Indian court hands historic mosque to Hindus in controversial ruling
Court ruling on 700-year-old mosque complex raises concerns over judicial backing for Hindu nationalist land claims
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — An Indian court on Friday declared a historic mosque complex in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh a Hindu temple. The High Court ruled that Kamal Maula Mosque complex was historically linked to the Hindu goddess Saraswati, while the complex has functioned as the Kamal Maula Mosque for centuries.
The dispute centers on the Bhojshala-Kamal Maula complex in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh state.
The judgment by the Madhya Pradesh High Court on the Bhojshala-Kamal Maula Mosque complex has triggered fresh concerns over the weakening of India’s secular constitutional framework and the gradual erosion of a 1991 law designed to prevent new religious disputes after the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
In its ruling, a division bench of Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla and Justice Alok Awasthi held that the site was historically a Hindu temple and noted what it described as continuity of Hindu worship at the complex.
“We have noted continuity of Hindu worship at the site here has never been extinguished,” the court said.
The court also suggested that Muslims could seek alternative land from the government to build a mosque elsewhere in Dhar district — a recommendation widely viewed as echoing the Indian Supreme Court’s controversial 2019 Babri Masjid verdict, which handed the site of a demolished 16th-century mosque to Hindu groups while directing authorities to allot separate land for Muslims.
Muslim leaders and opposition figures quickly compared the Bhojshala ruling to the Babri Masjid judgment, warning that courts were increasingly legitimizing majoritarian religious claims over Islamic-era structures.
Opposition parliamentarian Asaduddin Owaisi said the ruling carried “glaring similarities with the Babri Masjid judgment” and expressed hope that India’s Supreme Court would overturn the order.
The court also ended a 2003 administrative arrangement under which Muslims had been allowed to offer Friday prayers at the complex while Hindus worshipped there on Tuesdays.
The verdict follows a 98-day survey conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) after the High Court ordered a scientific examination of the site in 2024. Hindu petitioners argued that the survey uncovered inscriptions, sculptures and architectural remains allegedly pointing to the existence of an earlier temple structure.
However, Muslim parties repeatedly challenged both the methodology and credibility of the ASI survey, accusing authorities of selectively interpreting evidence to support Hindu nationalist claims.
Senior advocate Salman Khurshid, representing the Muslim side, argued before the court that there was no direct evidence showing that a Saraswati temple had been demolished in order to build the mosque.
“There is nothing in the record of the survey report where there is any direct specific evidence” proving that a temple was destroyed to construct the mosque, Khurshid argued during hearings.
He also alleged irregularities in the handling of recovered artefacts and questioned why carbon dating — a standard scientific method used to determine the age of archaeological material — had not been conducted despite its importance to the dispute.
Khurshid further accused the ASI of altering portions of the structure during the survey process itself, claiming stairs and platforms within the mosque complex were removed despite judicial directions to preserve the site’s original condition.
Muslim organizations said they would challenge the ruling in the Supreme Court.
Dhar city Qazi Waqar Sadiq said the verdict would be reviewed before filing an appeal, while Zulfiqar Pathan, president of the Kamal Maula Mosque Namaz Intezamia Committee, vowed to continue the legal battle.
The ruling comes amid a growing wave of petitions filed by Hindu nationalist groups seeking surveys and ownership claims over historic mosques in several Indian cities, including Varanasi and Mathura. These campaigns allege that temples once existed beneath or around mosques built during Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent.
Legal experts say such litigation undermines the spirit of India’s 1991 Places of Worship Act, which legally froze the religious character of all places of worship as they existed at the time of India’s independence in 1947.
The law was enacted specifically to prevent fresh communal disputes after decades of political mobilization surrounding the Babri Masjid which was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992.
Despite that law, courts in recent years have increasingly permitted surveys and hearings related to mosque-temple disputes, alarming Muslim groups and constitutional scholars who fear the judiciary is opening the door to wider challenges against historic Islamic sites in the form of highly controversial verdicts.
Civil rights advocates warn that these legal campaigns represent a shift from street mobilization to courtroom-driven efforts aimed at redefining India’s historical and religious landscape under Hindutva ideology, the Hindu supremacist movement closely associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
For many Indian Muslims, the Kamal Maula Mosque verdict has revived fears that the pattern established in the Babri Masjid case — where a mosque dispute evolved into a nationwide Hindu nationalist movement before culminating in a court-backed transfer of the site — is increasingly being repeated across the country.
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