Extremist Hindus seek to demolish Muslim sites in India
New Delhi – Thirty years after mobs demolished a historic mosque in Ayodhya, triggering a wave of sectarian bloodshed that saw thousands killed, fundamentalist Indian Hindu groups are eyeing other Muslim sites – even the famous Taj Mahal.
Emboldened under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aided by courts and fuelled by social media, the fringe groups believe the sites were built on top of Hindu temples, which they consider representations of India’s “true” religion.
Currently most in danger
the centuries-old Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi. Last week, reports claimed a leaked court-mandated survey of the mosque had discovered a shivalinga, a phallic representation of the Hindu god Shiva, at the site.
“This means that is the site of a temple,” government minister Kaushal Kishore, a member of Modi’s BJP party, said, adding that Hindus should now pray there. Muslims have already been banned from performing ablutions in the water tank where the alleged relic was found.
The fear now is that the Islamic place of worship will go the way of the Ayodhya mosque, which Hindu groups believe was built on the birthplace of Ram.
The destruction of the 450-year-old building in 1992 sparked religious riots in which more than 2 000 people died, mostly Muslims. The demolition was also a seminal moment for Hindutva – Hindu supremacy – paving the way for Modi’s rise to power in 2014.
The movement’s core tenet has long been that Hinduism is India’s original religion and that everything else – from the Mughals, originally from Central Asia, to the British – is alien.
Some groups have even set their sights on world heritage site the Taj Mahal. Despite no evidence, they believe the 17th-century mausoleum was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan on the site of a Shiva shrine.
“It was destroyed by Mughal invaders so a mosque could be built,” said a spokesperson for the hardline Hindu Mahasabha.
This month a court petition was filed by a member of Modi’s party trying to force India’s archaeological body, the ASI, to open up 20 rooms inside, believing they contained Hindu idols.
The ASI said there were no such idols and the court dismissed the petition. But it is unlikely to be the last such case.
Audrey Truschke, an associate professor of South Asian history with Rutgers University, said: “There is not a coherent theory about the Taj Mahal at play here so much as a frenzied and fragile nationalist pride that does not allow anything non-Hindu to be Indian and demands to erase Muslim parts of Indian heritage.”
Other sites are also in the crosshairs. They include the Shahi Idgah mosque in Mathura, built by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1670. Another is Delhi’s Qutub Minar, a 13th-century minaret and victory tower built by the Mamluk dynasty. –