A row has erupted over Eknath Shinde’s remarks on the Haji Malang Dargah in Maharashtra. Wikimedia Commons File Photograph
A political row erupted in Maharashtra after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde declared that he’s dedicated to the “liberation” of the centuries-old Haji Malang Dargah. His remarks evoked reactions from different political leaders, with All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi accusing him of “targeting the religious place of one particular faith”.
Situated on a hillock south of Kalyan in Maharashtra’s Thane district, the shrine is claimed by each Hindus and Muslims.
What did Eknath Shinde say? Why is there a dispute over the centuries-old construction? Let’s perceive.
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Addressing the Malanggad Harinam Mahotsav, a non secular gathering, on Tuesday in Thane, Shinde introduced up the longstanding dispute over Kalyan’s Haji Malang Dargah. “I am aware of the deep-rooted beliefs you hold about Malang Gad’s liberation. Let me say…. Eknath Shinde will not stay quiet till he fulfills your wishes,” he mentioned, as per Deccan Herald (DH).
The Maharashtra CM additionally referred to his political mentor Anand Dighe’s position within the “liberation movement” of Malang Gad after which, he mentioned, “we started saying Jay Malang, Shri Malang”.
Historical past of the centuries-old shrine
Located on the bottom plateau of Malanggad – a hill fort on the Matheran hill ranges spanning the Thane-Raigad belt, the dargah was named after Haji Abd-ul-Rahman, a Twelfth-Century Sufi saint, in keeping with an Indian Specific report.
In response to The Gazetteers of Bombay Presidency printed in 1882, the shrine was in-built honour of the Sufi saint from Yemen who was regionally referred to as Haji Malang. He was believed to have come to India with a number of followers from the West Asian nation and settled in Malanggad throughout the reign of the native king, Nal Raja.
Native legends say that the king married off his daughter to the Sufi saint. The graves of each Haji Malang and Maa Fatima are contained in the dargah premises, reported Indian Specific.
Row over the shrine
The primary communal tensions over the construction, which signifies the syncretic tradition of Maharashtra, occurred within the Eighties when Shiv Sena chief Dighe began a protest, claiming it was positioned on the website of an outdated Hindu shrine belonging to Nath Panth, an order of yogis. He claimed the shrine belonged to Hindus because it was the location of a 700-year-old Machindranath temple, in keeping with Indian Specific.
In 1996, Dighe reportedly took the then state Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and a few 20,000 Shiv Sainiks to the shrine to carry out pooja on the event of Magh Purnima. Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had additionally attended the pooja, the English every day famous.
Since then, Sena and different Hindu right-wing teams have been calling the construction – Shri Malang Gad.
Whereas the shrine remains to be a dargah, a number of Hindus additionally supply prayers and carry out aarti on its premises throughout full Moon day, reported Indian Specific.
The Pir Haji Malang Saheb Belief, which manages the dargah, has had members from each Hindu and Muslim communities. “The stewardship of the dargah rests with a local Brahmin family. It is a syncretic shrine and historically people who are distressed and marginalised irrespective of their faiths visit the shrine,” Rama Shyam, who has written a thesis on the dargah, was quoted as saying by Indian Specific.
Reactions to Shinde’s remarks
The Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP) seems to have backed Shinde over the problem. “When you evaluate religious sites, you need to see what was located there earlier. The government will look into the history of Malanggad and check its origins. We will take decisions based on that,” Maharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Bawankule is reported to have mentioned.
“Anyone claiming that the dargah is a temple is doing it for political mileage,” Chandrahas Ketkar, one of many two trustees of the three-member belief, instructed Indian Specific.
“In 1954, the Supreme Court in a case related to control of the dargah within the Ketkar family had made observations stating that the dargah was a composite structure that cannot be governed either by Hindu or Muslim law, but only by its own special custom or by general law of trusts. Political leaders are raking it up now only to appeal to their vote bank and create a political issue,” he added.
AIMIM chief hit out on the Maharashtra chief minister for reigniting the problem. He wrote in a tweet on X on Wednesday (3 January), “Maharashtra CM & Deputy CM are openly celebrating criminal acts and inciting people to commit crime. This is the direct result of the civil & criminal Babri judgements. The judgements may have emboldened such acts. Men who have taken a constitutional oath feel no shame in targeting Muslim places of worship”.
The Nationalist Congress Get together (NCP) Sharad Pawar faction additionally focused Shinde for “making utterances just so to feed communal strife”.
Notably, Shinde had grabbed headlines earlier as properly when he visited the disputed shrine final February, carried out aarti and provided saffron chadar contained in the premises. As per Occasions of India (TOI), political observers say that the CM’s remarks are prone to set the tone for the marketing campaign of his son Shrikant Shinde, who’s an MP from Kalyan, within the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
With inputs from companies