Congress party has a history of trying to legally handcuff the Hindu community’s rights while patting itself on the back maintaining ‘communal harmony’ by appeasing the Muslim community. The grand old party’s legacy has been of turning ‘secularism’ into a synonym for silencing Hindu voices, all while passing it off as its endeavours to uphold “Aman and Bhaichara” while in reality, it’s all about pandering for Muslim votes. In its yet another attempt to uphold ‘secularism’ by crushing Hindu rights, the Congress party has filed an intervention petition in the Supreme Court demanding strict implementation of the contentious Places of Worship Act 1991 as the top court begins hearing on the Act’s constitutional validity.

In the intervention plea filed by Congress leader KC Venugopal on 6^th January 2025, the party sought strict implementation of one of the provisions of the Places of Worship Act (POWA) which prohibits lawsuits to reclaim a place of worship or to change its character from what it was on August 15, 1947.

The party claimed that the enactment of the Places of Worship Act in 1991 reflected the mandate of the Indian voters as it was envisaged in the Congress party’s election manifesto.

“It may be relevant to mention that at the time of the passing of the POWA, it was the Applicant along with the Janata Dal party that were in the majority in the legislature for the 10th Lok Sabha. The Applicant humbly submits that the POWA was enacted by the Parliament, as it reflected the mandate of the Indian populace. The POWA had been envisaged before the year 1991 and the same was made a part of the Applicant’s then Election Manifesto for the Parliamentary elections,” the Congress party said.

The party further contended that the Places of Worship Act safeguards ‘secularism’ in India and that the challenge to its constitutional validity is a “malicious attempt” to undermine secularism.

“The POWA is essential to safeguard secularism in India and the present challenge appears to be a motivated and malicious attempt to undermine established principles of secularism,” Congress said in its intervention plea.

The party went on to emphasise how any alteration in the Places of Worship Act would “jeopardise” communal harmony and the secular fabric of India. Congress stressed that making any alteration in POWA would threaten the sovereignty and integrity of India.

“The Applicant seeks to intervene in this matter to emphasize the constitutional and societal significance of the POWA, as it apprehends that any alterations to it could jeopardize India’s communal harmony and secular fabric thereby threatening the sovereignty and integrity of the nation,” the plea reads.

The leitmotif of Congress’s intervention plea is a supposed threat to ‘secularism’ and how it is paramount to strictly implement the Places of Worship Act, thus barring the Hindu community from approaching courts to reclaim its places of worship destroyed and/or encroached by the Muslim or any other community, to prevent the country from descending into communal anarchy.

Accusing the petitioners who challenged the validity of POWA, Congress said that it “seeks to oppose the present challenge to Sections 2, 3, and 4 of the Act, because the POWA plays a pivotal role in furthering the right to freedom of religion and protects secularism, which is an established basic feature of the constitution.”

Disputing the arguments of petitioner Ashwini Upadhyaya that since Article 13 bars Parliament from enacting laws in contravention of fundamental rights, Parliament was incompetent in enacting the POWA,  Congress contended that the Act is not in contravention rather “actualizes the right to freedom of religion and principles of secularism enshrined in Articles 25, 26, 27 and 28 of the Constitution.”  The Congress party argued that since the Act was introduced and passed in the Parliament, it should be allowed to intervene and defend the Act’s constitutional validity.

In response to the contention that the Places of Worship Act is discriminatory towards Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist communities, the Congress party argued that the Act promotes “equality” and does not accord special treatment towards any specific community (read Muslims).

The Congress party said that POWA “is equally applicable towards places of worship of all religious groups and ascertains and affixes their nature as on 15.08.1947” and that POWA’s section 2(c) defines “places of worship” as a temple, mosque, gurudwara, church, monastery or any other place of public religious worship, to advance its insinuation that it somehow stops Muslims also from challenging religious character of Hindu places of worship, it failed to mention one case wherein Hindus or erstwhile Hindu rulers in the pre-independence era have on any occasion arbitrarily demolished a mosque to erect Hindu temples or are encroaching any property that was originally an Islamic place of worship.

Further, the Congress party presented its arguments to support its position that the Parliament somehow had complete authority and legitimacy to enact the POWA.

It submitted that the POWA is “essential” to allow for ‘communal harmony’ and to promote cordial relations amongst all communities in the country. The Congress party threw its weight behind the Supreme Court to put forth the hackneyed argument that the focus of the nation must be towards the future and not on attempting to rectify the atrocities of the past.

The Congress party emphasized on the importance of upholding preambular values of fraternity and secularism, however, the party failed to elaborate on why it opines that Hindus seeking legal remedy to reclaim their places of worship would jeopardise fraternity and secularism but the Muslim community deliberately encroaching places of worship which originally had a Hindu character does not harm the holier than thou preambular values. Why does the imperative to serve the supposed higher purpose of upholding secularism and communal harmony fall on the shoulders of the Hindu majority and hardly on the second-largest majority?

In its plea filed to Advocate Abhishek Jebaraj, the Congress party prayed that it be allowed to intervene in the writ petition challenging the validity of the Places of Worship Act and file written submissions and adduce arguments as and when required by the Supreme Court.

Congress and its legacy of attacking the Hindu faith and undermining Hindu rights to appease its Muslim vote bank

Congress party evoking “preambular values” like fraternity, secularism, communal harmony and so on to stop Hindus from exercising their fundamental right for the sake of Muslim appeasement is not a new phenomenon. Rather, the party has historically intervened to hinder the Hindu struggle to legally and constitutionally reclaim its places of worship. To better understand how the Congress party has historically denied Hindus the right to reclaim its religious sites, one must recall how the Congress-led UPA 1 filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in 2007 denying the existence of Lord Ram saying that there is no historical proof of Bhagwan Ram’s existence.

An affidavit filed by the Congress-led government read, “Valmiki Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas admittedly form an important part of ancient Indian literature, but these cannot be said to be historical records to incontrovertibly prove the existence of the characters and occurrences of events depicted therein.”  The affidavit was filed to register the UPA government’s opposition to the demand to scrap the Sethusamudram project as it would damage the Ram Setu. Congress-led government’s affidavit was a clear attempt at delegitimising the Hindu beliefs since if Ram didn’t exist, there is no question of the existence of a Ram Setu, thus it should not be a problem to damage the Ram Setu for the said project.

Not to forget, Congress’s affidavit denying the existence of Lord Ram came at a time when the Ayodhya case was ongoing. Fast forward to 2024, Rahul Gandhi openly boasted of having defeated the Ram Janmbhoomi Movement of Hindus in Ayodhya as Samajwadi Party candidate Awadhesh Prasad won from Faizabad Lok Sabha seat which included Ayodhya.

Similarly, senior Congress leader of the time, Kapil Sibal fought the Ram Janmabhoomi case for the Sunni Waqf Board opposing the building of a magnificent Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. He also employed dilatory tactics and asked the apex court to delay the decision in the Ram Janmabhoomi case till the 2019 elections.  Another eminent Congress leader Shashi Tharoor had earlier claimed that no ‘good Hindu’ would want a Ram Mandir at the Babri site. Tharoor urged that one should have the Ram Mandir in one’s heart. 

Basically, Congress’s position was that Hindus should believe that either Bhagwan Ram does not exist or even if they want to believe he does, they should keep him in their hearts and not demand Ram Mandir at the birthplace of Lord Ram and let ‘Babri’ of secularism remain untouched.

Now Congress’s intervention plea on the Places of Worship Act falls in line with this trend of denying Hindus the fundamental right to approach courts to reclaim their places of worship implying that the grievances of the Hindu community can easily be sacrificed for the sake of preserving the Congress party’s distorted idea of peace, communal harmony, secularism and brotherhood.  

Places of Worship Act itself is violative of the principles of natural justice

Back in 1991, the PV Narasimha Rao-led Congress regime passed the Places of Worship Act to protect the religious character of places of worship as they existed in 1947, except the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid issue, which was already in court. It also provided for the preservation of the religious character of such a place of worship on that particular day.

As per this Act, a site of worship’s religious character must remain the same as it was on August 15, 1947. The law also says that nobody ever shall translate any religious denomination’s holy site into one of a distinct denomination or section. In addition, the law asserts that every lawsuit, appeal, or other proceedings about changing the character of the area of worship pending before any court or authority on August 15, 1947, will be terminated as soon as the legislation becomes effective, meaning there cannot be any further legal proceedings. Furthermore, the act also imposes a positive obligation on the state to maintain the religious character of every place of worship as it existed at the time of independence. The Act has an exemption under which legal proceedings can be initiated under the Places of Worship Act of 1991 if the change of status occurred after the August 15, 1947 deadline.

Incidentally, the introduction and enactment of the Places of Worship Act in 1991, which the Congress party boasted in its intervention appeal as some sort of achievement, itself demonstrates that the grand old party can go to any lengths to appease the Muslim community even at the expense of depriving the Hindu community the fundamental right to seek legal restitution for its lost/destroyed or encroached places of worship.

Places of Worship Act was passed when the illegal Babri Mosque was still standing on top of Ram Janmabhoomi although the Hindu demand for reclamation of the Ram Janmbhoomi site where the illegal structure stood was at its peak. Moreover, the arbitrary deadline of 15th August 1947 was Congress’s way of telling the Hindus that your time to seek justice was before independence, now in independent India, you have to bear the burden of secularism and brotherhood for the sake of those whose co-religionists already carved out a separate Islamic nation on the corpses of Hindus, Sikhs and other non-Muslim communities.

A question that comes to one’s mind is why the Congress party backs the Places of Worship Act even though it is predominantly anti-Hindu. To answer this, one needs to understand the mindset of Congress leaders, particularly, those who held important positions at the time of the passage of this contentious Act.

While passing the act in 1991, the then Union Home Minister S B Chavan said, “It is considered necessary to adopt these measures in view of the controversies arising from time to time about the conversion of places of worship which tend to vitiate the communal atmosphere… Adoption of this Bill will effectively prevent any new controversies from arising in respect of conversion of any place of worship…”.

Unbelievable isn’t it? The country’s Home Minister stands on the floor of Lok Sabha and tells Hindus that they should accept injustice to preserve ‘peace’ and ‘secularism’ that too at a time when advocacy and activism for restoration of Ram Mandir at the Ram Janmbhoomi site in Ayodhya where the Babri structure stood was at the peak. The timing of the Act’s passage indicates, that more than being a law for ‘social justice’, POWA was a political Act brought by the Narasimha Rao government to empower the Muslim community to continue occupying the places of worship which originally had Hindu character, who in exchange would function as Congress’s vote bank. This was also a time when the Bhartiya Janata Party registered its meteoric rise from 2 seats in 1984 to 120 seats in the general elections of 1991.

Besides S B Chavan, the views of Congress motormouth Mani Shankar Aiyar who was a Lok Sabha MP when the POWA was passed, also give an insight into why Congress not only takes pride in bringing a fundamentally anti-Hindu legislation like POWA but also defends it. Mani Shankar Aiyar once admitted that he sees the Gyanvapi Masjid structure in Kashi as a “symbol of secularism”.

When a debate on the Places of Worship Act was going on in the Lok Sabha, the BJP which traditionally has been supportive of the Hindu cause, vehemently opposed the POWA. Then BJP MP Uma Bharti had said that peace cannot be attained by outrightly dismissing Hindu sentiments.

During her speech, the BJP MP said, “Owners of bullock carts in villages, create a wound on the back of the ox and when they want their bullock carts to move faster they strike at the wound. Similarly, these disputes are wounds and marks of slavery on our ‘Bharat Mata’. So long as ‘Gyan Vapi’ continues in its present condition at Banaras and a grave remains in a temple at Pavagarh, it will remind us of the atrocities perpetrated by Aurangzeb including his efforts to convert Hindus to Islam and this would be very painful.”

Back then, Congress MP Mani Shankar Aiyar called the Gyanvapi structure a “symbol of secularism” and downplayed the fact that those broken walls of the erstwhile Hindu temple attached to Gyanvapi ‘mosque’ do not symbolise secularism as the temple and mosque did not come together as a result of some mutual understanding but through the violence against Hindus and destruction of the Hindu temple by Islamic invaders.

“Uma Bharti told us that when she had visited Varanasi and saw a temple and a mosque together, a feeling came to her that the temple had been demolished. She considered it to be a disgrace to Hinduism. According to her, a Muslim king had built a mosque there. There is only one difference between her and myself, what she thinks is a sign of servility, I take that thing as a symbol of secularism. The difference between Bhartiya Janata Party and myself is that it understands the last thousand years were the years of slavery, but I think that in these thousand years a new culture, a new religion, new feelings and new ideas have entered into our These influenced and attracted us. I say that if India is the first Hindu country in the world, I also say that India is the second Muslim country in the world. After Indonesia, the Muslim population in our country is far more than their population in any other country which includes all the Gulf..” Aiyar said.

Why does Cong back Place of Worship Act, 1991 that is predominantly anti-Hindu? That's because for Cong Gyanvapi Mosque built by demolishing a temple is a "symbol of secularism"! Unbelievable, but true. Read below: This is admitted by then Cong MP Mani Shankar Aiyar's in LS,… pic.twitter.com/zKIzL9yS6q

— Rahul Shivshankar (@RShivshankar) January 17, 2025

What better can be expected from a political party whose lawmakers not only justify the destruction of Hindu temples but also glorify the act and Islamic invaders who killed and raped the native Hindu and other non-Muslim communities, forcibly converted Hindus and others to Islam, plundered their wealth and destroyed their temples to establish Islamic supremacy. The Places of Worship Act was a result of the desperation of the Congress party to legally justify the misdeeds of Islamic invaders like Babur and Aurangzeb of breaking temples and building mosques over them to suppress the Hindu efforts to reclaim their temples which are the heart of Hindu spirituality. In doing so, Congress denied Hindus their right to identity, right to justice, freedom of religion, and right to equality all in the name of preserving communal harmony and secularism.

Other Mani Shankar Aiyar, Congress leader Pattabhi Sitharamayya and Bishambar Nath Pande were also among those who justified Islamic fanatic Aurangzeb’s barbarity in demolishing the Kashi Vishwanath temple. In fact, Sitharamayya went as far as to concoct an absolutely fake story based on the ‘rare’ manuscript provided by a ‘respected Mulla’ to justify the destruction of Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Pande furthered a false story that Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple because the Brahmin priests used to loot wealthy pilgrims as claimed by a Rani of Kutch. In his book Waiting for Shiva, historian Vikram Sampath uncovered the source of these false stories fabricated by Congress leaders Sitharamayya and. Bishambar Nath Pande. It was found that the story Pattabhi Sitharamayya fabricated was based on an unnamed mullah acquaintance of Sitharamayya quoted an unnamed manuscript termed as ‘rare’ to suggest that Aurangzeb was a man of golden-heart who destroyed Kashi Vishwanath temple for ‘social justice’.

Congress’s opposition to any attempt of the Hindu community to rectify atrocities of the past, particularly when it comes to Hindu temples does not begin with the Places of Worship Act. In fact, Congress stalwart and India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had vehemently opposed the reconstruction of Somnath Temple in Gujarat which endured numerous attacks until the final the final destruction in 1665 CE when it was converted into a mosque on the instructions of Aurangzeb. While Sardar Patel advocated for the restoration of Somnath Temple, Nehru dubbed it as a sign of “Hindu revivalism”.

Amusingly, while Congress often accuses the BJP of mixing religion with politics, the Congress party itself has a history of pandering to the Muslim community for electoral and ideological benefits. The Waqf law brought by the Congress government exemplifies the same. The Act brought by the Congress party made the Waqf Board powerful beyond imagination. So much so that the Waqf Board arbitrarily makes ownership claims over the lands, properties, colleges, Hindu-majority villages and even temples of Hindus. Waqf Board managed to keep Hindus away from Ayodhya Ram Janmbhoomi for decades. Even in the Kashi Vishwanath Temple case, the Sunni Waqf Board out of nowhere claimed that the temple land was a Waqf property.

Unsurprisingly, when the BJP government brought the Waqf Amendment Bill last year, the Congress party vehemently opposed it citing concerns over the ‘religious freedom’ of the Muslim community. Here the Congress party won’t urge the Waqf Boards to stop randomly claiming ownership of lands and properties for communal harmony and secularism since doing so would upset its coveted Muslim votebank.

Communal Violence Bill: Congress’s attempt to label blame Hindus as rioters even when they would be the victims

Just as Congress leaders justified and even glorified the destruction of a centuries-old Hindu temple citing the imaginary magnanimity of Islamic tyrant Aurangzeb’s heart and impetus to protect people from “wicked brahmins”, they justify their own suppression of Hindu rights to the supposed higher purpose of upholding communal harmony and secularism. Similar to the way some Congress leaders and Marxist historians blamed Hindus only for the destruction of the Kashi Vishwanath temple and thus should not seek its reclamation, the Congress party also has always expected Hindus to maintain harmony even when being massacred.

Congress exemplified this mindset in its contentious Communal Violence Bill. In 2005, UPA1 introduced a communal violence bill. In 2011, under the guidance of the NAC, UPA2 introduced a revised draft of the same. Although the bill had to be dropped in 2014, the grounds for its withdrawal were primarily due to concerns about overlap with the powers of the State government. 

In the 2005 version of the bill, any “group” that has become a victim of communal attacks could seek redressal. However, in 2011, a new definition of the “group” which is protected, was introduced. “Group means a religious or linguistic minority, in any State in the Union of India, or Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes within the meaning of clauses (24) and (25) of Article 366 of the Constitution of India”.  This meant that only minorities and SCs/STs could be “victims” and the perpetrators of communal violence would always be the majority, which is Hindus. The definition of “offences” itself was so wide — any sort of crime could be brought under the ambit of this Act.

While the Congress party claims that it is backing the Places of Worship Act to safeguard ‘secularism’, it must answer how its Waqf Act safeguards secularism, how its decision to gift 123 properties to the Delhi Waqf Board in 2014 ahead of elections safeguarded secularism. The Congress party should enlighten Hindus as to how to align with DMK, a political party that has a history of spreading hatred against Brahmins and whose leaders describe Sanatan Dharma as dengue and malaria and call for its eradication, safeguard secularism, preserve peace in the country.

Conclusion

Congress party and its supportive ecosystem have long been guilt-tripping Hindus for having fought the legal battle for the reclamation of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. In the name of maintaining communal harmony, secularism and ‘bhaichara’, the Muslim-appeasing party believes that Hindus should let go of Gyanvapi-Kashi Vishwanath temple, Shri Krishna Janmbhoomi in Mathura, Harihar Mandir in Sambhal to all such places of worship which stand on the ruins of Hindu temples. Beyond the Muslim appeasement politics, Congress’s deliberate reluctance to comprehend the fact that communal harmony cannot be built on the denial of justice to one community stems from the fact it does not really believe that Hindus have faced any injustice to an extent that it would support the undoing of the injustice committed against Hindus.

Be it Digvijay Singh who heaped praises on Mughals or Mani Shankar Aiyar who declared Mughal tyrants Babur and Humayun as patriots, when a party has leaders who celebrate and glorify the oppressors of their country’s majority community and peddle victimhood of a specific community due to their capability to consolidate their votes, how will they be able to relate to the Hindu community’s quest to undo the historical wrongs not establish religious supremacy over any particular community or to humiliate them but simply because it is their fundamental right to approach the courts and seek legal and constitutional remedy for reclamation of their temples. By invoking communal harmony and secularism, the Congress party expects Hindus to bear the burden of peace even when they are being denied their basic rights. The Congress party’s intervention plea is not merely about preserving the status quo, it is about continuing a historical pattern of denying Hindus their right to justice for the sake of political expediency. But then, it must not be forgotten that Congress once betrayed Muslim women and overturned the Supreme Court ruling in the Shah Bano case to appease Islamists.

Congress’s intervention petition filed before the Supreme Court repeatedly emphasises how strict implementation of the Places of Worship Act is necessary to preserve secularism and peace, however, what it actually is trying to preserve is nothing but a temporary truce before the “nizam” changes. True secularism and brotherhood beyond religious lines, although both of these concepts are alien to the Islamists, would only be when the Muslim community voluntarily returns all the Hindu temples destroyed or converted into mosques by Islamic invaders without the need to approach courts. Hindus are not randomly claiming ownership of any property or looking for Shiv Lingam beneath the mosques, Hindus do not have a Waqf Board-like body for that, but only are using the legal and constitutional methods at hand to reclaim their lost temples for which they claim to have historical and archaeological evidence, however, Congress wants to strip Hindus of that right as well, in fact, it already stripped Hindus of this right with the enactment of Places of Worship Act, now its fight is to perpetuate the denial of fundamental rights of Hindus and travesty of justice.