‘Shivling not mentioned in survey report’

Interview with S.M. Yaseen, Anjuman Intezamiya Masjid Committee.

S.M. YASEEN, joint secretary of the Anjuman Intezamiya Masjid Managing Committee, refuted claims made in the media about the discovery of a Shivling on the Gyanvapi mosque’s premises. The survey report does not mention the discovery of a Shivling, he said. He was confident that the court proceedings would unearth the truth. Excerpts from an exclusive interview with Frontline:

What is your response to the survey and the manner in which it was conducted?

The survey should not have happened in the first place. Whether the case is worth hearing at all should have been first heard by the trial court.

They should have followed Order VII, Rule 11 of the Code of Civil Procedure. [Law on rejection of plaints. It is a rule that questions the maintainability of the suit filed by the plaintiffs. This was filed by the Muslim side, rejecting the Hindu

and other organisations associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh to make even more blatant moves trampling on the property and individual rights of the people,” a BHU student told Frontline without wanting to be named. The group of students standing with him echoed Mishra’s observation about the convergence of disparate forces in favour of the Sangh Parivar agenda, right from the executive, the media and sections of the judiciary.

Signals from the ground seem to be indicating as much. Even though the Kashi Vishwanath temple-gyanvapi mosque case is sub judice and side’s claim of worshipping rights inside the mosque.]

The survey was conducted in a hurried manner. After all this, the trial court is finally going to hear the matter in the proper way. Only after the Supreme Court passed the order, now the district judge is hearing the matter.

You have seen the survey report. What does it say?

Yes, I finally managed to see the survey report. It does not mention a Shivling anywhere. It mentions that an object has been found. We will raise our objections in the proper manner in the court. It is not a Shivling, it is a fountain, it has always been a fountain, and will remain a fountain in the future as well. A complete distortion of facts is happening through a media trial. This should not have happened. We will object to this in time.

Since the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Sangh Parivar has been saying that Kashi and Mathura are the court is yet to go through all the evidence and pronounce a verdict, large sections of the media have begun a trial in the court of public opinion.

While the court-appointed commission submitted its survey report in sealed boxes to district civil judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar on May 19, the mainstream media were flush with details and photographs of Hindu symbols and idols that were purportedly taken during the survey done inside the Gyanvapi mosque complex. This bolstered the Hindu petitioners’ assertion that a temple was originally present at the site and next on their agenda. Is there a larger political agenda behind this?

Maybe there is. But Muslims are not scared. We are going through the proper channels and justice will be done.

Gauri Shringar puja has been taking place for many years. Did it ever cause tension between Hindus and Muslims in the area?

Never. Because the puja takes place outside the masjid; we have no problems with that. The area outside the masjid and beyond its barricades is where, for years now, Hindu women have performed puja. Why should we have a problem? It is wrong to say the shrine is inside the mosque. Hindus and Muslims have lived here without problems, each following their own tradition in respective spaces.

Tell us a little bit about Gyanvapi and its history.

Gyanvapi has existed for 500600 years or even longer. It is very old. The mosque itself was built by the Sharqi Sultans of Jaunpur. Akbar later improved upon it. The ruins of the temple behind the mosque

provided an impetus to their campaign.

MYTH-MAKING IN PROGRESS

Myth-making is in full swing, supported by the media, without any attempt to verify the claims. Interestingly, two days before the report was submitted, the court had removed Ajay Kumar Mishra as the chief of the survey team after he was accused by the mosque committee as well as by his colleague Vishal Singh that the photographer he had appointed was leaking information to the media.

The court

replaced him with

were part of the markaz [centre] of Akbar’s Din-i-ilahi [a syncretic religious tradition propounded by Akbar with elements of both Hinduism and Islam to unite his subjects who were divided on the question of religion]. Aurangzeb later renovated it.

Benaras is known for its Ganga-jamuni tehzeeb [syncretic culture].

That is true, and we are trying to maintain that in the future as well. And this is not a new phenomenon, it has been going on for years. Bismillah Khan, the famous shehnai player, used to play his shehnai inside the mandir. Shah Jahan’s eldest son, Dara Shikoh, came here to learn Sanskrit and Hinduism. The renowned Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib took shelter with a vaidya [Ayurvedic doctor] and got his treatment done on this soil. He wrote some moving nazm [poem] on the Ganga. Bahaut sher-o-shayari ki unhone [he composed many poems in the distinctive Urdu form in Benaras]. Hindus and Muslims have lived in peace and harmony for decades. The two communities are like the tana bana [warp and weft] that hold a fabric together.

Vishal Singh as the Special Advocate Commissioner. After the images of Hindu motifs began to emerge in the media, Vishal Singh went on record stating that he had not shared the report with the media. Yet, portions of the report appear to have been leaked and they made their way into the mainstream and social media. Whether these are from the report or not cannot be verified at the moment. Until May 25, S.M. Yaseen, general secretary of the Anjuman Intizamiya Masjid Committee, was not able to obtain a copy of the report from the court.

The Hindu side, especially the

Vishwa Hindu Parishad, has claimed that a Shivling, trishul, lotus engravings, kalash (pitcher), ancient Hindi language, and sundry other Hindu motifs have been found on the pillars in the basement of the mosque.

Among the controversial details being shared is a 2.5-foot black cylindrical stone figure that was found at the bottom of the wazu khana, or ablution tank. On it was a circular white stone with a diameter of 4 feet. The petitioners claim that this was a Shivling, while the mosque committee refute this claim, saying that it was only a fawwara (fountain).

Yaseen does not want to be too vocal about the controversy around Gyanvapi because he and his associates are deeply involved in the court battles. He is hopeful that the courts will do justice in this case, even as he points to the Sangh Parivar’s game plan to repeat an Ayodhya-like situation in Varanasi. (See interview.)

MUSLIM APPREHENSIONS

Despite the Muslim side’s reluctance to give a formal response, murmurs and apprehensions have been widely expressed in private. While most of them are concerned about the media trial, the role of the judiciary has also come into question, albeit on a smaller scale. One of the Supreme Court’s key decisions with regard to the Gyanvapi case was to allow namaz to continue at the mosque and to order security around the site where the Shivling was said to have been found. It also transferred the case from the senior civil judge to the district judge, arguing that the issue needed a more “seasoned hand”.

The court then suggested that the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, did not bar the ascertainment of the religious character of a place of worship. This attempt by the court, perceived as one aimed at balancing competing claims in the dispute, has raised concerns among members of the minority community.

Some Muslims feel that the transfer of the case to a district judge is reminiscent of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Ayodhya-ramjanmabhoomi dispute, where the civil suits were bundled together and transferred from lower courts to the Allahabad High Court.

The Muslim community is also concerned about the consequences of this interpretation of the 1991 Act, claiming that the nature of the place of worship can be ascertained. The Act says that any place of public worship in existence on August 15, 1947 will retain its religious character of that day, irrespective of its history.

The concern arises from the fact that several pleas have been made by the Hindu side in both the Gyanvapi and the Mathura Srikrishna janmasthan cases that have openly called for the removal or demolition of existing mosques.

Even so, a sizeable number of Muslims of Varanasi point out that Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, a member of the Supreme Court bench that issued the directives on the Gyanvapi cases, has emphasised the importance of having a “degree of healing touch”. He also stated that “we are on a joint mission for preserving a sense of balance in the country” and that there is “need for fraternity between communities and need for peace is utmost”.

Will judical interventions fulfil the hopes of the minorities? Or will the dystopian view prevail? These are the two questions that are on top of all minds, as the courts bustle with activity and the details of the cases are avidly discussed in Varanasi and elsewhere. m

, the mahant of Sankat Mochan Hanuman Mandir in Varanasi. “Several streams of thought, culture, and social and religious influences have coexisted here,” he says.