By Ambreen Agha
In India, mosques have become symbolic battlegrounds for competing historical narratives, turning many of the buildings into sites of contention and flashpoints for religious tensions. In some states, the Hindu right has been claiming that these mosques were built over destroyed Hindu temples over centuries of Muslim rule.
The most recent target in this campaign involves the 16th-century Sambhal Mosque, also known as the Shahi Jama Masjid, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
This Mughal-era mosque was given “protected monument” status in 1920 during British rule under the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act of 1904. This layer of protection was eroded when a petition was filed by Hari Shankar Jain on November 19, 2024, alleging that the mosque was built on the ruins of the ancient Harihar temple.
Jain, President of the Hindu Front for Justice, has been the lead petitioner in most mosque dispute cases in recent decades.
Following the petition, a civil court ordered a survey of the mosque, igniting an old debate about “reclaiming the Hindu past.”
This story was originally published in trtworld.com. Read the full story here.
