Why Gyanvapi Is Not Ayodhya? – Free PDF Download

AYODHYA CASE AND VERDICT

• The Dispute was a political, historical and socio-religious debate that centred on a plot of land in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.
• 1528:According to the inscription on the walls of the Babri Masjid, it was constructed on the orders of Emperor Babur.
• The local tradition says that it was built after the demolition of the temple at the birthplace of Rama.

The dispute revolves around :-

• The control of a site that was traditionally regarded by the Hindus as the birthplace of deity Rama
• The history and location of the Babari Masjid at the site
• The question of whether or not there was previously a Hindu temple that may have been demolished or modified to create the mosque.
• Following the anger, The Babari Masjid was destroyed during a political rally that was turned into a riot on December 6 of 1992.
• The three main litigants in the case were the Nirmohi Akhara sect, the Sunni Wakf Board and the Ramlalla Virajman.

• The Nirmohi Akhara is a religious denomination that had sought directions to construct a Ram temple on the disputed land in Ayodhya.

• It wanted the management rights of the premises to be given to it
• Ram Lalla (or the infant Ram) is represented by the Hindu Mahasabha.

• It wanted the entire land to be handed over to them, with no part going to Muslim parties or the Nirmohi Akhara.
• The Sunni Wakf Board is that which looks after religious properties.
• It had demanded that the Babri Masjid be restored to the form that existed before it was demolished by the Hindu groups.

SUPREME COURT’S FINAL DECISION

• On the basis of Archaeological Survey of India’s report, Supreme Court concluded that Babri mosque was not constructed on vacant land.

• SC holded that Nirmohi Akhara was not the shebait [Shebait is that person who serves the deity, consecrated in the temple as a Devata]

• The Supreme Court in 2019 allotted the 77 acres of disputed land to Ram Lalla Virajman and ordered that 5 acres of land in a prominent area of Ayodhya be given to the Sunni Waqf Board to build another mosque

GYANVAPI MOSQUE CASE

1194- Demolished by Mohammad Gauri

• Reinstated by Kashi people
• 1447- Again Demolished by Jaunpur Sultan- Mehmood Shah
• Again built by Todar Mal, a premier courtier and minister of Akbar, & a pre-eminent Brahmin scholar of Banaras in 1585.
• It is a popular belief that the Gyanvapi Mosque was built in 1669 by the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb by demolishing the ancient Vishweshwar temple
• In Saqib Khan’s book ‘Yasir Alamgiri’, it is also mentioned that Aurangzeb had demolished the temple in 1669 by ordering Governor Abul Hassan.

• The Oxford World History of Empirenotes that while the demolition might be interpreted as a sign of Aurangzeb’s “orthodox inclinations”, local politics played an influencing role and his policies towards Hindus and their places of worship were “varied and contradictory, rather than consistently agnostic.”

• Madhuri Desai — in her magnum opus on Banaras — opines that Aurangzeb’s complex and often-contradictory policies can be “more accurately analyzed in [the] light of his personal compulsions and political agenda, rather than as expressions of religious bigotry.”

• The mosque is located next to the Kashi Vishwanath temple.

• The case of Gyanvapi mosque has been in court since 1991, when three persons, filed a suit in the court of Varanasi claiming that Aurangzeb had demolished the temple of Lord Vishweshwar and built a mosque on it so that the land should be returned to them
• On August 18, 2021, in the same court in Varanasi, five women filed a petition demanding to worship in the temple of Maa Shringar Gauri.

• For this Women demanded Videography of the mosque reviving the old claims
• In this context, the court had asked to give the survey report by videographing the idol of Maa Shringar Gauri and the Gyanvapi complex.
• An uproar was heard as questions were raised on the impartiality of the court commissioner appointed by the Muslim side for the survey.

• The Committee of Management of Anjuman Intezamia Masjid, the organisation that has filed the appeal in the top court in the Gyanvapi case, contended that the order of the Varanasi civil court allowing a videography survey in the mosque complex violated The Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991.
• Vijay Shankar Rastogi, appearing for the Hindu side, has submitted a map of the entire Gyanvapi complex as evidence in the court

Vijay Shankar Rastogi’s Evidence findings :-

• No other Mosque in the world has a Sanskrit name – “GYANVAPI” (place of knowledge)
• 2) Top might be dome shaped but pillars represent Temple architecture

• The shivling-like structure found inside Gyanvapi Masjid is similar to the one from the Gupta-era discovered at a nearby site in Varanasi, claimed historian Shri Bhagwan Singh.
• This shivling is found in the Wuzu area where muslims wash hands before offering namaaz.

• Temporary construction which was claimed as Fountain but after testing it was confirmed that underneath it is something similar to shivling

Area sealed by SC as of now

• 5) Vishweshwar Temple itself was popular for Shiv Worship and while it was getting demolished, the priest hid it in the “well like structure “
• Similarly “Srinathji Temple” in Rajasthan was shifted from Mathura to protect it from Aurangzeb by the priests.

1. 1) EVEN AFTER HAVING SIMILARITY IN CASES HOW IS GYANVAPI NOT AYODHYA ?
2. 2) WHY ARE ALL THE DISPUTED PLACES NOT RECONSTRUCTED ACCORDING TO THE RELIGION THEY HISTORICALLY BELONG TO ?
3. 3) WHY TO ONLY CONSTRUCT RELIGIOUS PLACE AND NOT A SCHOOL OR HOSPITAL ON THE DEMOLISHED AREAS ?

Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991

• It provides for the maintenance of the religious character of any place of worship as it existed on the 15th of August 1947.

Section 3 of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991

• The Act states that no person shall convert any place of worship or worship of any religious denomination into a different section of the same religious denomination or another religious sect

Section 4(2) of the Act

• All litigations, appeals or other proceedings relating to changing the nature of the place of worship (which were pending till August 15, 1947) shall cease after the enactment of this Act and no fresh action can be taken on such cases.
• The disputed site of Ayodhya (Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid) was exempted from the Act.(Section 5)

• Though beginning on the same lines but Ayodhya dispute and Gyanvapi incident seems to be having differences which will be unveiled more with the passage of time and depth of investigations

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