A darkled future awaits India, and particularly Muslims, as a segment of the judiciary facilitates Hindutva to appropriate mosques claimed to have been built over temples after these were demolished by Muslim rulers centuries ago. Righting the “wrongs of history” has been one of the defining attributes of Hindutva. This process has been given a fillip because of judicial orders permitting surveys of mosques for determining whether these were originally temples.

It was thought the building of the Ram Temple where the Babri Masjid once stood in Ayodhya would end the culture of manufacturing disputes over places of worship. The Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi and the Shahi Idgah in Mathura have always been in Hindutva’s crosshairs. But what is happening now, courtesy of judicial orders, is that little-known mosques in nondescript districts have become targets to be reclaimed as temples.