New Delhi: The Union government is yet to submit its stand on the constitutional validity of the Places of Worship Act, 1991, to the Supreme Court, which will hear a challenge to the law on 17 February. The latest deadline has lapsed despite a growing chorus within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for judicial remedies to “reclaim Hindu religious sites”, be it in Kashi, Mathura, Sambhal, or any other disputed masjid site.
Five years and several deadlines after the law was challenged in 2020, the Union government’s submission is pending despite increasing pressure from the likes of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, other BJP leaders and workers, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to scrap or amend the law to “correct historical injustice”. However, such an amendment could open the floodgates of claims and counterclaims on disputed structures and exacerbate Hindu-Muslim divisions.
According to the Places of Worship Act, 1991, the “religious character” of a place of worship would remain as it had been on 15 August 1947, except for Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi, which was at the center of a court case during the enactment of the law.
On Thursday, the Congress approached the Supreme Court against the “malicious and motivated” challenge to the Places of Worship Act, 1991, asserting that the law upholds secularism—a basic feature of the Constitution. The SC “has on multiple occasions held that the focus of the nation must be towards the future and not at attempting to rectify the atrocities of the past”, the Congress’s plea highlighted.
This article is NOT paywalled
But your support enables us to deliver impactful stories, credible interviews, insightful opinions and on-ground reportage.
Retaliating, BJP national IT cell head Amit Malviya Friday said the Congress was waging a “war against Hindus” and seeking to deny Hindus their fundamental rights. Terming the party as the ‘New Muslim League’, Malviya said in an X post, “The Congress consented to India’s partition along religious lines. Following this, it introduced the Waqf law, enabling Muslims to claim properties at will and establish mini-Pakistans across the country. It later enacted the Places of Worship Act, 1991, effectively denying Hindus the right to reclaim their historical and religious sites.”
According to the petitioner who challenged the law, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, the Places of Worship Act, 1991, aimed “to legalise the illegal works done by Babur, Humayun, Muhammad bin Tughluq”. Speaking about the Congress petition, he said, “This is against our right to identity, right to justice, freedom of religion, right to equality. There should be surveys in all disputed sites [where temple structures were] broken during the Mughal era. Congress is doing appeasement politics. It is a politically motivated petition.”
And, it is not only BJP’s social media strategist Malviya who is calling for “correcting historical injustice” by challenging the Places of Worship Act of 1991. Soon after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said it was unacceptable for Hindu leaders to play up mandir-masjid issues every day to become leaders of Hindus, UP CM Adityanath—one of the new “Hindu Hriday Samrat of BJP”—asserted the claim of Hindus on the Sambhal masjid land. In the face of a court-ordered survey of the Shahi Jama Masjid in Sambhal, communal violence broke out in the area in November last year.
Going a step further, Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati openly criticised Bhagwat, saying he was “not feeling the pain of Hindus”. Moreover, an editorial in the RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, asserted that the “truth” is necessary for “civilisational justice” in the context of Sambhal.
Also Read: Gyanvapi to Sambhal & Ajmer Sharif, SC order on Places of Worship Act likely to impact 11 sites
Setting the agenda
Speaking at a lecture series on ‘Vishwaguru Bharat’ in Pune on 21 December last year, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said, “Ram Temple was a matter of faith, and Hindus felt that it should be built. But raising such issues everywhere and claiming that these were previously Hindu places, thereby creating hate and enmity, is unacceptable.”
“Indians should learn from past mistakes and strive to make their country a role model for the world, showing how inclusivity could be practised by avoiding contentious issues. Extremism, aggressiveness, forcefulness and insulting other Gods are not our culture. There is no majority-minority here; all are one; everyone should be able to practise their way of worshipping in this country,” Bhagwat further said.
Bhagwat, in 2022, delivered a similar speech, asking, “Why look for a shivling in every mosque? What happens in a mosque is also a form of prayer.”
However, this time, within a week of his statement, Organiser featured an editorial on Sambhal, saying a “temple existed in place of Shahi Jama Masjid, and time is ripe to address this quest for civilisational justice”.
“Babasaheb Ambedkar went to the root cause of caste-based discrimination and provided constitutional remedies to end the same. We need a similar approach to end religious acrimony and disharmony. Denying such access to justice and the right to know the truth just because some colonised elites and pseudo-intellectuals want to continue with the application of shoddy secularism would encourage radicalism, separatism and hostility,” it further said.
Before the start of the Mahakumbh in Prayagraj in January, UP CM Adityanath said, “Sambhal was prophesied as the birthplace of Kalki, the tenth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, long before the advent of Islam. Historical documents like Ain-i-Akbari mention the demolition of a Shri Hari Vishnu temple in 1526 to erect the Jama Masjid.”
Similar claims by Hindus in Kashi and Mathura against the backdrop of Bhagwat’s comments highlight that the Hindutva agenda is still in the making.
Speaking to a news channel on this issue, Yogi said, “Any disputed structure should not be called masjid. The day we stop calling it a mosque, people will stop going there. Hurting anyone’s faith by constructing a mosque-like structure does not align with Islamic principles. Worship at such sites is not acceptable to God too.”
Islam, unlike Sanatan Dharma where temples are central to religious practice, does not require places of worship, he added.
‘If not now, when?’
One of the well-known Ram Temple agitation heroes and Faizabad MP at the time of the Babri Masjid demolition, Vinay Katiyar, told ThePrint that he, along with Uma Bharti, opposed the Places of Worship Act, 1991, during its enactment.
”When it was brought, we, Uma Bharti and other senior leaders opposed it. It should be scrapped as it is biased. If amended, it can get Kashi, Mathura and Sambhal for Hindus in less time. Sambhal has the imprint of a temple. There is ample evidence; who can deny it? ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) has enough proof.”
Another senior BJP leader said: “For Hindus, Kashi and Mathura are the most important religious places. ASI reports on Gyanvapi upheld claims of a mandir. So, there is pressure from the Hindu society to review the worship Act, which was passed by Parliament for Muslim appeasement. It is not sacrosanct. Even when the Act was passed, our leader Uma Bharti and [L.K.] Advani ji protested.”
“Hindus are thinking that if Kashi and Mathura, like Ram Temple, are not claimed under Modi’s prime ministership, when will those be claimed? It can open the floodgates, but certain changes can be made to review only important claims of Hindu religious structures,” he added.
“When Bhagwat said not to raise claims on every masjid, several Hindu saints defied his statement. That illustrates the mood of the awakened Hindu community in the country. It wants important religious structures to be handed over to Hindus since we are in the government. The government has to look for a more balanced approach, but there is a growing push for a fresh look at the Act,” he added.
During zero-hour last year, BJP Rajya Sabha MP from Uttar Pradesh Harnath Singh Yadav demanded the scrapping of the Act, saying its “provisions are not only arbitrary but unconstitutional”.
“It violates the principle of uniformity and secularism prescribed in the Constitution. This law prohibits judicial review, which is against the basic fundamentals of law…. This law favours foreign invaders who captured Gyanvapi and Lord Krishna’s land and other Hindu temples with power. This law creates differences between Lord Ram and Lord Krishna, both are incarnations of Lord Vishnu,” he added.
Other BJP MPs, such as Manoj Tiwari, raised similar demands for the reclamation of temples in 2023 at the height of the Gyanvapi controversy.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
Also Read: Supreme Court keeps ‘close watch’ on Sambhal, bars revival of well in disputed Shahi Jama Masjid
