Days after a local court ordered a survey of the Ajmer Sharif dargah, a group of former bureaucrats and diplomats has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention to halt all "illegal and pernicious" activities that are an "ideological assault" on India's civilisational heritage and pervert the idea of an inclusive country.
Stating that he alone can halt "all illegal, pernicious activities", the group has reminded Modi that he himself had sent "chadars" on the occasion of the annual Urs of the 12th-century saint, Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, as a homage to his message of peace and harmony.
The group of nearly half-a-dozen former bureaucrats and diplomats, including former Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung, former high commissioner of India to the United Kingdom Shiv Mukherjee, former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi, former vice-chief of Army staff Lieutenant General Zameeruddin Shah and former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) deputy governor Ravi Vira Gupta, wrote to the prime minister on November 29 about unknown fringe groups claiming to represent Hindu interests and demanding archaeological surveys of medieval mosques and dargahs to prove the previous existence of temples at these sites.
"Despite the clear provisions of the Places of Worship Act, the courts too seem to respond to such demands with undue alacrity and haste," they said.
The contents of the letter were confirmed by two of the signatories to it.
"It appears unimaginable, for example, that a local court should order a survey on the 12th-century dargah of the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti -- one of the most sacred Sufi sites in Asia not just for Muslims but for all Indians who are proud of our syncretic and pluralist traditions.
"The very thought that a mendicant saint, a fakir, who was an integral part of the Sufi/Bhakti movement unique to the Indian subcontinent and a paragon of compassion, tolerance and harmony, could have destroyed any temple to assert his authority is ridiculous," they wrote.
On November 27, a civil court in Ajmer issued notices to the Ajmer Dargah committee, the Union Ministry of Minority Affairs and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), after a petition was filed by Vishnu Gupta, national president of the Hindu Sena, claiming that the dargah was originally a Shiva temple.
Successive prime ministers, including Modi, have sent "chadars" on the occasion of the annual Urs of the saint. "An ideological assault on this uniquely syncretic site is an assault on our civilisational heritage and perverts the very idea of an inclusive India that you yourself seek to reinvigorate," the group wrote to the prime minister.
In the recent past, there have been calls for boycotting Muslim business establishments and eateries, non-renting of premises to Muslims and unrestrained bulldozing of Muslim houses at the behest of chief ministers themselves, led by a ruthless local administration, the former diplomats added.
About 1.54 lakh establishments have been hit and lakhs rendered homeless or bereft of their places of business, they said, adding that in most cases, the affected parties are Muslims.
"There is immediate need for an interfaith meeting under your chairmanship where you as the prime minister of an inclusive Bharat should give out a message that India remains a land for all, where faiths have existed together and in harmony for centuries and that no sectarian forces will be permitted to disturb this uniquely pluralistic and diverse legacy," the former diplomats said.