ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an ethnographic analysis of how, in the Hind of 2018, a spectre hangs over public prayer by ordinary Muslims. From the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, the old and dilapidated village mosque, abandoned since 1980 and the site of the current dispute, served as a shelter for Hindu refugees from Pakistan and earned the sobriquet ‘Rihayashi Masjid’. Disillusioned by the judgement of the Sessions District Magistrate, the Muslims began to construct a madrassa in 1987-1988 on a space adjoining the disputed structure. There is a psychological violence and sense of victimhood that pervades Devru’s Muslims. This is especially striking in light of the ‘acceptance of the Political Hindu’, reflected from the present prime minister downwards. From Gujarat to UP, a Hindu Rashtra is on the make, ‘without any constitutional or legal change’. ‘Bigotry’ on the latter’s watch has been made ‘bold’ and ‘publicly acceptable’ under Narendra Modi and the RSS ‘is harnessing the returns’.
