Carbon Dating The Faith

After months of silence, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath set the cat among the pigeons with his comments on the Gyanvapi mosque, which abuts the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi.

- Prashant Srivastava

VARANASI/ GYANVAPI DISPUTE

Talking to a news outlet on July 31—even as the Allahabad High Court was set to adjudicate on a proposed Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) mapping of the mosque complex—Yogi declared, “If we call it a mosque, there will be a dispute…. There should be an admission from the Muslims that there has been a historical mistake and that we need a solution. What is a trishul (trident) doing inside a mosque? We did not put it there. There is a jyotirlinga, and dev pratimas (idols of gods)….”

On August 3, the Allahabad HC allowed the ASI access saying a “scientific survey is necessary in the interests of justice” while dismissing the plea of the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid Committee (AIMC). The latter oversees the affairs of the the 17th century mosque complex and had appealed for a stay on a Varanasi court’s order for such a survey. The lower court’s order had, in turn, come in response to an August 2021 petition by five women devotees claiming the presence of Hindu idols inside the mosque complex and their right to worship it. Last year, after a complicated legal tangle, the Supreme Court had stayed a video survey and referred the matter back to the local court (see A Kashi Conundrum).