable," he says.

Singhal too points to this,saying: "The sessions judge, Varanasi, gave a verdict only two months ago directing the district administration and the state Government to ascertain whether prayers used to be performed at the disputed Gyanvapi mosque adjacent to the Kashi Vishwanath temple till August 15. We think the same order applies to the state of religious places in Mathura as well. Moreover, restoring glory to both our temples in Mathura and Kashi has always been on the VHP’s agenda."

He also indicates that they are not willing to wait for a legal solution. "We have seen the case of Ayodhya. Legal proceedings take a lot of time. We can’t wait that long. Moreover, this is a matter of faith. Law cannot decide the place of birth of a God," he asserts.

All these proclamations are ominous for the Muslims, who dread the BJP Government both at the Centre and the state. "Since the district administration is normally controlled by the state Government, it can very well say that prayers used not to be held in Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi,"Aluwale points out. That would lend force to arguments of organisations like the VHP that the shrines at both Mathura and Kashi be handed over to them.

The 1968 agreement had prescribed the boundaries of both the Idgah and temple and tackled other issues of possible confict, like the Idgah drains which ended towards the temple. It was decided that the temple trust would turn them towards the Idgah and the latter would bear the cost of construction of a drainage system. A part of the Railway land owned by the temple trust which fell within the mosque’s boundaries was directed to be turned over to the Idgah.

In turn, the latter was asked to hand over land inhabited by ghosis (milkmen) to the temple authorities. The Idgah trust was also told not to build any window or door towards the temple. The agreement allowed the Idgah trust to increase its boundary walls up to the railway line in the east but told it to hand over the land outside its boundaries to the temple trust. The Idgah trust was also askedto remove the debris of a staircase, which was at that time the point of a dispute, by October 15, 1968.