IT was the demolition of a mosque that catapulted the Bharatiya Janata Party into political prominence. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad began the campaign to destroy Babri Masjid in the 1980s. The BJP was its political voice. In December 1992, the mosque was demolished, and the pretence was that the destruction was driven by an angry mob. The inquiry commission looking into the matter found that the destruction was planned. Senior BJP leaders, including the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, were implicated. Nothing happened to the culprits, and by 2019, when the BJP was entrenched in power, India’s apex court handed over the Ayodhya site to the Hindu parties for the construction of the Ram Temple.

The BJP has clung to mosque-related disputes as a political strategy through the decades, and the statistics are truly alarming. A recent report by the Millat Times, an Indian Muslim publication, found at least 2,126 instances of demolition, removal and eviction involving mosques and other Muslim sites, including madressahs and dargahs, since 2020. Most of the demolitions have been in Uttar Pradesh — home to millions of Indian Muslims, and hence a target for the BJP.

Last month, it was the turn........

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