Revisiting Babri Masjid demolition in the wake of revision in NCERT textbooks
The Babri Masjid dispute taught us lessons. Unfortunately, we could not pay enough attention to them. With news about its historical erasure from school textbooks, it is time that we revisit some of these lessons
The Babri Masjid dispute taught us lessons. Unfortunately, we could not pay enough attention to them. With news about its historical erasure from school textbooks, it is time that we revisit some of these lessons.
Babri Masjid - History
The Babri mosque was built in 1529 by Mir Baqi, a commander in Babar’s army. In 1949 idols were placed inside its premises. The first suit was filed in 1950 seeking the right to worship idols, which was recognised by the district court of Faizabad. In 1959, a suit was filed by the Nirmohi Akhara to claim possession of the land. UP Sunni Wakf Board filed a suit in 1961 to claim possession of the site and the removal of the idols from the mosque premises. In 1986, sessions court at Faizabad sought reopening of the premises for Hindus to perform “pooja and darshan”. In protest, the same year, Muslims constituted the Babri Masjid Action Committee.
The dispute over the mosque was based on the Muslim argument which claimed possession of the site and the continuing right to offer prayers and the Hindu argument which sought possession and creation of the right to worship idols. It was the Ismail Faruqui judgment (1994), led by Justice J.S. Verma, that gave a decisive blow to the Muslim claim over the disputed site. The Court proceeded with the understanding that while the Hindu claim had to be fixed at the site of the mosque, the Muslims could pray elsewhere.
The judgment upheld the validity of Acquisition of Certain Areas at Ayodhya Act, 1993, which validated the acquisition of land by the Central government. It also observed that offering namaz at mosque was not integral to Islam unless it carried any particular religious significance. These two observations were enough to depreciate the legal claim to title by the Muslims over the disputed site. This ruling also opened the gates for the judgment of 2019.
The Supreme Court judgment of 2019 which overturned the Allahabad High Court judgment of 2010 proceeded to award the entire land to the Hindus, directing the state to grant an alternative site to the Muslims. No mosque has been constructed on the allocated land so far. It seems the Muslim organisations are largely uninterested in pursuing its construction for various reasons.
The Babri Masjid Movement highlighted a fissure in the Muslim politics – the politics of the elite and the backward. It also highlighted the widening gap between political symbolism and socio-economic reality where the economics of marginalization seemed to define Muslim identity more emphatically than its cultural and religious counterpart. The renewed interest in Muslim backwardness, however, seems far from being detached to its cultural and religious facets as evidenced by the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. For Muslims the question of identity is deeply rooted in the experiences of marginalization, as Laurence Gautier observes.
The Babri Masjid demolition remained fulcrum of the Muslim politics for a substantial period. The issue was often projected, in certain Muslim quarters, as irrelevant for the future of Muslims in India. As it has come to pass, the Muslim organisations have largely remained silent since the 2019 verdict. There is little discussion on Babri Masjid within the community today. Having said that, the pains from the loss are still alive in the Muslim memory.
Legal identity of the religious minorities
At the dawn of Indian independence one of the most important questions was the legal protection of minority rights. As it happened, the protection accorded to religious minorities was mainly defined through the cultural lens and not through political marginalization per se. This meant that the religious minorities could only seek constitutional protection through the cultural route. The legal identity of the religious minorities would then be defined by their cultural practices, which would flourish albeit conditionally, under the command of the dominant culture defined by the religious majority.
The Supreme Court has largely alluded to this understanding in its assessment of legal implications arising out of religion. It has defined religion through the prism of the dominant culture while situating it in the practices of its followers. Alongside, it has progressively appropriated the right of religious minorities to determine their own affairs.
The Babri mosque dispute was victim of such a judicial approach. Where the Ismail Faruqui judgment determined boundaries of religious practices in public space, holding that a mosque is a ‘non-essential place of worship’, the Supreme Court ruling in the Ayodhya judgment (M. Siddiq v. Mahant Suresh Das, 2019) further diluted the right of religious minorities to practice their religion. While the “essential religious practices” test (Narasu Appa Mali) allowed the courts to appropriate the religious domain, the Ayodhya judgment redefined the contours of public space available for religious rites. This meant that even the essential religious practice, for instance, namaz in this case, could only be performed under the patronage of the state.
History is a telling about people in their geography. One has to choose the fragments that construct it. Should these fragments come from falsifiable facts or else from cultural beliefs of the people remains a fundamental question.
Rewriting History Books
The BJP led NDA government initiated the project to revise the school curriculum at the end of the last millennium. While the retelling of history was seen as a ‘critical component of the Hindu nationalist ideology’, the project was heavily criticized from different quarters as saffronisation of education. The adoption of National Education Policy (2020) was later seen as further attempt to both saffronise and privatise education at the base level.
The recent changes in the NCERT Class 12 Political Science Textbook depicts a similar approach. Babri Masjid is referred to as the “three dome structure” built at the site of Shri Ram’s Birthplace in 1528. L.K. Advani led rath yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya (1992) has been done away with, as many other crucial facts.
History telling is an important feature of identity construction. However, with a little tinkering, history also provides the most pertinent tools to dilute existing identities. Additionally, in instances where culture attains the justification of law, judicial decisions themselves become ‘a tool to homogenise the subjects of the state’. That be the case, undoing history does not seem less than a calamity for the populace.
Babri Masjid cannot be a foregone conclusion. It taught us many things, including the fact that the appellate courts play substantive role in shaping the legal identity. Interestingly, it also highlighted the growing shift from law to culture in the judicial psyche.
It would not be wrong to assume that these developments have far reaching implications for the legal protection of Muslim identity in India.
[The writer, Nizamuddin Ahmad Siddiqui, teaches at Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University.]
Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic.
Post Comments