With the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) report on the Gyanvapi mosque complex concluding that “there existed a large Hindu temple prior to the construction of the existing structure”, the response of the BJP-RSS and the Opposition will be among the things to watch out for on Friday. The initial reaction to the report came from AIMIM leader and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi who posted on X late on Thursday night, “This (ASI’s findings) wouldn’t stand academic scrutiny before any set of professional archaeologists or historians. The report is based on conjecture and makes a mockery of scientific study. As a great scholar once said ‘ASI is the handmaiden of Hindutva’.” With RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat earlier this week calling for “hosh (reason)” at a time of “josh” (excitement) — he was speaking at the Ayodhya Ram Temple consecration event — the Sangh is most likely to stick to the position of leaving these other temple disputes up to the courts, something it has repeatedly emphasised since the Ayodhya judgment in 2019. How a beleaguered and divided Opposition responds, if it does at all, will also be crucial. When it came to the Ayodhya Ram Mandir, the parties of the INDIA alliance could not come up with a unified response. While some such as the Congress and the Left labelled it a political event and stayed away, others such as the NCP and the SP said they would visit the temple at a later date. As this dispute looks set to simmer and make its way through the courts, along with the dispute in Mathura, how the Opposition deals with it will be crucial in the long run. In context: For the Hindu Right, the temple disputes in Mathura and Varanasi (the latter is also known as Kashi) are part of a larger ideological project as encapsulated in the slogan “Ayodhya toh bas jhanki hai, Kashi, Mathura baki hai (Ayodhya is just a glimpse, Kashi and Mathura are yet to come)” that gained currency amid the tumult of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in the 1980s and 1990s. However, in June 2023, Bhagwat, in his first comments on the Gyanvapi case, questioned the need to “look for a Shivling in every mosque (har masjid me Shivling kyun dekhna)” and said the Sangh was not in favour of launching any other movement (andolan) on these issues. After the November 9, 2019, judgment of the Supreme Court on Ayodhya, Bhagwat suggested that the Sangh would keep away from Mathura and Kashi and focus on “character building (vyakti nirman)”. The temple disputes, he said, need to be sorted out amicably between the two sides and if the two sides decide to go to court they need to respect the court’s verdict. After the Supreme Court earlier this month stayed an Allahabad High Court order that had allowed a court-monitored survey of the Shahi Idgah Mosque adjoining the Krishna Janmabhoomi temple in Mathura — another contested structure — Asad Rehman noted in an article that the progress in the case so far mirrors what has happened in Varanasi and Ayodhya. Like in Mathura, the appointment of a court commissioner to survey the site was the first step in the case of Ayodhya and Varanasi too. Recommended reading: As SC stays order on survey of Mathura site, the parallels across the three temple disputes Maratha reservation protests Maratha quota activist Manoj Jarange-Patil is scheduled to begin his hunger strike at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai on Friday along with his supporters. But there is a hitch. The Mumbai Police have denied him permission to hold a hunger strike in the city. Jarange-Patil — who was expected to stay overnight in Vashi, near Mumbai, along with his supporters — has said that he is determined to march to Mumbai unless Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CMs Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar meet with him to discuss ways to fulfil his demand. Jarange-Patil and his supporters want Kunbi status for the Maratha community so that they can avail of reservation benefits available to OBCs. However, the government is not open to giving all Marathas Kunbi status since that will set off OBC groups against it. The OBC community does not want its share of the reservation pie to be reduced so that Marathas get quota benefits. But the government, which has filed a curative petition in the Supreme Court against the top court's decision to strike down a 2018 law providing quota to Marathas, has assured OBCs that it does not want to dilute their reservation. The government has said that Maratha reservation will be separate and over and above the existing OBC quota.
