A corporation bulldozer razes the dargah of Rashiduddin Chisti in Vadodara on May 1 (Frontline / AFP)

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Remove religious structures that encroach public space: HC (2 May 2006, Outlook)

The Gujarat High Court today directed the authorities to remove all the religious structures that were encroaching public spaces across the state without any discrimination.

A division bench, comprising Justice B J Sethna and Justice R P Dholakia, treated as a writ petition a news report published in a national daily highlighting various religious structures encroaching the public places, directed the authorities to take necessary action and reply by May five….

The High Court also severely pulled up the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) for being “silent spectators” regarding encroachments on the public places by religious structures.

http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=381966

SEE ALSO:

• Demolish all illegal religious structures: Gujarat court (3 May 2006, New Kerala)
  http://www.newkerala.com/news2.php?action=fullnews&id=52454
• Remove religious structures that encroach public space: Gujarat HC (3 May 2006, Zee News)
  http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=292480&sid=REG

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SC stays Gujarat HC order on demolition (4 May 2006, Times of India)

The High Court has treated as writ petition a news report published in a national daily highlighting various religious structures encroaching the public places and had directed the authorities to take necessary action and reply by May 5.

The High Court had pulled up the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) and Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) for being “silent spectators” regarding encroachments on public places by religious structures.

It had directed that encroachment causing traffic problems should be demolished zone wise or phase wise.

According to the news report, there were 1200 temples and 260 Islamic shrines encroaching on public spaces according to a survey conducted by AMC.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1516244.cms

SEE ALSO:

• Gujarat: Telling a religious encroachment tale (23 May 2006, Express India)
  http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=67189

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HC weight behind demolition drive (3 May 2006, Indian Express)

Taking suo motu cognizance of media reports on religious shrines encroaching on public space, the Gujarat High Court on Tuesday directed the authorities to remove all such structures.

A division bench of Justice B.J. Sethna and Justice R.P. Dholakia has asked civic authorities across the state to take immediate action and submit report.

The court also took note of the violence that broke out in Vadodara on Monday over the demolition of a dargah, in particular the mob attack on the Nyaymandir courthouse. It has asked the Vadodara police commissioner to submit a report.

The court has directed the state government to issue immediate instructions to the police department to provide full protection to demolition squads so as to avoid what happened in Vadodara.

If the need arises, those likely to disrupt peace should be booked before carrying out demolition drives, the court said. Those obstructing such drives are usually land-grabbers.

Listing some illegal religious structures in and around Ahmedabad, the court said encroachment on public space should not be permitted or tolerated “even for a minute.”

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/3671.html

SEE ALSO:

• HC supports demolitions (2 May 2006, Daily News & Analysis)
  http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1027263&CatID=2

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Jaiswal: Classify shrines as old or new for civic drives – By Subodh Ghildiyal & Vishwa Mohan (5 May 2006, Times of India)

On a day when the Centre successfully sought intervention of the Supreme Court against the demolition of illegal religious structures in Gujarat cities, MoS for home Sriprakash Jaiswal suggested that places of worship be categorised as “old” shrines or “new” structures.

This categorisation, suggested by Jaiswal, would allow old religious structures from being exempted from such civic drives….

If accepted, the suggestion would entail framing of a law to distinguish between religious structures according to their age.

It could open a pandora’s box of sorts as religious constructions on public land, a convenient mode of encroachment in towns and cities, may provide an opening to squatters as many such structures are often claimed to be “ancient”, with temples bearing the prefix ‘pracheen’.

The advice for caution in case of religious structures with public sentiments attached to them is fraught with political interpretations as it runs close to mirroring the “issue of faith” argument forwarded by the RSS in Babri case.

There are several examples of temples or other places of worship escaping demolition by laying claim to religious sentiments, often with backing of local politicians.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1516843.cms

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How many more Vadodaras? – By Jumana Shah (3 May 2006, Daily News & Analysis)

After the Gujarat High Court order on Monday asked authorities in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot to remove all illegal places of worship, municipal authorities have swung into action to prepare a list of such structures… All corporations are to submit a report of illegal shrines to the HC on Friday, following which the next course of action will be decided.

While no exact figures are available, estimates suggest the number of illegal places of worship in the four cities of Gujarat will exceed 5,000. Ahmedabad is believed to have over 2,000 such structures, followed by Surat and Rajkot with estimated 1,100 and 1,000 respectively.

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) houses close to 2,000 small and large illegal religious structures, including some decades-old shrines in sensitive areas….

According to Surat Municipal Commissioner Pankaj Joshi, there are 40 major illegal religious structures, including many on the main roads.

Meanwhile, the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) is not too worried as majority of the big religious structures have already been demolished in the past two years. “Over 100 religious structures have already been demolished. We have not faced resistance as demolition was conducted with support of the local leaders,” Rajkot Municipal Commissioner Mukesh Kumar said.

The majority of the demolished structures were temples. Three madrasas were also demolished, but there were no shrines or darghas, he added.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1027542&CatID=2

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Vadodara flares up as old dargah demolished, 4 die (2 May 2006, Indian Express)

The dargah on the Fatehpura-Champaner Road, which local Muslims say was of a Sufi saint, Syed Rashiuddin Chishti, had been targeted in all riots in Gujarat since 1969. On Monday morning at 9.30, a delegation of Muslim leaders were invited to a meeting with the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) to evolve a consensus to remove the dargah. The VMC had pasted a notice about the demolition on the dargah walls last Wednesday. Community leaders had resisted this move with official petitions on Saturday. Monday’s meeting saw mayor Sunil Solanki, city BJP president Shabdasharan Brahmbhatt and municipal commissioner Rohit Pathak seeking to convince the Muslim leaders about removing the structure, but to no avail. Soon after the failed talks, orders were given to the VMC demolition team to raze it.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/3621.html

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Did VMC give compromise a chance? (1 May 2006, Times of India)

The leaders say that they had received the VMC notice three days ago and immediately approached mayor Sunil Solanki and Pathak. Given that Mandvi is a communally sensitive area with a history of violence, Pathak had visited the mazaar and suggested the compromise.

Local leaders had then convinced residents for the compromise solution. “We took religious opinion of Kamal-ud-Din Bawa, who saw nothing wrong in slicing off a part of the mazaar according to Islamic law,” Rafai adds.

“But then by Sunday morning, we found out that the VMC was planning to demolish the entire mazaar.” The community went back to Pathak and Solanki on Monday morning, but by this time the mood had changed.

“The municipal corporators, most of them from the BJP, told us that if they could demolish temples, there should be no objection to removing a mazaar,” added Yunus Pathan, another community leader.

“We disagree with this logic as the Muslim community never asked for temples to be demolished. We told the officials to handle the situation sensitively, but the next thing we know, the officials started the demolition.”

To allegations that the negotiations were mere delaying tactics by the community, the leaders say they had even roped in structural engineers and architects for the job.

Pathak says the Muslim leaders had approached him three days back with their proposal. “I had not promised anything,” he said. “If I agree to only a partial demolition, it would have set a false precedent.”

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1511538.cms

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Why did officials ignore a compromise? (2 May 2006, Times of India)

Why did Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) demolish the mazaar of Chishti Rashid-ud-Din while still in consultation with Muslim leaders for a compromise?

Community leaders are feeling betrayed by VMC officials in Monday’s incident. “Municipal commissioner R K Pathak had himself visited the site on Saturday and suggested cutting it by 2.5 ft, so that it did not obstruct traffic around Champaner Darwaja,” said advocate Moin Rafai, one of the leaders negotiating for a compromise.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1511741.cms

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BJP inciting communal violence in Guj: Cong (16 May 2006, Outlook)

“The community members had agreed to shifting of the dargah but why did the compromise come unstuck at the last moment,” Congress member Alka Balram Kashtriya said.

She wanted to know how Vishwa Hindu Parishad members arrived at the scene when the demolition was on.

“The Gujarat government could have sorted out the matter in a peaceful manner but they wanted to create votebank over dead bodies,” Kashtriya said amid heated exchanges between Congress and BJP members.

http://www.outlookindia.com/pti_news.asp?id=385266

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Rubble-rousers – By Harsh Mander (7 May 2006, Hindustan Times)

The dispute was over the declared resolve of the local government to demolish a dargah of Sufi saint Hazrat Rasiuddin Chisti. The newly elected city council, with an overwhelming BJP membership, voted for its removal, claiming that it was an ‘encroachment’ and obstructed traffic.

The worried leaders of the Muslim community tried to negotiate with the mayor and councillors. Realising that they were adamant, they agreed to demolish substantial parts of the structure and the dargah’s canopy themselves, and retain only a small structure over the actual grave. However, their conciliatory offer of compromise was rejected and the council decided that it would settle for nothing less than a full demolition.

Immediately thereafter, the mayor, accompanied by BJP leaders notorious for their role in the 2002 massacre, municipal authorities and a large contingent of armed policemen both in uniform and civilian clothes, descended at the dargah with bulldozers. Local Muslim youths quickly mobilised a peaceful resistance in the form of a sit-in around the site. The mayor and the mob raised inflammatory slogans. The crowd of Muslim men soon found themselves pelted by stones, and the police started to shoot at them….

It is important to understand that this is not a stray event. It is the outcome of the fact that the police, the municipal and civil administrations in Gujarat have progressively allowed themselves to be reduced to become the extended arm of militant Hindutva politics since 2002. Earlier, rioting mobs had tried to dismantle the shrine, but it was always rebuilt, reportedly mainly by Hindu devotees. This time, the state administration itself demolished the shrine. Earlier, rioters killed each other. Now policemen do the killing with impunity and escape all punishment for their crimes.

We are witnessing in Vadodara just one glimpse of the wages of the state becoming the willing active agency of the politics of hate. If we do not reverse this, it will destroy the ancient and precious secular fabric of this land, and the faith and hope of its vulnerable people.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1692977,00120001.htm

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300-year-old Vadodara shrine was target of riots since ’69, cops under fire (2 May 2006, Indian Express)

An open letter from the VHP had taunted the municipal administration for failing to take action against Muslim shrines while removing those of Hindus.

Muslims had made official representations against the demolition on Saturday. They’d also faxed a memorandum to the National Minorities Commission on Sunday quoting the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, which they ensures status quo to religious places built before 1947.

Municipal commissioner Rohit Pathak’s statement on Monday evening mentioned the demolition of 20 Hindu temples with people’s co-operation. What it did not mention was that the Muslim community, too, had co-operated during the removal of a smaller dargah in the Danteshwar area.

So the dargah near Champaner gate became one that was prominent enough to drive home the point that demolitions would continue come what may. To declare the dargah an illegal structure, municipal authorities latched on to the fact that it does not have ownership papers nor is it a protected monument. Only the city survey of 1911 by the then Baroda State makes mention of the dargah.

Police officers admit that hastening the removal guaranteed violence. Given the politicisation of the issue, the conversion of the attack against the authorities into communal violence took little time — something for which the police seemed ill-prepared, as indicated by how the violence spread to several areas in the walled city.

http://www.indianexpress.com/story/3612.html

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Back to 2002? – By Sitaram Yechury (3 May 2006, Hindustan Times)

The issue that sparked the communal violence centres around an ancient dargah of a Sufi saint, Syed Rashiuddin Chishti. The Vadodara Municipal Corporation decreed that this dargah was an encroachment and was obstructing the widening of roads under the new city development plan. On the contrary, it has been pointed out that the dargah was at least 385 years old, recorded in the first city survey carried out by Sayajirao Maharaj of Baroda in 1912. The daily diya and daily expenditure at the shrine were borne by the Hindus.

Notwithstanding this, in every communal riot in the city since 1969, this shrine has been targeted. Termed as a ‘mini Babri masjid’, many attempts were made to demolish in the past. On this occasion, the municipal corporation simply razed it to the ground citing a Gujarat High Court judgment calling for the demolition of all encroachments. Unless motivated, it is impossible to believe that an ancient place of worship could be considered an encroachment.

Hamid Ansari of the National Minorities Commission has, on record, stated that the chief secretary of Gujarat had assured him that a compromise formula was being worked out. In fact, the BJP’s prominent Muslim face in Vadodara, Gani Qureshi, has gone on record to the media stating, “The demolition of this dargah is a very well-planned conspiracy. The municipal corporation authorities had promised us that it would not be demolished. We were working upon a compromise formula but they backed out and simply razed it.”

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1689872,00120001.htm

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Modhvadia sees Modi hand in demolition mess (4 May 2006, Times of India)

“A private report by the municipal commissioner and the police commissioner had even advised the state government not to hurry with the demolition of such a religious place,” Modhvadia said.

Yet, on May 1, the mazaar was removed without adequate preparation. “The government did not take any precaution to cope with the tension which was inevitable as a result of the demolition.

The time of the demolition, 10.30 am, was fixed with a view to trigger conflict and when the agitation started, the police opened fire without any hesitation,” he said. Two people lost their lives in the firing.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1516619.cms

SEE ALSO:

• ‘Vadodara demolition done in haste’ (17 May 2006, Indian Express)
  http://www.indianexpress.com/story/4580.html

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Brute Force – Editorial (4 May 2006, The Telegraph)

The priorities of development demanded that a 300-year-old dargah be pulled down. Without even questioning the priorities, it does not need a great deal of imagination or intelligence to foresee that the demolition would hurt Muslim sentiments and rouse passion. The matter needed careful handling: meeting with the leaders of the Muslim community in the area, offers of relocation and a lot of gentle persuasion. It was not a matter that could be resolved by sticking a demolition notice on the walls of the dargah. There are also allegations that the administration went back on a compromise formula according to which only a part of the shrine was to be demolished. The entire building has been pulled down.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060504/asp/opinion/story_6177740.asp

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Tale of 2 demolition drives: Vadodara, Rajkot – By Hiral Dave (4 May 2006, Express India)

Two demolition drives, and two different ways of going about it. So while in Gujarat’s cultural capital Vadodara, the BJP went about doing a “balancing act” by razing a 300-year-old dargah, in Rajkot, the BJP fought the Municipal Commissioner tooth and nail for removing a small temple that was encroaching on RMC land.

In Vadodara, the BJP supported the demolition, stating that it was a “balancing act” for the city’s development, in Rajkot, where the structure was razed to make way for a town planning scheme, they – the BJP councillors – came to blows with the Municipal Commissioner over the demolition. They were arrested and later released. No action, whatsoever, was taken against them.

But the BJP has the modus operandi worked out: If senior BJP leaders like Nalin Bhatt and a host of VMC councillors remained at the site to ensure the razing of Sayed Rashiuddin Chisti’s dargah, in Rajkot, BJP councillor from ward number 18, Narendra Dav, led a 3,000-strong mob on April 18 to stop demolition of the temple. He even presented Kumar with a list of religious structures of the minority community that should be included in the demolition drive. But Kumar refused to, saying they weren’t encroaching on RMC land. That was what landed him in trouble… they barged into Municipal Commissioner Mukesh Kumar’s office by breaking open the iron grill and assaulted him….

Despite the strong representation by Kumar, the BJP leadership in Gandhinagar is yet act against the councillors who face charges of attacking a public servant and damaging public property. According to top RMC officials, the councillors can be disqualified for their act under Section 13 of the BPM Act.

But to pass a resolution, a three-fourth majority is required in the general board, which is impossible without the support of the BJP as it enjoys majority with 59 councillors. The BJP leadership, however, is in no mood to take any action against them. Emphasising, Bhanderi said, “No action will be taken against the councillors.”

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=67100

SEE ALSO:

• Dargah razed, lives lost (2 May 2006, The Telegraph)
  http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060502/asp/frontpage/story_6171246.asp

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Panel targets ‘encroachment’ tag (1 May 2006, The Telegraph)

The police firing on an angry mob protesting the razing of a Vadodara dargah today drew fire from the minorities commission which slammed the “excessive use of force”