The four deaths in Sambhal must make the nation pause. The men died in the violence that broke out because of a dispute over a mosque. The year-end conflagration belies the promise implicit in the powerful symbolism of that day at the beginning of this year in January when the Ram temple was consecrated in Ayodhya. Now that the long-running Mandir-Masjid conflict that had roiled the nation’s politics had been settled by the highest court of the land, and a grand temple had been inaugurated, there would be calm. Now that the Ramjanmabhoomi matter had been resolved, the Places of Worship (Special provisions) Act, 1991 — which prohibits conversion of any place of worship and provides for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947 — would help stanch future disputes before they flared. After all, the Supreme Court itself had, in its 2019 verdict in the Ayodhya title suit, described the demolition of the Babri Masjid as “an egregious violation of the rule of law” even as it ruled in favour of the Hindu side, and read the guarantee offered by the Places of Worship Act as part of the basic structure of the Constitution. “The state has, by enacting the law, enforced a constitutional commitment and operationalised its constitutional obligations to uphold the equality of all religions and secularism which is a part of the basic structure of the Constitution”, it said.
The grim backsliding since has been made possible by many abdications. The constitutionality of the Places of Worship Act has been challenged in the apex court, but even as the Union government and Court take their time over it, lower courts, as in Varanasi and Mathura, have opened the floodgates for such claims in other places. A disquieting pattern has taken shape: A civil suit is filed, claiming that there are remains of a temple below a mosque; a lower court orders a survey; the survey agency, aided by the district administration, shows undue haste; and the higher courts turn the other way — effectively reducing the moratorium imposed by the Places of Worship Act into a dead letter. In fact, former CJI DY Chandrachud, who had been part of the 2019 bench that upheld the Act, paved the way for its descent into unmeaning in 2023 in the Gyanvapi case, when a bench led by him green-lit an ASI survey using “non-invasive technology”. “The Act says you can’t alter or convert nature of place. They’re not seeking conversion of the place. The question is, what is the status of place as on August 15, 1947”, Justice Chandrachud said.
In June 2022, addressing an RSS training camp in Nagpur, Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat had questioned the need to hunt for a shiv ling in every mosque (“har masjid mein shiv ling kyun dhoondhna”). That call for restraint by the head of an organisation that had plunged into the mobilisations for the construction of a Ram temple at the site where the Babri Masjid was felled, seemed promising. It seemed to bode well for the future of a diverse nation that is on the move. Now, the toll taken by another darkening tableau of mandir vs masjid in Sambhal has served a warning that all players must heed. It threatens to turn the clock back and undo hard-won gains. The Supreme Court needs to underline, in terms bold and clear, what it enshrined in November 2019. The consequences of equivocation will only be division and tragedy.
