My visit to Gyanvapi Masjid

The storied mosque is under a very familiar kind of seige

Gyanvapi Masjid. Robert Nickelsberg/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

A generation of Muslims—my own—bear the trauma of the 1992 anti-Muslim riots that followed the demolition of the iconic Babri masjid. Overnight, my family and I were displaced from our homes in the cosmopolitan city of Mumbai. Many of us are haunted by memories of watching the televised demolition of the mosque by Hindu nationalists dressed in saffron, led by right-wing leaders including the top leadership of the Bharatiya Janta Party. Today, my nieces, nephews, and millions of other Muslims are re-living that trauma as another mosque, the Gyanvapi masjid, has been sealed by administrators over demands by Hindu nationalists who want to build a temple in its place. Similar uprisings are happening all over the country, as its 220 million Muslims approach the edge of public tolerance. Arif Ayyub brings us this haunting first-person account of his own time at the Gyanvapi mosque.

—Rana

IT WAS DECEMBER 6, 1992, but the memories are still firmly etched in my mind. It was a Sunday, and there had been ominous signs, but there was hope. After all, a ‘secular’ govt was in place and assured everyone that it would maintain the rule of law. 

The Babri mosque was demolished that afternoon by tens of thousands of Hindu extremists with what appeared to be the approval of central and state governments. Some within those governments were surprised: The Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao, who had banked on the ‘assurances’ of the BJP leaders that the mosque would not be harmed, was taking his afternoon siesta as the huge, ASI-protected mosque was demolished brick by brick. 

Those were not the days of social media and the anonymity that comes with it. The demolition of the mosque was a raw manifestation of a hatred that had been building up on account of the “Rath yatra”—a jingoist whistle-stop tour conducted by Advani, Modi’s mentor, across the country. In the aftermath of the attack, I cannot forget the spontaneous celebrations of our Hindu neighbours: They were our friends, some of whom were close to us for many years, celebrating together in happiness, comforting each other in our sorrows. In the riots that followed, we were particularly vulnerable and threatened in a predominantly Hindu neighbourhood. We left within months, and were forced to live in a Muslim ghetto in an impoverished suburb of Mumbai.

This was not the first time such a thing had happened: In 1949, in the dead of night, Hindu miscreants surreptitiously installed a statue of Ram lalla under the main dome of the Babri mosque. Immediately afterward, as if on cue, the mosque was declared off limits to Muslims who offered regular prayers there. The Additional City Magistrate, the Chairman of the Municipal Board of Ayodhya, and K. K. Nayar, then the Deputy Commissioner of Faizabad, played pivotal initial roles in ensuring the mosque remained out of reach to Muslims to honor the idol being forcibly planted in the mosque.

Monday, May 16, 2022, showed me how little things had changed.

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IN THE CASE OF THE GYANVAPI MASJID (mosque), five women recently filed a petition seeking permission to pray on its premises to known and unknown deities, claiming that the Masjid, built at the site of an ancient Hindu temple in 1669, still had sacred Hindu relics inside. In an extreme contravention of the Places of Worship Act 1991, which holds that active places of worship have precedence over historical ones, the Civil Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar issued guidelines for a video survey investigating the claims of the petitioners, and instructed that the survey begin immediately.

Muslim advocates challenged the ruling—and subsequently appealed their challenge to the Allahabad High court, which upheld the lower court’s flouting of the 1991 law—things moved rapidly. The survey was hurriedly conducted while the appellants took their case to the Supreme Court, and even before the Supreme Court could pass an order—they plan to hand down an order this week, but much of the damage has been done.

In a clear attempt to preempt the Supreme Court’s order,  someone leaked the surveyors’ submission to the press before it was even made by the Court commissioner. The instantaneous survey had, miraculously, discovered a shivling—a Hindu statue representing a phallus—in the area of the wuzu khana of the Gyanvapi mosque. Wazu khana is the body of water where Muslims perform ritual ablution (a purification before offering the namaz). Incidentally, the civil judge made statements concerning his safety—and his family’s apprehensions about his safety—while ruling in defiance of the Places of Worship Act. 

In August of 2021, I visited Uttar Pradesh. Among other places, I was visiting Varanasi (Benaras, as I, like many locals, like to call it), after almost a decade. I decided to visit the Gyanvapi masjid and offer my Isha (night) namaz in the mosque.

The experience was a living nightmare and a reflection of what it means to be a Muslim in present day India.

The masjid gave an impression of being strangled by the huge Kashi Vishwanath temple complex—Modi’s flagship project—that was hurriedly being built nearby. Except on one side, all the old residential and commercial buildings surrounding the mandir and masjid complex had been torn down. Instead, a huge temple complex was being built in its place. 

The rains had made the approach to the complex even more difficult than usual. As I approached the masjid complex, I was not entirely surprised to see a huge police presence across a three-tier security set-up. I was asked to check all my belongings, especially the electronic belongings—my phone, my watch, and my wallet. I could carry nothing inside. There was nowhere for me to keep those belongings safe, so, sensing the business opportunity, a lot of the shops selling offerings for the new Hindu temple have added locker facilities for their customers, as well. I deposited my valuables and parted with 50 rupees. So much effort to offer namaz in a mosque! And more was to follow.

First, I passed through a security barricade manned by Uttar Pradesh Police. Seeing I had no temple offering, they asked where I was headed. They gave me a look of surprise when I said I was headed to the mosque. (I later understood why.) I passed through a metal detector run by a second tier of police, these from central security.

Then I saw the mosque. Right at the edges of its walls, huge metal fences stretched up nearly 20 feet high. The entire mosque seemed to have been placed in a metal cage, condemned to imprisonment. And finally, as I tried to enter through a tiny, makeshift gate, I had to pass by a smaller group of central security forces who asked, again, whether I was indeed certain I wanted to go to the mosque. I couldn’t help but imagine the fate of the Babri mosque, which was the site of similar abuse for decades before it was demolished by Hindu extremists egged on by leaders. Those leaders, of course, later went on to become Prime Ministers, Deputy Prime Minister and senior cabinet ministers.

Once inside, in what was a fairly large courtyard, I was overwhelmed by a beautiful feeling of calmness, in stark contrast to the utter chaos of the large crowds visiting the mandir (or Hindu temple) complex next door. The mosque stood as a silent reminder of better days it had seen. Its fading white facade expressed a solemnity, calm and comforting. It still stood.

Once inside, I was in for some more surprises. The mosque had a small chauni (camp) for the central guards on duty. It was particularly discomforting to see them moving about with little regard for the place of worship; some were walking around in their underwear, passing from the sleeping tent to the washrooms close to the wazu khana.  There, the wazu khana is a small pool, just as you would see in most old mosques. The worshippers sit around it and perform their ablution before heading for the namaz. 

The wazu khana, too, was fenced in on all sides, with a small door on the opposite side for us to enter. I sat down and performed my ablution (wazu). It wasn’t yet time for the night prayers and so I sat there for sometime. I must confess here that my eyes failed to see a shivling within the small man-made wazu khana. And I wondered how the Court Commissioner appointed by the civil judge could manage to discover a shivling within the wazu khana during a survey conducted in such great haste and finished before the Supreme Court could pass an order. And I found myself equally baffled by the ruling of the Civil Judge to seal a portion of the wazu khana based on the submission of the Court Commissioner. I must mention here that any kind of videography, or even taking pictures, is prohibited within the mosque which is perhaps why I was required to deposit my phone in the lockers outside. I also cannot understand how a Shiv Ling of the size and proportions claimed by the surveying team was missed by the central forces team that virtually lives within the mosque complex and sleeps in full view of the wazu khana. 

Today, in the light of the petitions filed by those five women, the quick survey ordered and the even quicker submission that a shivling was discovered during the survey, it is perhaps appropriate to say that yet another majoritarian narrative is being perpetrated, and that this narrative follows the exact pattern that lead to the Babri Masjid demolition. Add to it the ominous statement of the Prime Minister on his recent visit to Nepal, invoking the Ram Mandir, a dishonest messaging pattern that he has always employed to speak to his constituents.