Mathura: Existing next to each other peacefully in Mathura are two religious structures – the Shahi Eidgah Masjid and the Shri Krishna Janmasthan temple. Between them is a police watchtower. Today, however, these markers of peace have turned into something less desirable.
The lane that leads us to the Eidgah is guarded by police and remains isolated unless it is time for namaz. Shops in the lane wear a look of enforced silence, with people barely making eye contact with outsiders.
But the road leading to the Shri Krishna Janmasthan Temple complex is illuminated with lights, accommodating faces from all over India. A community of shops paves the way that leads you to the complex, which stands tall with confidence amid the communal chaos.
As sunset approaches Mathura, the Shri Krishna Janmasthan Temple complex shines through the darkness, with Hindu mantras echoing. But as darkness takes over, the Shahi Eidgah Masjid slips into a silent state of mourning.
Distanced in democracy
Guddo Khan and Mridula Singh had been best friends ever since they held each other’s hands on the first day of school when they were barely five and had joined the Kanya Prathmik School in Mathura.
“We were in class 8 when the Babri Masjid was martyred. What happened there spilled over to Mathura too, Mridula stopped talking to me. Even when Hindu karsevaks toppled the Masjid, she thought Muslims were at fault,” said Khan, 44, who lost Singh as a friend forever after December 6, 1992.
In 2022, on December 8, three decades after Muslims lost the Masjid to fanaticism and hate, Bal Krishna through Hindu Sena chief Vishnu Gupta and others filed a suit in the court of Civil Judge Senior Division (III) for shifting the Shahi Eidgah Masjid. According to their claim, the masjid has been constructed on a part of 13.37-acre land belonging to the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi Trust.
The petitioners argued that the mosque in Mathura was built on the orders of Emperor Aurangzeb adjacent to the Krishna Janmasthal — which some believe to be the place where the Hindu deity Krishna was born — after demolishing a temple. Since then, the noose around the neck of Mathura’s Muslims has grown tighter.
The Shahi Eidgah Masjid and the Shri Krishna Janmasthan temple in Mathura. Photo: Tarushi Aswani
Muslim-mukt Mathura
Nizamuddin Azeem grew up in the streets leading to the Eidgah. The three-domed structure holds heaps of memories from his childhood Eids. Now, Azeem says, there is a stillness near the structure. “People hesitate to spend much time here, they just pray and leave, as if something ominous will happen if they stay longer. This has happened since they claimed that the Eidgah is built on temple land,” Azeem said.
Mehraj Alam, a BAMCEF (Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation) worker, said that the whole controversy around the Eidgah was only to have a ‘Muslim-mukt Mathura (Muslim-free Mathura)’. “Suddenly they have problems with the place where Muslims pray, the food Muslims sell and consume. They are even using the law to favour their own narrative of what existed before which structure, to only martyr another mosque after Babri,” Alam said.
What stands out here, when one tries to understand the dispute, is the disturbing deployment of law to discern the true custodians of the structures.
The Janmabhoomi Trust in Agra is challenging a compromise made in the 1960s between a temple body and the Shahi Masjid Eidgah over disputed land. The trust is claiming a 13.37-acre tract of land next to to the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi temple complex. Several suits have been filed saying that the Eidgah complex was built on land belonging to the Janmasthan Trust. The trust is now seeking a cancellation of the agreement made in 1968 and a declaration that the land solely belongs to the Trust.
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The cancellation that the trust is seeking is based on an agreement undertaken by the Sri Krishna Janmabhoomi Seva Sangh, a body of the temple that was dissolved later. This agreement approved the passover of the contentious portion of land to the Eidgah committee in 1968. In its petition, the Trust has said that the deal, which was finalised before the civil judge (senior division), Mathura in 1973-74, is “not binding” on the temple as the Seva Sangh had “no authority” to decide on the matter.
Advocate Mohammed Iqbal, who represents the Shahi Eidgah committee in the case, believes that while no one had a problem with the coexistence of the structures for years together, problems have emerged after the politicisation of religious structures after the Ayodhya title dispute verdict was delivered. The Mathura mosque is the third after the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi that Hindutva organisations have claimed is illegal. Iqbal also said that the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991 was being sidelined in this matter. The Act says that a mosque, temple, church or any place of public worship in existence on August 15, 1947 will retain the same religious character that it had on that day – irrespective of its history – and cannot be changed by the courts or the government.
Also read: Places of Worship Act: Is Supreme Court Unwittingly Helping Centre With Proxy Litigation?
‘Ready to retaliate’
Mohammed Burhanuddin, a member of the Eidgah committee, views the case against the Eidgah as an attempt to Hinduise Mathura more than the existing bans would ever be able to. “Mathura has mandirs and masjids. We respect that Hindus from across India come here for their religious purpose, but Mathura is ours too, we have lived along Hindus peacefully for centuries. Why is our existence being made into a court case?” he asked.
Like other Muslims in the holy Hindu city, Burhanuddin questions the state and its decisions regarding Muslims every day. From the ban on the sale of meat to abrupt demolitions of Muslim homes, to their place of worship falling prey to Hindu rashtra politics – Muslims in Mathura have a plethora of problems that surround their existence as a non-Hindu community in a territory holy to Hindus.
Amid these questions, Vijay Bahadur Singh, public relations officer, Shri Krishna Janmasthan Temple, feels that Mathura’s glory will finally be restored once the ‘battle’ for the Janmasthan is won.
Also read: ‘They Bulldozed Our Life’: Mathura’s Muslims Struggle as the State Crushes Their Homes
While the Trust has demanded that the mosque, which abuts the temple, be removed and the land returned to the Trust, Singh is of the opinion that the mosque is nothing but a ‘structure’ that has been illegally used by Muslims for decades to offers prayers.
Speaking to The Wire, Singh said, “Sanatan dharma teaches us to pick up arms for religion, and we have no problem in that, but we don’t want to take this step.”
Singh added that at any point, Hindus would not hesitate to retaliate if the situation called for it. He also said that if Muslims were keen to follow a rigid form of Islam, they are free to leave Mathura and practice it elsewhere.
Mandirs are no more a sign of amity for Mathura’s Muslims – instead, they are a symbolic reminder that their lives and livelihoods are being flattened in the name of Hinduism.
Tarushi Aswani is an independent journalist.
