Mandir-masjid disputes: Why it may be a good idea to let local communities sort them out

We should learn to have trust in local communities to iron out in-house differences without unnecessary judicial and political interventions. Starting with Varanasi and Mathura?

In the wake of the mayhem triggered by Nupur Sharma’s remarks about Prophet Mohammed, a close Hindu friend told me, his voice cracking with emotion: “Believe me, I’m tired of this nuisance. Let us pray together!”

We have known each other for nearly three decades and been through thick and thin, but I had never found him so emotionally distraught before. He started enumerating names of his Muslim staff pointing out how much he valued their loyalty.

BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma was suspended for her controversial comments on Prophet Muhammad, which has outraged Islamic nations. PTI

“Come to our factory and see for yourself how Hindus and Muslims work together shoulder to shoulder. I can say it with pride that I never have had to deal with any Hindu-Muslim problem,” he said, adding that his own personal driver was a Muslim who routinely drove him and wife to the temple — and if it happened to be namaaz time he would ask permission to nip into the nearby mosque while they prayed at the temple.

The reason I’m quoting this incident at such length is to underline that away from the polarising public discourse and incendiary TV debates, there’s another reality of Hindu-Muslim relations as illustrated by my friend’s story — a reality rooted in inter-personal relationships, acknowledgement of differences and above all basic decency. And he is not the only voice of sanity crying for an end to “this nuisance”, as he put it alluding to the increasing politicisation of Hindu-Muslim relations.

Meet Mohammed Ikramulla — a total stranger — who emailed me from Hyderabad after reading my new book on Hindu-Muslim relations. Referring to the rows over Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and Mathura’s Shahi Idgah-Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi, he wrote: “I am for handing over all, repeat ALL, mosques in India that are pointed out as having anything to do with past temples, to Hindus generously and to the extent possible out of courts. This is not capitulation. Indian Muslims can lead the way to world Muslims for peaceful coexistence, as advocated by Islam.”

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He sounded as distraught as my Hindu friend and lamented the absence of any credible Muslim leadership.

“But who will lead the Indian Muslims?”, he asked.

A good question to which I wish I had a credible answer.

File image of Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi. Wikimedia Commons

Manzar Ansari, an Aligarh Muslim University student, told me that a group of young Muslims and Hindus in Aligarh had got together to spread the message of “peace and amity”. It was a loose cross-community group set up to reach out to wider Hindu-Muslim Aligarians through mohalla-level “chai pe charcha”-style meetings, seminars, and canvassing people after Friday prayers.

“You might have noticed that there were no violent protests in Aligarh over the Nupur Sharma controversy. We would like to take some credit for it,” he said reminding me that it was a significant break with Aligarh’s — especially AMU’s — notorious history of communal trouble.

Later, I learned that a number of similar local cross-community initiatives are also going on in other parts of the region. Deoband, another communal hotspot, too remained violence-free thanks to such efforts led by none other than conservative Muslim clerics in response to the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s speech urging activists to calm down (“Why look for a Shivling in every mosque?”) in what was seen as a move to reach out to Muslims.

Welcoming his remarks as a “ray of hope”, Mufti Asad Qasmi called it a “welcome step towards building communal harmony” — a view echoed by the chief of Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind Maulana Mahmood Madani, several other respected clerics, and prominent Muslims such as SY Quraishi, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, who said that Bhagwat’s remarks “offers a new hope. It should be heeded by all very seriously.”

From my own random conversations, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Hindu-Muslim disputes have become hostage to politically-inspired outside meddling, and that half the battle would be won if local communities were left alone to sort out their differences through discussion and persuasion.

“India has a long tradition of religious and cultural pluralism that has enriched Indian society,” said Uzma Azhar Ali of Jamia Millia advocating local solutions to local problems.

This fits in with the theory that all politics is ultimately local. It’s the mohallas, villages and town squares that are our first point of contact with reality. It’s here that most ethnic and inter-community disputes start as local issues before ballooning into national headlines with not a little help from politicians and the media.

Even the almighty Babri Masjid-Ram janmabhoomi dispute started life as a local story. And not so much as a religious conflict as a quarrel over property rights relating to the site of the disputed structure that Muslims claimed was a mosque and Hindus as the birthplace of Lord Ram.

For years, it remained an Ayodhya-specific dispute. Not many outside the temple town even took notice of it. My hometown of Rudauli is in Ayodhya district and my memories are of friendly Hindu-Muslim relations. The dispute barely figured in discussions. To their enormous credit, local Hindus and Muslims didn’t allow the controversy it to spin out of control. It was when politicians from outside waded into it seeing in it a potential vote-winner that things went haywire. Rest is history. But it remains one of the big “ifs” of histories whether local Ayodhya-ites would have been able to settle the issue more amicably had they been left alone, and it was not hijacked by outsiders.

The fact is that for all the rhetoric about empowering local communities to manage their own affairs — a rhetoric that goes back to the Gandhian vision of local governance — on the ground localism has not really been given a chance to work. There’s this patronising view from Delhi, irrespective of which party is in power, that “we know best”.

The Congress with its “High Command” culture was the original sinner in this respect — over-centralising everything including its own organisational structures and ultimately destroying itself. The BJP has mostly followed the same playbook. Much as before, problems that could probably be settled locally are routinely whipped into national issues — politicians, activists and the media are quick to wade in, judiciary is dragged into it and, lo and behold, we have a perfect storm brewing.

Over a period of time even locals, initially irritated by outside meddling, began to enjoy their moment in the sun and suddenly obscure mullahs and sadhus became overnight celebrities developing a taste for confrontational rhetoric and a vested interest in prolonging the controversy. The problem with “nationalising” every issue is that apart from complicating it further driven by competitive political and sectarian interests it ends up vitiating atmosphere in otherwise peaceful communities.

As a reporter I remember visiting Ayodhya many times in the late 1980s and I found local Hindus lamenting how community relations had soured and local peace been disturbed because of they called “netas”. People would say: “Jhagra kis parivar mein nahi hota, lekin sab suljha leten hain. Bahar walon ka kya kaam hai?” (Which family doesn’t have disputes, but we sort them out ourselves. What business do outsiders have?) Another thing they emphasised was that they had lived together for decades and wouldn’t let mandir-masjid “jhagra” spoil their relations. “Hame yahin rehna hai, yahin marna hai” (We have to live here and die here).

Maybe they were oversimplifying or being too naive, but there was a will among both communities to sit down with each other and talk. But they were never given a chance. As the Varanasi and Mathura disputes loom, there’s an opportunity to encourage local people to try and resolve them at their own level. The people I’ve quoted above are not the only voices of reason. Indeed, I reckon the silent majority in both communities wants to avoid conflict and they should be encouraged not just to speak up but assume leadership of their communities.

But, more importantly, we should learn to have trust in local communities to iron out in-house differences without unnecessary judicial and political interventions. Starting with Varanasi and Mathura?

The writer is an independent commentator. Views expressed are personal.

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