ABSTRACT
Banaras has been a site of religious tensions for almost a millennium. At the heart of these is a late eighteenth-century temple, next to a late seventeenth-century mosque. The physical proximity of the temple to the mosque, and the relative recent date of its reconstruction, is usually explained by a rather simplistic history of repeated destruction and disruption by successive Islamic regimes in South Asia. British colonial officials, who tended to frame South Asia’s past in terms of “Hindu” and “Muslim,” highlighted divisions between religious communities while ignoring instances of shared cultural understanding. When “Hindus” and “Muslims” were assigned their respective roles and spaces, the mosque courtyard, plinth, and all objects within it became sources of contention. More recently, since 2014, Banaras is the constitutional seat of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself a member of the right-wing (and overtly Hindu) Bharatiya Janata Party. In addition, with a right-wing Hindu government in charge of the state legislature, vested interests (both religious and commercial) and popular (but questionable) historical narratives of indiscriminate destruction by Islamic regimes are strongly aligned. This chapter explores the potential of entangled histories to engage diverse religious communities in peaceful and productive conversations.
