Opinion Varanasi court order on Gyanvapi mosque opens a legal process and frames a challenge that lies outside the court too

The Varanasi district court said Monday it would hear a petition seeking the right to worship Maa Shringar Gowri within the Gyanvapi mosque complex on September 22. District judge Ajaya Krishna Vishvesha dismissed the mosque committee’s objections against the petition, which were on the grounds that it is barred by the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, the Waqf Act 1995 and the UP Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Act, 1983. Judge Vishvesha said: “The plaintiffs are only demanding right to worship Maa Sringar Gauri and other visible and invisible deities which were being worshipped incessantly till 1993 and after 1993 till now once in a year under the regulatory of State of Uttar Pradesh. Therefore, the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 does not operate as the bar on the suit of plaintiffs.” The Act, legislated by Parliament in the backdrop of the Ramjanmabhoomi agitation, freezes the status of religious places as they existed on August 15, 1947. The judge has held that the petitioners only sought the right to worship as a civil right at the disputed property and their appeal did not seek conversion of the mosque to a temple or demand ownership of the complex.

The mosque committee has said it will appeal against the district court order. The Supreme Court, which had in the first place insisted that the district court hear the petition against the plea by the devotees, will soon hear the challenge to the constitutionality of the Places of Worship Act. As the legal battle continues in higher courts, it must not be forgotten that the crux of the matter lies in politics, rather in law. The Hindu claim to mosques at Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura has been part of a political project pursued by the BJP and other Sangh Parivar outfits, in court and on the street. Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura emerged as political flashpoints — put on the backburner only during the BJP’s coalition years. Over time, shrine politics — its culmination the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 — has enmeshed with narratives of nationhood and Hindu self-pride that frame Muslims as outsiders.

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In June this year, RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat underlined that the Gyanvapi dispute involved issues of faith but questioned the need to “look for a Shivling in every mosque (har masjid me Shivling kyun dekhna)”. Why escalate fights, he said. As the court in Varanasi opens the doors to a renewed legal process likely to go all the way to the highest court, the salience of those words couldn’t be understated. The Supreme Court, in its 2019 order clearing the decks for the temple to be built in Ayodhya where the Babri masjid once stood, described the Places of Worship Act as a “legislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polity, which is one of the basic features of the Constitution”. The Varanasi court order puts a question mark on that and frames the challenge ahead.