After over four decades of silence and locked gates, peace and harmony returned to a plot of land in Varanasi’s Jagat Ganj area this week. On Monday, 21st July, the rusted locks on a 4,000-square-foot disputed plot were finally broken. Members of both the Shri Bade Hanuman Mandir Management Committee and the Varanasi Gurdwara Management Committee were present.
This site, previously overgrown with weeds and crumbling walls, has a rich history. It was donated by the ancestors of social worker Pradeep Narayan Singh to build a Hindu temple and a Sikh gurudwara.
However, the area was locked up by the district administration on 31st October, 1984, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards. Tensions heightened throughout the nation. In anticipation of violence between communities. The plot was shut down for 42 years.
Singh, whose relatives had originally made the land donation, was instrumental in putting an end to the long-standing conflict. For the past two months, he had conducted several negotiations talks with both the temple and gurudwara committees. His efforts finally paid off when both parties agreed to share the land equally and presented a joint settlement letter to the local court.
The gurudwara was a small building at that time, and the temple was temporary, Singh said. “To avoid any communal stress following the assassination of former PM Indira Gandhi, the administration locked the entire place.”
Ever since, the land had been left untouched, a testament to an issue that nobody had ever been able to solve. There were numerous attempts over the years, but none of them succeeded. Temporary walls and buildings would sometimes arise along the contested border, but whenever talks were initiated, they would collapse again.
It wasn’t until recently that both of the committees decided it was time to put the matter once and for all. “There were several meetings and mutual faith, and both sides agreed on splitting the land,” said Singh. “They signed the agreement and left it in the court’s hands.”
Paramjeet Singh Ahluwalia, Vice-President of the Gurdwara Management Committee, referred to the occasion as “historic.” According to him, the gurudwara is very important to the Sikh community since Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru, visited there. “This gurudwara is about 300 years old, and it’s very holy for us. Thousands of Sikhs from Varanasi and other places will now be able to come and pray here,” he further added.
Ahluwalia said there are approximately 25,000 Sikhs residing in Varanasi at present, and this will be the fifth gurudwara of the city. Work on the new gurudwara will start in the near future.
On the temple side, the committee will also begin work on a massive Hanuman temple. “This settlement will be something our generations to come will remember,” said Satya Narayan Pandey, brother of temple representative Shyam Narayan Pandey.
With both groups now due to construct their places of worship on the same site, the 42-year-old strife has at last come to an end; in its place, peace, respect for one another, and a common vision of religious harmony.
