India’s top court allows partial demolition of 400-year-old mosque

NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — India’s Supreme Court has refused to intervene in the partial demolition of the 400-year-old Mansa Masjid in Ahmedabad, Gujarat — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state — a decision that rights groups say exposes the judiciary’s complicity in the systematic targeting of Muslim heritage.

The Mughal-era mosque, located near Sabarmati Railway Station in the city’s Saraspur area, has been marked for removal of its surrounding structures as part of a road-widening project.

The court ruled that only the platform, staircase, plants, and boundary wall would be cleared — not the main prayer hall. It also said that compensation could be considered later if the state’s Waqf Board proved its ownership.

The ruling came after the Gujarat High Court earlier declined to halt the demolition. Lawyers for the mosque argued that even a “partial demolition” would irreparably damage the mosque’s sanctity and historical fabric. The Mansa Masjid remains an active place of worship and is listed in the city’s revenue records as a religious site.

For many in Ahmedabad, the decision evokes memories of the city’s painful history. Gujarat is often described as the “laboratory of Hindutva” — the right-wing Hindu nationalist ideology championed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Civil society groups say the Mansa Masjid case is part of a broader pattern of erasing Islamic architecture under the guise of development. Over the past few years, mosques, shrines, and dargahs across BJP-ruled states have faced demolitions or encroachments, often justified as urban renewal or anti-encroachment drives.

Legal observers also point to a worrying continuity in court rulings. The Supreme Court’s refusal echoes its earlier positions — including the 1994 and 2018 judgments declaring mosques “not an essential part of Islam” — which rights advocates say have eroded religious protections for India’s Muslims.

The decision also revives memories of the Babri Masjid case, where the Supreme Court in 2019 awarded the disputed site in Ayodhya to Hindu claimants, despite acknowledging a lack of evidence that the 16th-century mosque was built atop a Hindu temple.

The Babri mosque, demolished in 1992 by a Hindu extremist mob, became the symbolic cornerstone of the BJP’s ascent to power and the subsequent construction of the Ram temple.

For Gujarat’s Muslim community, the fate of Mansa Masjid is more than a legal setback — it is another reminder that history itself has become contested ground. Four centuries of faith, carved in stone, now stand before bulldozers guarded by law.