Delhi’s burnt mosques await a second Gandhi
After a gap of 72 years, Delhi is once again looking for another Gandhi to build more than one dozen damaged mosques in gory riot-hit parts of the capital. Remember, do not forget that after ending his last fast on January 18, 1948, to bring sanity in Delhi which was engulfed in unprecedented communal violence post Partition of the country in 1948 and three days before he was assassinated, a weak and weary 79-year-old Mahatma Gandhi was visiting the Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki Dargah at Mehrauli in South Delhi in freezing cold.
Those were the days when South Delhi was almost a barren land but for some villages beyond 1929 built Safdarjung Airport. Gandhiji reached there before eight in the morning to see the damage done to holy dargah during the communal orgy. Those were the days when he was staying at Birla House at 5, Albuquerque Road (now Tees January Marg).
Gandhi was there with Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur, health minister in Nehru’s cabinet. Even though it was Urs time there, yet the mood was sombre and very depressing. After the holy place was attacked and vandalised, many local Muslims left their homes for safer places as they left even this time in riot-torn areas like Shivpuri, Chandbagh, Mustafabad and Karawal Nagar of due to fear in the worst-ever Hindu-Muslim clash here after 1947 that took the lives of over 50 people. Even staffers of the dargah abandoned it as they feared for their lives.
Writes Pyare Lal Nayar, Bapu’s PA, in Mahatma Gandhi Purnahuti “Bapu was devastated to see some parts of the dargah damaged. It was being attacked by refugees coming from Pakistan. They were given make-shift accommodation Bakhtiyar Kaki dargah by the government.”
At the dargah, Gandhiji appealed to everybody to live peacefully and asked refugees to rebuild the damaged parts of dargah. Gandhiji had also asked Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to get dargah repaired as it had sustained extensive damage during the riots.
Finally, Gandhiji asked Nehru to allocate `50,000 to repair the damages. Of course, it was a huge amount in those days. After his visit, Gandhi himself wrote, as per his collected works (Volume 98 p.98-99): “Esteemed as second only to the shrine at Ajmer, it (the Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki dargah) is visited every year not only by Muslims but by thousands of non-Muslims, too.”
Before leaving the dargah, Gandhiji told the large assembly, “I have come on a pilgrimage. I request, Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs who have come here with cleansed hearts to take a vow that they will never allow strife to raise its head, but will live in amity, united as friends and brothers. We must purify ourselves and meet even our opponents with love.”
“This shrine (the Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki dargah ) was subjected to the wrath of mobs. The Muslims living in the vicinity… for the last 800 years had to leave… Though Muslims love the shrine, today no Muslim can be found anywhere near it… It is the duty of the Hindus, Sikhs, the officials and the government to open the shrine again and wash off this stain on us… The time has come when both India and Pakistan must unequivocally declare to the majorities in each country that they will not tolerate desecration of religious places, be they small or big. They should also undertake to repair the places damaged during riots,” Bapu also said.
This was Bapu’s second visit to Mehrauli area. He first visited there to see Qutub Minar with Hakim Azmal Khan and Kasturba Gandhi during his first visit to Delhi from April 12 to April 15, 1915.
The Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki dargah comes alive every year during autumn time when Phoolwalon ki Sair, the annual Delhi flower festival that celebrates communal harmony, takes place here. It is indeed a tribute to Gandhiji who stood firm that India has to survive on secular ethos.
The seven-day festival was revived by Nehru in 1961, who had dutifully followed the instructions of Bapu earlier and rebuilt the dargah. During the festival, both Hindus and Muslims offer a floral chaadar and pankha at the dargah. A floral pankha and canopy is offered at the ancient temple of Devi Yogmaya, too, also in Mehrauli.
Alas, Delhi does not have even a pale shadow of Gandhiji today who can embrace Muslims when they are feeling so lost, lonely and hurt in 2020. Delhi does not have any personality from the political to the religious fields who can publically chide all those who were responsible for the senseless orgy of bloodshed and damaging of mosques.
However, the situation was not so hopeless back in 1984 when Delhi witnessed a pogrom of Sikhs after the killing of Mrs Indira Gandhi. At least, Delhi had had the likes of Atal Behari Vajpayee, Chandrasekhar, Justice R.S. Narula, Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora, hero of the 1971 war, noted writer Dr Maheep Singh and would-be writer Amitav Ghosh, as well as hundreds of political activists who came out to help Sikhs. Sadly, things look so dark and depressing in 2020.
While the Delhi Waqf Board is going to start work for repair of mosques damaged in the violence, that won’t serve the cause. That won’t put balm on the wounds of Muslims. Will Delhi embrace Muslims and give them a bear hug? Will Hindus rebuild the damaged mosques? They must. Muslims, too, must reciprocate in terms of helping in the rehabilitation of Hindus who have suffered losses during the riots.
Vivek Shukla close to
is a veteran journalist and the author of the
Qutbuddin
Gandhi’s Delhi