Opinion | Sambhal As Symbol: Hindus Hounded In Their Own Country
The temples abandoned by Hindus, which recently came to light in Sambhal, are symbolic of how the demographic situation turned against them in independent India, under the veneer of official secularism
Sambhal, in western Uttar Pradesh, hit the headlines in late November when a court-order ASI survey of the early 16th century Babri Masjid in the township ran into trouble with the local Muslim populace, leading to a volatile situation. Protestors rained stones upon the police, leaving around two dozen personnel injured. Five Muslim youths, including a minor, were killed, allegedly in police firing on protesters, a charge that police vehemently denied.
The autopsy discounted the culpability of police as the ammunition recovered from the bodies of victims was not used by the UP Police. The police have made a counter-claim of recovering empty cartridges of Pakistani origin from the spot. They claim that a day before the survey was scheduled to begin, Zia-ur-Rehman Barq, MP, Sambhal visited the mosque and delivered a provocative speech. An FIR registered by the police names him in addition to Sohail Mahmood, the son of local MLA Iqbal Mahmood, for inciting the mob through social media posts. An anti-encroachment drive was launched by the administration. This led to interesting revelations since then, that have shifted the discourse from early 16th century to late 20th century events. These revelations are equally suggestive.
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The local Hindus, who are a minority in the township, insist that the mosque was built by the Mughal invader Babur in 1526 by demolishing a temple of Lord Vishnu, originally erected by Prithviraj Chauhan in the 12th century. This belief appears deeply ingrained, though H.R. Nevill, ICS, in the district gazetteer (1911), discounts the idea, arguing that Sikander Lodi, a known iconoclast, would not have allowed a Hindu shrine to occupy the loftiest site in his temporary capital (Moradabad: A Gazetteer, p. 147). While acknowledging that Babur visited Sambhal, Nevill attributes the construction of the mosque to his general, Hindu Beg, to which Babur set up an inscription.
However, the revised Gazetteer of Moradabad (1968), written by Esha Basanti Joshi, IAS (Retd), presents a different view. She states that the town of Sambhal (originally perhaps Sambhalpura) stands on a series of scattered mounds, each said to mark the site of some ancient building or settlement. The highest of these mounds is known as the Kot (fort) and indicates the ruined site of the old fort of Sambhal, which was built before the advent of Muslims in the area. The only building left standing on the site was once a Hari Mandir (a temple of Vishnu) but was later converted into a mosque (Gazetteer of India: Uttar Pradesh – Moradabad, p. 26). She bases her account on the description of A. Fuhrer in Monumental Antiquities and Inscriptions in the North-Western Provinces and Oudh (1891).
Joshi informs us that Babur visited Sambhal on 2 October 1527 and stayed there for two days. Earlier, he had sent his general, Hindu Beg, to subjugate the Afghan governor of Sambhal, Qasim Sambhali, who was subsequently defeated (Gazetteer of India: Uttar Pradesh – Moradabad, p. 42).
A recent WhatsApp wisecrack cuts through the Gordian knot of this debate, asking why Muslims would oppose an ASI survey unless there is something to hide from the public eye.
II
Following the violence in Sambhal and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s vow that no miscreant involved would be spared, the police and local administration sprang into action. A manhunt was launched to apprehend the culprits, while simultaneous drives against encroachment and electricity pilferage were undertaken. These efforts unexpectedly revealed two temples in Muslim-majority areas that had been closed for decades.
The first discovery was a Shiva/Hanuman temple in Khaggu Sari, adjoining the Deepa Sarai locality. The temple had reportedly been closed for the past 46 years. This struck a chord in the collective memory of Sambhal, as it had been abandoned following the riots of March 1978, after which the Hindus vacated the locality. Bulldozers clearing encroachments near the temple uncovered three mutilated deity images from an adjacent well. Shortly thereafter, a closed Radha-Krishna temple was discovered in the Sarai Tareen locality.
At the time of writing, a third temple, referred to as the Banke Bihari Temple, has come to light in Laxmanganj, Chandausi, within Sambhal district. It appears that the Hindu community withdrew from Laxmanganj as the Muslim population grew, leaving the temple abandoned. Meanwhile, in a related development, a neglected temple of Siddheshwar Mahadev was reopened in the Madanpura area of Varanasi. The temple was located by Ajay Sharma, President of the Sanatan Raksha Dal. Although the temple’s closure was reportedly not due to any dispute, it had fallen into disuse as Hindus withdrew from the area, which experienced a significant growth in the Muslim population.
In almost all these temples, with help from the administration, daily rituals and bhajans have started. However, the long-term challenge remains sustaining these activities, given the demographic shifts that had initially alienated the Hindu community from these areas.
Critics often accuse the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement, which culminated in the demolition of the abandoned Babri Mosque in Ayodhya (1992), of being catastrophic for communal peace and harmony in India. This raises the question: why did Hindus feel compelled to migrate from mixed localities in Sambhal following the 1978 riots? What exactly transpired in Sambhal on 29 March 1978?
According to the statement made by S.D. Patil, the then Minister of State for Home Affairs, in the Rajya Sabha on 23 November 1978 (unstarred question no. 301), Sambhal experienced severe communal disturbances on 29 March 1978. The unrest apparently began when some members of the Muslim community objected to Holi titles conferred by the student union of the local college upon two Muslim girls. This led to violent clashes accompanied by widespread looting and arson. Police had to resort to firing in three locations to control the mob.
As per the minister, 17 people lost their lives, 33 were injured, and the estimated loss was around Rs 25 lakhs. It might be noted, provided the minister’s description is authentic, that the violence was not provoked by the sprinkling of colours or water on any unwilling individual during Holi. Instead, it was sparked by a cultural act performed by the student union of the local college. Holi, after all, is a cultural festival; it is not even Vande Mataram, which used to rile former Sambhal MP Shafiqur Rahman Barq so much that he walked out of Lok Sabha when the House was dissolved sine die on May 8, 2013.
B. Rajeshwari, in Communal Riots in India: A Chronology 1947–2003 (IPCS Research Paper, 2004), notes that the Sambhal riots of 1978 were attributed to a bootlegging rivalry between Hindus and Muslims, with the latter allegedly seeking to dispossess Hindus of their property (p. 8). It is worth noting that the Sambhal riots occurred during a period marked by infamous communal clashes in Varanasi (1977), Hyderabad (1978), and Moradabad (1980).
However, as the recent rediscovery of the Siddheshwar Mahadev temple in Varanasi illustrates, it is not always necessary for open conflict to precede the dispossession of Hindus from their property. Such outcomes can occur gradually and seemingly peacefully as the Muslim population becomes increasingly dominant. Firhad Hakim, who holds the dual positions of Mayor of Kolkata and Minister of Urban Development and Municipal Affairs in West Bengal, alluded to this peaceful demographic transformation when he recently remarked at an event that Muslims could shift from being a minority to becoming a majority.
III
The trademark secularists often rue that India is becoming assertively Hindu, thereby losing its secular character in public life under the Modi and Yogi administrations. The symbolic events in Sambhal—the loss and recovery of three abandoned temples—illustrate that secularism, much like a flawed calendar, had been going astray in India long before Modi and Yogi emerged. The communal demographic balance was shifting at the micro-level on the ground.
Constitutional secularism (notwithstanding the fact that the word secular was only incorporated in 1976) naturally places all communities on an equal footing. Nay, it grants special community rights to linguistic and religious minorities, while providing fundamental rights to everyone. Although the Constitution references minorities, it makes no mention of the majority community, presumed to be Hindus.
The Constitution, however, has always stated linguistic and religious minorities (it nowhere speaks of religious minorities independently). However, political discourse in independent India ensured that while linguistic minorities could be completely forgotten, religious minorities were given overriding importance.
Secularism erroneously presumes that Hindus being in the majority in India are automatically immune to communal danger. The UPA government, under the influence of the National Advisory Council (NAC), had prepared the draft of a Bill viz. Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011 which would have subverted the principle of equality before the law and penalised the majority community (read Hindus) in cases of communal violence, merely for being a majority. The idea that the majority community like Hindus are immune to communal danger is ‘historically’ and ‘geographically’ fallacious.
Historically, one implies that Hindus have been subjected to invasion, assault, displacement and conversion despite being in majority. Geographically, one implies that while Hindus may be the majority across India, majority-minority dynamics can shift at the level of districts, tehsils, villages, and localities, potentially creating flashpoints. For instance, although Hindus are the majority in Uttar Pradesh, the situation is markedly different in Sambhal, a Muslim-majority town, or Madanpura, a Muslim-majority locality in Varanasi. These are areas where Hindus could experience significant stress, as the environment might change and even become hostile.
India represents a unique exception amidst vast stretches of land, from Mauritania in West Africa to Malaysia and Indonesia in Southeast Asia, where Islam is predominant. This makes the Hindu population less invulnerable than secularists often project. The premise of the two-nation theory, rooted purely in religion, led to the partition of India in 1947. While the partition was a human tragedy marked by widespread displacement, it was assumed to have resolved communal tensions permanently.
Dr BR Ambedkar, whose legacy is now claimed by both the BJP and the Congress, argued in his book Pakistan or the Partition of India (Thacker & Co Ltd, 1946) that partition should have been accompanied by a compulsory exchange of populations along religious lines, similar to the exchange between Greece and Turkey under the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. “The only way to make Hindustan homogenous," writes Dr. Ambedkar, “is to arrange for exchange of population. Until that is done, it must be admitted that even with the creation of Pakistan, the problem of majority vs minority will remain in Hindustan as before and will continue to produce disharmony in the body politic of Hindustan" (Pakistan or the Partition of India, P.104).
Sambhal serves as evidence supporting Dr Ambedkar’s observations. Uttar Pradesh (formerly the United Provinces) was a stronghold of the Muslim League, whose support primarily came from landlords. However, only a small number of Muslims migrated to Pakistan after independence. With its significant Muslim population, it is unsurprising that the state has frequently been a hotspot for communal disturbances in independent India.
The writer is author of the book ‘The Microphone Men: How Orators Created a Modern India’ (2019) and an independent researcher based in New Delhi. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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