In what may embolden the Sangh parivar’s claim over Bababudan Dargah in Karnataka, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka has submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court that upholds the former Bharatiya Janata Party state government’s order on the matter. The writ petition submitted by the Siddaramaiah government on March 26 repeats nearly all the directives regarding the religious nature and administrative practices in Bababudan Dargah, a famous syncretic shrine in the state revered by both Hindus and Muslims.

A brief history of the dispute may be handy to better understand the issue.

The Bababudan Dargah in Chikkamagaluru has been the Ayodhya of Karnataka for the Sangh parivar since the early nineties. The Dargah was the abode of Dada Hayat Mir Quaalandar of the Qualandriya Sufi tradition in the 11th century and then went on to be home for Bababudan, a Sufi saint believed to have introduced coffee plantation in the state and the country in late 16th century.

In the wake of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement all over the country in early 90s, the Sangh Parivar of the region also, for the first time, started to claim the shrine. It said that it belonged to the Hindu deity Dattatreya and demanded permission to observe Datta Jayanti annually at the shrine. As the Sangh and the BJP gained strength by polarising the state on a Hindutva agenda, the demand metamorphosed into a call to liberate the Dargah from the clutches of Muslims and transform it into a Datttareya temple. The Sangh manipulated the historical narrative and documents – a process that received support from time to time from a pliable Congress leadership, a partisan bureaucracy, and the judiciary.

The false Hindutva narrative, which started in 1992, obtained the judicial stamp in 2007 when the high court of Karnataka allowed the petition of a Sangh body and ordered the Endowment Commissioner to check the veracity of the claims made by the Hindutva groups. The inquiry averred that the shrine was a temple of Dattatreya and was converted into a Darga during the time of Hyder Ali in 1780s and demanded appointment of a Hindu priest and allowed Hindu Agama rituals at the Dargah.

This order was challenged in the Supreme Court. More than three public hearings have been held at the instance of the top court to seek evidence to come to a conclusion about factuality of Hindutva claims – twice under the BJP government in 2010 and 2022 and under Congress government in 2017. In 2022, the BJP government, after the completing an allegedly faux public hearing mandated by the high court, expectedly rejected all the evidence-based arguments of Shakahadri and the progressive groups and upheld all the claims made by the Hindutva groups.

The BJP government passed an order to constitute a committee of equal numbers of Muslims and Hindus to govern the shrine and also appoint an Archak (Hindu Priest) along with Mujavar and introduced Hindu Brahminical Agama rituals along with existing Sufi rituals.

This was challenged by the Shakahadri in the high court and subsequently in the Supreme Court. By then, the Congress government led by Siddaramaiah was in power in the state. Since the state government was a respondent in the case and was required to file its response to the writ petition filed by Shakahadri, another round of consultations was held with BJP and Dargah devotees, Shakahadri, and progressive organisations, by the cabinet’s sub-committee headed by the home minister G. Parameshwara.

The Congress government in 2017 had decided to retain the status quo of the dargah after adequate deliberations mandated by another Supreme Court order in 2015. It had concluded that any change in the rituals including the appointment of a Hindu Archak and Agama rituals at the shrine would change the religious nature of the shrine and hence violate, Section 3 and 4 of Places of Worship Act, 1991. The same was also recommended by the Justice H.N. Nagamohan Das Committee that conducted extensive and intensive hearing and study of the issue.

Also read: Places of Worship Act, 1991: What Stand Will the Union Govt Take at SC Hearing?

The same stand was expected by the present Congress government and the same was assured by the Congress party functionaries and the sub-committee before the delegations of the Muslim community and progressive groups.

U-Turn by the Congress

But the Congress government betrayed all these expectations in the affidavit filed in the SC on March 26 after the decision made in the Cabinet sub-committee meeting held on March 19.

The Congress government’s affidavit in the SC submitted that the State government would implement the following steps:

1. The District Level committee must be constituted as given below in order to manage the proposed institution.

a) Deputy Commissioner will be Chairman of the Committee.

b) Superintendent of Police and Chief Executive Officer of Zilla Panchayat must be a permanent member.

c) Shakhadri [traditional religious head of the Bababudan Dargah] will be the permanent nominated member.

d) Equal number of members from both the Hindu and Muslim communities will be nominated from the Government including permanent Shakhadri.

e) Executive Officer of institution is the Member Secretary of the committee.

2. Rituals of the Institution (daily and during Special occasion) will be notified by the State Government on the basis of the recommendations of the district-level Committee.

3. Archaka and Muzavar will be appointed from the State Government as per the recommendation of the District Committee from the Government.

4. Executive Officer shall manage the institution under the guidance of the District Committee.

In other words, the Congress government has practically copied the previous BJP government’s order of 2022 and has sworn to implement the demands made by Hindutva groups at the shrine.

Opportunism or soft Hindutva

The writ petition is yet another instance where the Congress has refused to take on the BJP on its core ideological agenda – defying even its top leader Rahul Gandhi, who has been taking a strong anti-RSS position. However, his utterances have barely materialised into an ideological counter-narrative.

In contrast, the BJP and RSS approach politics with an agenda to ideologically and culturally mobilise the masses with them, presenting their politics as part of a grand struggle for a mythical Hindu Rashtra. The success story of Hindutva victory over the Dargah is also a story of Congress’s collusion with the Hindutva project.

Sanghi game-book and Congress play  

Until 1975, there was no controversy surrounding the Bababudan Dargah. As a Mysore state record notes, even in 1904-05, out of 9,788 pilgrims who visited the dargah, 8,200 were Muslims, 638 were Hindus, and only 83 were Brahmins.

The first controversy arose in 1975 when the government decided to classify the shrine as a Waqf (Muslim charitable trust) property and placed it under the Waqf Board. Two individuals, on behalf of Hindu devotees, challenged this in court. However, they did not demand that a Hindu priest should be appointed, or Brahminical rituals be conducted, or that the site be declared a temple. Their sole objection was that if it were given to the Waqf Board, Hindus would be denied entry. In essence, the dispute was only about access for Hindu devotees.

Also read: Bababudan Dargah Is an Old Victim of Judicial Reluctance in Upholding the Places Of Worship Act

However, between 1975 and 2003, the Sangh Parivar gradually spread and organised misinformation campaigns, and began imposing new practices on the streets under the guise of religion. These practices were slowly made official by manipulating government policies. Today, the Congress government, too, has endorsed these long-sown lies as truth.

In 1992, the same year the Babri Masjid was demolished, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Chikkamagaluru claimed that the Bababudan Dargah was actually the Dattapeetha and demanded permission to celebrate Anasuya Jayanti and Datta Jayanti there. But at that time, the High Court, Supreme Court, and the Muzrai Commissioner had all clearly ruled that the institution was a Dargah, nothing else. The Muzrai Commissioner had even issued clear orders regarding the rituals practiced there.

Despite this, in December 1992, the Congress government allowed Datta Jayanti celebrations at the site, effectively granting official recognition to the Sangh’s falsehoods. This gave the Sangh Parivar immense strength and enthusiasm. From then on, the Sangh began celebrating Datta Jayanti there annually.

In 1997, they started Datta Male, a week-long ritual procession similar to the Ayyappa Mala. By 1999, the Congress government formed an official committee under the District Commissioner to facilitate the private, illegal religious celebrations being conducted by the BJP and VHP.

Fearing a possible loss of Hindu votes, the then Congress-Janata Dal governments legitimised the Hindutva falsehoods and now the Congress government has openly colluded with the Hindutva agenda and has given legal legitimacy for the Dargah to be converted into a half- temple.

Destroy the Dargah to save Islam?

This has a serious repercussion over the very Sufi culture of the Dargah. The high court has upheld the averment made by the Sangh Parivar that the Dargah culture of worshipping the tomb of Baba Budan was anti-Islam, and that a Mujawar providing holy water to Hindu devotees violates the faith of both the Mujawar and the devotee. A strange argument but it was accepted by the court. The argument questions the very existence of the Dargah culture which is a syncretic product of participative co-existence of religious communities in India.

Congress has displayed a clear class interest in appeasing the so-called ‘upper’ caste and class groups by submitting a petition that peddles Hindutva myths.

Shivasundar is an activist and a freelance journalist based in Bengaluru.