Gyanvapi Controversy - Prayers Of Anger

Complex questions concerning beliefs and rituals, and history and law, envelop the Gyanvapi controversy

- Puja Awasthi/Varanasi

Faith, that amorphous being of unpredictable consequences, is winding through the district court of Varanasi. The court is tasked with deciding whether a petition seeking worship rights near the western outer wall of the Gyanvapi mosque is maintainable.

The petition, filed in August 2021 by five Hindu women (Rakhi Singh, Laxmi Devi, Sita Sahu, Manju Vyas and Rekha Pathak), follows the nebulous nature of faith. It essentially seeks rights for the daily worship of a deity—Ma Shringar Gauri—outside the mosque’s western wall. Currently, devotees are permitted to worship the deity only once a year. The petitioners want that “no interference be made” while worshipping “visible and invisible deities, mandaps and shrines” on the Gyanvapi premises, and that “the images of deities be not damaged, defaced, destroyed and no harm be caused to them”. They term the area as an “old temple complex” that was almost completely destroyed on orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the 17th century.

FAITH AND FIGHT

In 1991, Hindu priests filed a petition seeking permission for worship in the Gyanvapi Mosque premises. They claimed the mosque was built on a demolished portion of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple

Dec 1992 Babri Masjid demolished; Shringar Gauri puja in the Gyanvapi premises restricted to one day a year

Dec 2019-Jan 2020 Lawyer Vijay Shankar Rastogi files a petition to get the mosque area surveyed; the mosque managing body files objection

2021 April A Varanasi court directs the Archaeological Survey of India to survey and submit the report