IT was the demolition of a mosque that catapulted the Bharatiya Janata Party into political prominence. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad began the campaign to destroy Babri Masjid in the 1980s. The BJP was its political voice. In December 1992, the mosque was demolished, and the pretence was that the destruction was driven by an angry mob. The inquiry commission looking into the matter found that the destruction was planned. Senior BJP leaders, including the then Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh, were implicated. Nothing happened to the culprits, and by 2019, when the BJP was entrenched in power, India’s apex court handed over the Ayodhya site to the Hindu parties for the construction of the Ram Temple.

The BJP has clung to mosque-related disputes as a political strategy through the decades, and the statistics are truly alarming. A recent report by the Millat Times, an Indian Muslim publication, found at least 2,126 instances of demolition, removal and eviction involving mosques and other Muslim sites, including madressahs and dargahs, since 2020. Most of the demolitions have been in Uttar Pradesh — home to millions of Indian Muslims, and hence a target for the BJP.

Last month, it was the turn of the Saharanpur mosque, which stood inside the district administration complex in Uttar Pradesh. In the early morning of Sept 5, 2026, excavators and bulldozers were used to raze it. There would no longer be any prayers there. The city magistrate and sub-divisional magistrate were present, alongside police and paramilitary forces. Lok Sabha MP Iqra Hasan was placed under effective house arrest to prevent her from protesting against the demolition of the century-old mosque.

The story of how the Saharanpur mosque was demolished, and how institutions, including courts, failed to protect it, can be read as the general destruction of protections for minorities in India. It began in 2025, when a complaint alleged that the mosque had been illegally built on government land. The mosque, which had existed for over 115 years in the same spot, was suddenly considered an illegal structure.

The mosque issue is central to what is taking place in India today.

By July 2026, the 315-square-metre complex had been declared an “unauthorised occupation” and ordered vacated. Last month, a district judge dismissed the mosque committee’s appeal. The mosque’s representatives filed a petition with the Allahabad High Court, alleging that no legal notice was provided for the demolition. The writ petition is still with the court.

The story of the Saharanpur demolition is similar to many other instances of desecration of religious sites. The hatred towards Muslims and the destruction of Islamic heritage is central to the BJP programme. Regular demolitions, framed as Hindu religious mobilisation or yatras, are now a mainstay of Indian politics. It is not just the Millat Times that has been trying to draw attention to these demolitions. Amnesty International’s 2024 report on “bulldozer injustice” in India noted that in 75 cases, only six were given prior notice. Amnesty viewed the forced evictions and consequent demolitions as violations of international law.

Pakistan should take note of the last bit. It is essential for Pakistan to distinguish itself from India by giving proper protection to its own religious minorities so that it can demonstrate its belief in minority rights. And it must raise the mosque demolition issue internationally. That a once shining example of democracy now looks away when hu­­n­­­dreds of years of its history are wiped out by the BJP’s eager bulldozers is asto­­n-ishing.

The mosque issue is central to what is taking place in India today. The ease with which local off­icials give sanction to the rabid Isl­amophobia of the BJP’s army of bhakts reveals the hollowing out of Indian democracy. The current protests over the tampering of voter rolls are just another chapter in this story. In deciding what is or is not official, the BJP has declared everything — from mosques and voters to everyone it believes antithetical to Hindu supremacy — to be illegal.

Hindutva’s conception of religious majoritarianism is a curse upon Indian minorities. The destruction of thousands of mosques is evidence of how it has played out: erasing and razing everything and everyone that does not accord with its dangerous worldview centred on Hindu ‘supremacy’. It is an open question whether the current protests in India will be able to truly contest the brainwashing of an entire nation. In the meantime, the only certainty is that tomorrow the BJP will target yet another mosque and plan yet another demolition.

The writer is an attorney teaching
constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 10th, 2026