In the last few days, there has been a lot of discussion of the destruction of the Babri Masjid. Predictably, the “Saffroniate” has argued that while the mob destruction of the mosque was wrong, the decision to build a Ram Temple on the site of the mosque is justified.
This post will serve as a brief rebuttal to this argument. India is a constitutionally secular state. In a constitutionally secular state, there is absolutely no excuse for destroying a minority place of worship–no matter what the circumstances. This is a red line that must never be crossed. While Babri may not be equivalent to Notre Dame–I am personally agnostic about this argument– there is no excuse for even one mosque to be destroyed in a secular state. The decision to build a Ram Temple where the mosque used to be is a post-facto justification of the mob destruction of the minority place of worship.
The argument has been made that India instituted a new piece of legislation–the Places of Worship Act– in order to make sure that such an incident doesn’t take place again. The question was asked if Pakistan has instituted similar legislation.
In my opinion, this is a disingenuous argument. Comparing a constitutionally secular state to an Islamic Republic is intellectually untenable. While I do not believe that even an Islamic Republic should allow minority places of worship to be destroyed–and minority places of worship such as the Jain Mandir in Lahore were destroyed as revenge for the destruction of Babri– one cannot criticize Pakistan for not upholding the principles of secularism since we have never claimed to be a secular state. We are an Islamic Republic and we are absolutely open about it.
Lastly, I have no problem with Indians wanting to claim to be the successor state of the Mughal Empire. However, Indians must also allow Pakistanis to assert this same claim. As mentioned multiple times on BP, Lahore was the capital of the Empire for a number of years. The city contains Mughal sites such as the Shahi Kila (Lahore Fort), Badshahi Masjid, Shalimar Bagh, Jahangir’s Tomb etc. So it is intellectually untenable to deny Pakistan’s Mughal heritage.
Additionally, one cannot claim the Mughals while simultaneously villianizing them. Many BJP politicians have pejoratively referred to Muslims as “Babur ki aulaad” (Babur’s children). This doesn’t suggest great respect for the dynasty. It is hypocritical for India’s Prime Ministers to give their Independence Day speeches from the Lal Kila (Red Fort), which is essentially a Muslim palace. Surely, this speech can be given from Nagpur?
(been lurking on here for a while, this is my first comment)
You are conflating a specific failure of law and order – the mob destruction of the Babri Masjid – with a systemic invalidation of India’s secular status. This strikes me as disingenuous. By this logic, one could argue that Pakistan’s identity as an Islamic Republic was voided in Operation Searchlight in 1971 when its own state apparatus persecuted the majority of its Muslims(Bengalis).
Furthermore, if we apply your ‘red line’ standard consistently, the frequent and often systemic attacks on Shia Muslim citizens in Pakistan would similarly disqualify it from being an Islamic Republic. A stark, recent example is the horrific bombing of the Khadija Tul Kubra Imambargah in Islamabad in early 2026. “An Islamic State does not allow a minority sect of Islam’s (in this case, Shia) place of worship to be bombed” – would you accept that statement?
If an Islamic state can suffer such fundamental internal failures to protect its own minority sects and their places of worship, yet still retain its constitutional identity, it is intellectually inconsistent to suggest that a secular state loses its status due to a singular (albeit grave) failure of the police power to restrain a mob.
> The decision to build a Ram Temple where the mosque used to be is a post-facto justification of the mob destruction of the minority place of worship.
This conflates two separate legal spheres: the criminal act of the 1992 destruction and the civil dispute over land ownership. The judiciary cannot ignore the merits of a land title or archaeological evidence simply to issue a symbolic ‘punishment’ for a past failure of law and order. To suggest the court should have ruled against the Hindu claimants purely because of the mob’s actions is to argue that illegal behavior should dictate legal outcomes; a truly secular court must remain blind to the status of the actors and rule strictly on the historical and legal evidence presented.
A state’s constitutional identity is a framework for governance, not a guarantee of perfect execution (this is true of India in 1993 when it was a very poor, governance-deficit state). A secular state’s duty is to resolve disputes through the Rule of Law, which is exactly what the subsequent judicial process in India has done – separating the criminal act of the mob from the legal merits of the land claim. Had the court ruled in favor of the Muslims, the govt would have provided for a new, grander Babri Masjid to be rebuilt.
I have a few quibbles about your claim about ownership of the Mughal legacy, will address that in another comment.
Thanks for your comment.
I strongly disagree with you but since you’ve made your points in a civilized manner, I will respond to you.
First of all, I never said that India’s secular status was “systematically invalidated”. I will continue to hold India to the standards of a constitutionally secular state up until the day it formally becomes a “Hindu Rashtra”. At that point, the standards of secularism would no longer apply–just as they do not apply to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Also, to be completely frank with you, I don’t believe India is actually a secular state in practice. It is becoming increasingly clear that the country is turning into a majoritarian Hindu state. Your PM is called the “Emperor of Hindu Hearts”.
But as long as the state is secular according to the constitution, it must be held to the standards of a secular state. Indians are certainly free to change their constitution.
I have a problem with the “Saffroniate” on this blog making excuses for the destruction of the mosque and the building of a temple in its place. The argument goes “Well, a mob shouldn’t have destroyed the mosque but building the temple was the right decision”. To be frank, this is a disingenuous argument and simply reflects the fact that the center of the Indian political spectrum is basically “soft Hindutva”.
I stand by my position that in a constitutionally secular state there is NEVER an excuse to destroy even one mosque. This is not on.
The bombing of the Imambargah in Islamabad was not a case of mob destruction but a terrorist act. The Pakistani state has identified the culprit as the TTP, which is considered an Indian proxy. So it is not at all comparable to the destruction of Babri.
I’m technically Shia by the way so this stuff about how the Pakistani state treats Shias doesn’t wash with me. Approximately 20% of Pakistani Muslims are Shia–some in very powerful positions. As an example, Mohsin Naqvi, the Interior Minister, is Shia.
it is a different thing; if Pakistan had ethnically displaced its entire Shi’ite population to Iran, then claimed to have Shi’ite heritage.
That is the equivalent of Babri; oops destroying the Masjid was really bad but we’ll now build the Temple on top of it.
It is taking advantage of someone else’s brutality to get what one wants.
Yes, it’s a disingenuous argument. “I’m not justifying mob destruction but the Supreme Court was right to order the temple to be built”.
As I said in the post, I’m also not justifying the destruction of the Jain Mandir in Lahore. Obviously, Pakistanis were furious that Babri had been destroyed but that’s not an excuse.
For what it’s worth, the Government of Pakistan restored the Jain Mandir after the Pakistani Supreme Court ordered them to.
yes Pakistan can do better in making sure Minority Monuments (and all Monuments) are in tip-top condition.
hasn’t Kabir banned you from his threads?
if you aren’t going to abide by his rules; that’s a deliberate provocation.
? I am not BB or RNJ, if thats what you’re wondering.
I think X.T.M’s comment was in response to a (now deleted) comment of BB’s.
No one thinks you are BB or RNJ 🙂 You’re most welcome to comment since you are doing so in a civilized manner.
That is, in fact, BB’s sock account.
I don’t think so. The initial comment was quite civilized. It didn’t have any of BB’s particular tells.
Anyway, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt unless they prove that they don’t deserve it.
I’m more than certain that’s him. You’re free to make the call though.
I have quite a bit of experience dealing with various iterations of BB under different names.
Like I said, I prefer to go with the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”.
BB has dramatically evolved in a very short time. he is the catalytic fire that spurs BP on.
if BP is as much urs as it is ours; it is increasingly becoming as much his as it is yours.
yes exact
why would BB create an alter ego?
It’s pretty obvious – to circumvent a ban in order to communicate with Kabir directly.
it doesn’t code like that at all – also why would BB go to such lengths?
he has assiduously avoided K as requested
If there’s anyone who would it’s definitely him.
Someone that gives death threats to posters on here and makes content sexualizing/fetishizing Pakistani women, isn’t someone anyone should be holding in high moral regard.
yes welcome Snaps
Excellent post. We have made it a Precedent Post.
What is interesting about Babri Masjid lies in the name. It was one of the first Mughal-era Mosques and certainly among the first in Ayodhya.
It could have and should have been moved.
Thanks.
It was made a century after Babur
oh interesting
The date of construction of the Babri Masjid is uncertain. The inscriptions on the Babri Masjid premises found in the 20th century state that the mosque was built in 935 AH (1528–29) by Mir Baqi in accordance with the wishes of Babur.[34] However, these inscriptions appear to be of a more recent vintage.[35]
muslims were offered a part of the original site as a compromise when the disputed structure stood. they refused. the local petitioners were ok, but the delhi and lucknow bigwigs spoiled it.
India is not a secular state in practise. It has always been a Hindu state. What you are referring by secular here is ‘tolerance of other religions’. Hinduism is naturally tolerant of other religions and lets them worship their gods, because Hinduism is not an organized religion but lots of pagan traditions with different gods put together under a geographical moniker by the Muslims/British. When it is not tolerant and ‘secular’, it will collapse under its own weight, because of these divisions. Hindutva tries to remove these differences and create a common identity (in an imitation of Islam) to fight a united Islamic front.
The Babri masjid – as I said before here – should have been given to Hindus because for one side it was just a dilapldated mosque while for the other side it ‘became’ the birthplace of a God. The problem Indians deal with now is that it sets a precendent where now every mosque& church is a target because someone claimed a God was born there. There is no stopping these types of claims, until the Overton window shifts again (and it will again within the next 20 years)
I agree with you that India is not a secular state in practice. It is very quickly turning into a “Hindu Pakistan”. No less a person than Ram Guha has pointed this out.
It’s a pity as Pakistanis like my family have always admired Nehruvian Secularism.
But as long as India is a constitutionally secular state, I will hold it to the standards of secularism.
I also agree with you that Hindutva is in many ways trying to imitate Islam. Just as Muslims have the Quran, Hindutva wants Hindus to have the Ramayana. Just as we have Allah, the BJP wants Hindus to have “Ram”. It’s very “one book, one god etc” of them.
interestingly enough while you would have loved India since it is far more liberal; you would not have been elite in India ..
that is the trade-off; Pakistani Muslims are not subordinated. there is a discount in being Muslim in India (like being African American in American, deeply discounted but also secretly desired).
This is why Pakistan was created: so that Muslims would not be living under subjugation. It was a nationalist movement to protect one’s culture and religion under a sovereign state.
After it was achieved, there was no real need for hostility against India, except like a crazy ex they are obessesed about us.
yes but that is a reasonable fear; without Elites, the “masses” lose their way as well.
well India is a maximalist power, as She should be.. the Indian Subcontinent and Indo-China are her natural sphere of influence and domain..
Jambudvipa
This is literally taught in Pakistan Studies, so not sure how you think this is a revelation that only you discovered.
The Muslim elite knew that the upper caste Hindus were going to use Hindu religious and native imagery to subjugate Muslims for being outsiders. This is literally in Jinnah’s speeches to the Muslim League when presenting the Pakistan Resolution in 1940. Muslim elites already had this suspicion during the 1920’s Shuddhi movement and then 1937 Congress government completely confirmed their suspicions.
In a world of nation states, they wanted their own state where their culture, religion, language and way of life would be protected. Since they could not reach an agreement with the Hindu leaders to safeguard these things in one country (from 1940-1946), they were fine with their own another country.
What’s there to talk about here? Hindus act like this was some sort of holy betrayal and that the sacred motherland was dividend.. when in reality, the sacred motherland was created by the British and no divine law suggested it needed to be under the thumb of one guy sitting in Delhi.
Q:
RNJ has a huge problem with the Muslim-majority provinces having the right to self-determination. I would advise you not to engage him on this. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.
British India was a colony not a nation-state. Its borders were just where the Raj stopped. So there is no inherent reason why the Muslim-majority parts of the colony had to be forced to stay with the Hindu-majority parts.
this language feels very crude. you may want to revisit the part of the desecration of the deity, since it is bordering on offensive territory.
My point was that the rest of us don’t believe in “Bharat Mata” at all. Obviously those who believe in this concept are entitled to do so.
The borders of British India were arbitrary. At one point British India even included Burma. So if Indians are OK with Burma being a sovereign nation, they need to get over Pakistan being a sovereign nation as well.
It is BB’s thread to moderate however we decided to edit out what we felt were Kabir’s distasteful remarks about Bharat Mata Ki Ja.
this violates our own dictum on free speech but we balanced it against respecting beliefs.
It’s not BB’s thread. It’s my thread.
“vivisection of India” is a common Indian trope. The point is that whatever Indians believe does not matter to Pakistanis.
British India was a colony with arbitrary borders. The Muslim-majority parts of the colony had the absolute right to opt out of being part of a Hindu-majority nation-state.
Indians really need to stop re-litigating Partition.
Kabir as you know it’s the “Vivisection of India” as said by the Great Mahatma
just as QeA coined “Moth Eaten Pakistan.”
don’t deliberately desecrate a sacred goddess, it will ire and offend us.
What part of being banned don’t you understand?
This is my thread. There is no court of appeal. You are free to make your own threads (which I am free to completely ignore).
I don’t know about my not being “elite” in India.
My ancestors in Agra owned their own business (a shoe factory). In fact, our relatives still own that business.
My paternal grandmother went to college in the early 1940s (I guess) at a time when probably most Muslim women were not educated at that level.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John%27s_College,_Agra
While India may be more liberal, it is rapidly becoming a majoritarian Hindu state. It didn’t have to be that way but here we are.
So I think my ancestors made the right choice in choosing Pakistan (not that my grandmother had much choice– as a woman she had to go where her husband wanted. He was from Peshawar so obviously he chose Pakistan).
I would far rather be part of the majority in Pakistan than an increasingly beleaguered minority in India.
When my brother was in 7th grade, he did this project where he made a short film about Partition. This was quite an ambitious project (I’m talking about the early 2000s).
As part of his research, my dad had us watch an Indian movie called “Garm Hava”. The movie is set in Agra and the family runs a shoe manufacturing business–so very much the same background as my paternal grandmother’s family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garm_Hava
My brother also read Urvashi Butalia’s “The Other Side of Silence” so again this was a very high-achieving project for a 12 or 13 year old kid.
What is a Hindu Pakistan?
By “Hindu Pakistan” Ram Guha means a majoritarian Hindu state. Just as Pakistan is a majoritarian Muslim state.
Pakistan exists for Muslims. Increasingly, there is an attitude in India that India exists for Hindus. Certainly, the ruling party believes this.
India has been very secular and plural. In fact Indian Muslims are more regressive because India has never had the confidence to touch those laws that Pakistan happily modified like triple Talaq.
India’s secularism has been abused. For instance what would have been the big deal if the Muslim community had agreed to moving Babri Masjid at fair-premium value. Indian secularism has favoured the intolerant-intractable elements of Indian Muslim society.
It’s just that the modern Aligarh guys from North India all migrated to Pakistan and left behind the traditional conservatives, the landlords and the poorer sections of the Muslim community.