Permission for ASI survey in Gyanvapi Masjid.
Permission for ASI survey in Gyanvapi Masjid.
News2News.in Explainer:A Varanasi court on Friday gave permission to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to visit the Gyanvapi Mosque, ruling in favor of the Hindu side. There is a wave of happiness among the Hindu parties due to this decision of the court, while on the other hand, due to the rejection of the petition of the Muslim side, they are talking about moving the High Court. Come, through today’s News2News.in Explainer, we will tell you what is the reason for the controversy in the Varanasi case, as well as what is the Archaeological Survey, in which carbon dating will be investigated.
A court in Varanasi has allowed the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a scientific survey of the Gyanvapi mosque. Vaju Khana, which is claimed by Hindus to be a Shivling, will not be part of the survey following an earlier Supreme Court order related to the place where Muslims perform rituals. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will conduct the survey and submit the final report by August 4 – the day the next hearing is to be held.
Gyanvapi Masjid center of controversy for decades
In recent times the petitioners, who are local priests, filed a petition in the Varanasi Courts in 1991 seeking permission to worship inside the premises. The petitioners contended that the mosque was built on the orders of Aurangzeb by demolishing a portion of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple during his reign. According to a media agency, that petition was dismissed in the year 1998 itself. In the year 2019, the Supreme Court’s decision on Ayodhya Ram Mandir came, after that this matter again came in the limelight. After which Vijay Shankar Rastogi, a lawyer from Varanasi filed a petition in the lower court claiming illegality in the construction of Gyanvapi Masjid. In the petition, he sought an archaeological survey of the disputed site. On his petition, the Varanasi court directed the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct a survey and submit a report.
However, the Anjuman Intejamia Masjid Committee, the body that runs the Gyanvapi mosque, along with the Sunni Central Waqf Board opposed the petition and the court order to survey the mosque. When the matter reached the Allahabad High Court, the High Court put an interim stay on the ASI’s direction to conduct the survey. The High Court highlighted that as per the Places of Worship Act, 1991, any change in the religious character of a place of worship as it existed on August 15, 1947, is prohibited. However, in March 2021, a Supreme Court bench headed by the then Chief Justice of India SA Bobde agreed to examine the validity of the Places of Worship Act. Then on August 18, 2021, five Hindu women filed a petition in a Varanasi court, seeking permission to worship the deities (Sringar Gauri, Ganesha, Hanuman and Nandi) on a regular basis, apart from preventing the protesters from damaging the idols inside the Gyanvapi structure.
The shape of Shivling was found in the survey
In April 2022, while hearing the petition of five women, the court of Civil Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar of Varanasi ordered videography of the Shringar Gauri temple and surrounding places in the Kashi Vishwanath-Gyanvapi complex. After which the survey started in May 2022, but the survey was stopped midway after a team of lawyers was denied entry inside the mosque. However, then the Varanasi court said that the survey would continue and the report should be submitted by May 17 after completing it.
According to the petitioner side, a Shivling was found after drawing water from a pond in the premises during the survey. The Varanasi district court later ordered the district magistrate to seal the area where the Shivling was allegedly found and banned the entry of any person into the area.
Hearing was held in the Supreme Court in July
In July, Supreme Court Justice DY Chandrachud said the court would await the impending verdict of the Varanasi district judge on an application filed by the Anjuman Intejamia Masjid, challenging the petition filed by five women petitioners seeking darshan at the Gyanvapi mosque complex. Justice Chandrachud said that if the court ruled in favor of the Anjuman Intejamia Masjid, the suit by the women would naturally die out and if they ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, the caretakers could seek other judicial redressal.
Advocate Shamim Ahmed, representing the Anjuman Intejamia Masjid Committee in the case, said that Gyanvapi Masjid is a Waqf property and the court has no jurisdiction to hear the matter. It was argued that only the Waqf Board has the right to hear any case related to the mosque.
Following this controversy, four of the five Hindu petitioners demanded carbon dating of the Shivling figure. The petition filed sought a direction to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to conduct a survey of the entire Gyanvapi mosque complex. The Muslim side opposed the plea saying the ASI survey could damage the complex. Hearing the petition, the court directed that the scientific survey by the ASI would take place between 8 am and 12 noon. Along with this, it was also said that there will be no restriction on Namaz and neither the mosque will be damaged.
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, representing the Hindu side in the Gyanvapi mosque case, said, “I have been informed that my application has been accepted and the court has directed an ASI survey of the Gyanvapi mosque complex, except for the Vaju tank, which has been sealed.”
Let’s now know the Archaeological Survey in which carbon dating investigation will be done
what is carbon dating
Carbon dating, also known as radiocarbon dating, is a scientific technique of investigation. This allows researchers and scientists to measure the age of any object up to 60,000 years old. This method was created in the 1940s by chemistry professor Willard Libby.
how does carbon dating work
According to the University of Chicago website, it begins with cosmic rays, subatomic particles of matter that continuously rain down on Earth from all directions. When cosmic rays reach Earth’s upper atmosphere, physical and chemical interactions create the radioactive isotope carbon-14. Living organisms absorb this carbon-14 into their tissues. Once they die, the absorption stops, and the carbon-14 begins to decay into other atoms at a very slow, predictable rate. By measuring how much carbon-14 is left, scientists can estimate how long a particular organic object has been dead.
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