Mathura won’t risk an Ayodhya

The Shahi Idgah Masjid, adjoining the Krishna Janmasthan Temple complex, is empty on a Tuesday afternoon but for the CRPF guards on duty. A couple of plainclothesmen from the Local Intelligence Unit (LIU) have befriended the Imam of the Masjid, Abdul Wajid, who lives in a newly-built room beneath the mosque’s entrance arch.

Wajid doesn’t want to talk politics and insists the ‘‘mahaul’’ in Mathura has always been excellent, Hindu-Muslim tension is alien to its ethos. So does he feel relieved on Advani’s promise? ‘‘Well, Advani is a very big man but sometimes I think he is like a nadaan balak who doesn’t know what he is talking about. One day he will say ‘mandir wahin banayenge’, the next day he will say something else.’’

‘‘How can you take anything they say seriously?’’ says the man from LIU. ‘‘I can tell you one thing, the security here will never go. There are 65 points of duty in this complex and two-four jawans manning mosque and temple each hour. We have personnel from the CRPF, PAC, civil police, and 52 from the LIU.’’

Ironically, the VHP’s Mathura liberation programme has left the Imam a fairly contented man while alienating the Hindu shopkeepers along the lane outside the temple and this is why — all the ruckus the VHP has kicked up has deprived the temple of its devotees.

Although the temple and mosque share a wall and the VHP believes that the ‘‘Krishna janmasthan’’ lies under a portion of the mosque, the two are separate entities with separate entrances.

The massive temple complex has always attracted thousands of pilgrims from across the country and according to Rajesh Srivastava, joint chief executive of the Krishna Janmasthan Seva Sansthan, an average of 20,000 devotees come visiting everyday, the number touching lakhs on festive days.

Srivastava is wary to talk politics but opens up after a round of chai. The last thing he wants is an Ayodhya-style confrontation to mar the ‘‘fortified’’ peace of Krishnajanmabhoomi. He does have one complaint, though. ‘‘Advaniji passed through Mathura last week on his new yatra. Couldn’t he have come here for just a darshan of Bal Krishna?’’

Girdhari Lal Gautam who sells religious pictures and puja samagri is more vocal. ‘‘It was only because of Ayodhya that there is so much security here. People can’t take in their cameras, their mobile phones. Many come and turn away from the gates, others have stopped coming.’’ But post-1992, Muslims have started offering prayers at the Idgah mosque every Friday, not only on Id as earlier, says Srivastava.

Yet, despite the sea of policemen, the kitsch architecture that marks the new temples, the open drains (kilometres off the gleaming Golden Quadrilateral), the strains of Wajid’s afternoon azaan comes across as a lullaby to Lord Krishna whose official summer siesta time next door is from 12 noon to 4 pm.