Supreme Court of India lifted ban on massive prayer gatherings in mosques

On Tuesday, India’s Supreme Court reversed a municipal decision prohibiting big Muslim prayer gatherings in a prominent mosque in northern India after a survey team discovered remains of the Hindu deity Shiva and other Hindu symbols there.

In an interim judgment, the Supreme Court declared that Muslims’ freedom to worship should not be violated and that the place where Hindu sacred relics were alleged to be discovered should be preserved.

The dispute over the ability to pray at the mosque stems from a decades-long campaign by Hindu campaigners to demonstrate that significant Muslim-built structures in India sit over ancient sacred sites. A prior disagreement 30 years ago resulted in tragic riots.

The Supreme Court’s decision came a day after a municipal court in Varanasi, Hinduism’s holiest city and home to the famous Gyanvapi mosque, ordered that Islamic meetings should be limited to 20 persons.

The assessment was ordered by the local court when five women requested permission to perform Hindu rites in one section of the mosque, claiming that a Hindu temple formerly stood on the site.

The Gyanvapi mosque, in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, is one of the numerous mosques in northern Uttar Pradesh that some Hindus claim was erected on top of damaged Hindu temples.

Hardline Hindu groups tied to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have stepped up demands to excavate inside some mosques and to permit searches in the Taj Mahal mausoleum.

Judges of the top court will continue hearing from Hindu and Muslim petitioners this week.

Leaders of India’s 200 million Muslims view the survey inside the mosque as an attempt to undermine their rights to free worship and religious expression, with the BJP’s tacit agreement.

The BJP denies bias against minorities including Muslims and says it wants progressive change that benefits all Indians.

In 2019, the Supreme Court allowed Hindus to build a temple at the site of the disputed 16th-century Babri mosque that was demolished by Hindu crowds in 1992 who believed it was built where Hindu Lord Ram was born.

The demolition led to religious riots that killed nearly 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, across India.

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