Ahead of the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha ceremony scheduled to take place on 22nd January, an old video of the Marxist historian Irfan Habib is making rounds on social media in which he is seen admitting that several temples in Mathura and Varanasi were demolished by Mughals to built Mosques on them.
The video dates back to May 2022, days after the Shivling was discovered in the Gyanvapi structure. “Temples in Varanasi and Mathura were demolished by Aurangzeb,” he stated as he further questioned the government over the demolition of the disputed structure. “Can the government demolish something that was built in 1670?” he said.
“It is correct that Aurangzeb demolished the temple but it is not specified that it was Lord Shiva’s temple. It became a Shiv Temple after they found a Shivling. Aurangzeb demolished this temple in Varanasi. Another temple was demolished in Mathura. There’s no two ways about it. The question is can the government demolish something that was built in 1670? It is against India’s Monument Protection Act,” he was quoted as saying.
The video was shared by Journalist Abhijeet Majumder who hinted that Gyanvapi, Krishna Janmasthan, and Mathura must be returned to their rightful custodians.
High priest of Leftist history Irfan Habib admits to the plunder!
— Abhijit Majumder (@abhijitmajumder) January 16, 2024
But he lacks the grace to tell his community that #Gyanvapi, Krishna Janmasthan must be returned to their rightful custodians. pic.twitter.com/qoJ0hlIv2M
The video was also shared by Kanchan Gupta who is a senior adviser at the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Gupta stated that the ‘historian’ Irfan Habib of AMU spent his life singing paeans to the Mughals and now was revealing the truth that Hindu temples in Varanasi and Mathura were demolished by Aurangzeb to build Mosques.
‘Yes Aurangzeb broke temples in Varanasi and Mathura… built mosques over them. There can be no two views… But can you break something that was built in 1670?” taunts Marxist ‘historian’ Irfan Habib of AMU who spent his life singing paens to Mughals. pic.twitter.com/3qYRSdbLUL
— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) January 17, 2024
Hindu temples demolished by Mughals
It is important to note that several temples in India were demolished by the Mughals to establish their rule over the country and build Mosques instead. The Ram Mandir also has a similar history which dates back to 492 years. The temple believed to have been demolished by the Mughal tyrant Babar in 1528, has been at the centre of a historical and spiritual quest for centuries. This quest, deeply embedded in the hearts of millions, has seen countless devotees laying down their lives for the cause. Today the temple is being built and every Hindu devotee is looking forward to the ceremony of Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha scheduled on 22nd January in Ayodhya.
Also, the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi had stood tall for centuries before becoming an eye sour for the Mughals. The Islamic rulers, who were on a mission to destroy anything that was against Islam, saw Kashi Vishwanath Dham as one of the main targets challenging the supremacy of their faith.
On April 18, 1669, Islamic ruler Aurangzeb gave the order to demolish Kashi Vishwanath Temple. In his order, he had written that the temple was the place where “the foolish Pundits teach evil knowledge from junk books.” On the explicit orders from Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, Kashi Vishwanath Dham, one of the holiest Hindu sites of pilgrimage, was plundered, desecrated, demolished, and converted into Gyanvapi Mosque in 1669.
Further, after the Ram Mandir verdict, the Krishna Janmabhoomi Nirman Nyas is hoping to reclaim the four-and-a-half-acre land next to the mosque to use it as a ‘Ranga Manch’ for religious and cultural functions organized by it and the temple authorities.
Ever since the Babri mosque was demolished in 1992, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) has been calling for the ‘liberation’ of Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura and the Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi.
Following the Supreme Court verdict on the Ram Janmabhoomi case, there has been a growing demand among Hindus to reclaim Kashi and Mathura, along with Ayodhya. Taking back the disputed sites of Kashi Vishwanath temple and Krishna Janmabhoomi temple at Mathura has now become a priority for various Hindu groups in the country.
Places of Worship Act – a major hurdle
However, the major roadblock for the Hindus to reclaim its spiritual and cultural sites that have been lost due to Islamic conquest in the past comes in the form of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which was passed by the then PV Narasimha Rao government. The controversial law prohibits the conversion of places of worship, like churches, mosques, and temples, into places of worship of a different religion.
Section 4 of the Act claims to preserve the “religious character” of a place of worship, as it existed on August 15, 1947. It also says that any court proceeding regarding any such conversion would cease after the Act came into force.
However, there was a relaxation in the law concerning the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute as Section 5 of the Act specifically mandated an exemption to the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute under the law and its court proceedings.
‘Historian’ Irfan Habib’s statements against RSS, PM Modi
It is worth mentioning that Marxist ‘Historian’ Irfan Habib has always praised the Mughals and criticized the Hindu community. He has also time and again criticized the BJP government for making changes to the history of the NCERT syllabus. In an exclusive interview with NewsClick the ‘historian’ had criticized the Hindu outfits saying that Mughals would not disappear from history just because Sangh wished so.
Also, in the year 2020, Habib said that in Aligarh Muslim University RSS was formed to attack Muslims and that the Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar was responsible for the partition of the country, extenuating Mohammad Ali Jinnah who propounded the two-nation theory.
Habib had also said that there is strong circumstantial evidence that Savarkar was involved in the murder of Mahatma Gandhi, and referred to PM Modi as ‘Jahil’.
Notably, Author Meenakshi Jain, in an interview with Open Magazine, asserted that leftist historian Irfan Habib was among the pro-Babri group who tried to discredit in vain an inscription that fell from the walls of the Babri structure during its demolition in 1992. The inscription said it was built for the person who destroyed the 10-headed Ravan.
