SC’s Ayodhya verdict reveals ‘deeply majoritarian politics has penetrated legal validation’, says Jamiat report
New Delhi: Noting that the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s order declaring the controversial Bhojshala complex in Dhar district a temple only validates the fears and concerns they have been raising since 2019. Ayodhya RoyJamiat Ulama-e-Hind (JUH) released a report on Friday arguing that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Places of Worship Act reveals how “deeply majoritarian politics has infiltrated legal validity”.JUH said it was a coincidence that the report came out on the day the canteen order came. Speaking at the event attended by senior lawyers, legal experts, former judges, researchers and intellectuals, JUH President Maulana Mahmud Asad Madani observed that the dispute over the Babri Masjid issue is not over; Rather, new controversies are now being raised regarding Gnanabapi, Mathura Eidgah, Kamal Mawla Masjid and other religious sites, reopening old wounds.The report, titled “Critical Analysis of the Babri Masjid Judgment and the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act 1991” case, provides a detailed analysis of the Supreme Court’s key judgments, including the Ismail Farooqui case and the Ayodhya judgment, claiming that certain religious principles are vulnerable to inter-constitutional protection of interdependence. placeIn particular, the report discussed the far-reaching implications of the observations made in the Ismail Faruqi case, where a mosque was not considered an essential part of Islamic practice in every situation. “As the judiciary increasingly accommodates the Hindu majority, Muslim holy sites have become legally unprotected, culturally contested and politically targeted,” the report said.The report states that the Places of Worship Act of 1991 was designed to freeze the religious character of places of worship existing on August 15, 1947. “Yet recent court rulings have interpreted the law so narrowly that new claims are now underway against mosques in Varanasi, Mathura and elsewhere.”The report states, “The arguments employed in that case—essential practices, beliefs, archaeological evidence, and cultural memory—are now being recycled in ongoing cases involving the Gnanabapi Masjid in Sambal, the Shahi Eidgah in Mathura, and others.”The report recommended that the Judiciary must uphold the Places of Worship Act and enforce it strictly and consider protection of places of worship as a constitutional obligation. It also recommended that “communal politics and historical claims should not be allowed to become instruments of legal disputes.
