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The Shias are entitled to carry out their way of Islam/Tazia dispute drags for decades
- Sects differ on Muharram procession
New Delhi, Dec. 4: The Supreme Court has been trying unsuccessfully to put a lid on the simmering Shia-Sunni tension in Varanasi over Muharram processions for the last 50 years, in a case reminiscent of the Ayodhya dispute except that it involves two sects of the same religion.
The dispute revolves around Tazia processions taken out during Muharram, which this year falls on Tuesday.
Shias, numbering around 4,000, have been trying to assert their right to pray on some plots in Doshipura mohalla but Sunnis have been resisting.
The Shias argue that their right to pray on these plots was settled way back in 1878 after a court case and reaffirmed by the UP Wakf Act 1936.
The Sunni majority in the area objects to the Shia Muharram procession on the ground that the Shias utter Tabarra, a ritual regarded as a filthy abuse of elected imams, hurting the feelings of Sunnis.
Tensions have simmered since 1960 with both sides filing FIRs against each other every year. Even an assurance by the Shias, made in court, that they would give up Tabarra has not helped.
Successive governments have invoked Section 144 to prevent crowds from gathering in the area and placed a blanket ban on Shias exercising their religious right.
The Shias observe Muharram for two months and eight days in a year in memory of Hazrat Imam Hussain who, along with his 72 followers, attained martyrdom at Karbala in Iraq.
The community observes the occasion by holding majlis (religious discourse), recitations, matam (wailing) and taking out processions.
For performing these rites, the Shia community has for centuries used the nine plots in Doshipura.
In the first round of litigation, the case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which asked the parties to resolve the issue in a civil suit.
In 1978, one Ghulam Abbas and other Shia Muslims moved Allahabad High Court, praying for a mandamus writ against Uttar Pradesh asking its officers in Varanasi to grant permission to perform some ceremonies and take out Tazias. But the appeal was dismissed outright on September 22, 1978. The Shias then went in appeal to the top court.
The top court, in two subsequent decisions, directed that the Sunnis be allowed to pray at the grave of Maulana Hakim Badruddin from a separate entrance on the main road.
It also waived religious objections to shifting of graves saying this could be done to preserve public order and asked the state authorities to shift two Sunni graves from the north side to the south, near Maulana Badruddin's grave, to make one contiguous religious place for the Sunnis and another for the Shias as a solution to the problem.
The court directed that a wall be erected to give the two sects space enough to practise their religious rituals. On September 23, 1983, the top court held that the customary rights of Shias were part of their fundamental right to practise, profess and propagate their religion. It rapped the local administration for placing a blanket ban on rituals to prevent any violence, saying "it is only in an extremely extraordinary situation when other measures are bound to fail, that a total prohibition or suspension of rights may be resorted to as a last measure".
Since then, the legal heirs of people buried in the two other graves have given up their claim to have the graves shifted. The Shias have no objection to the graves staying where they are.
The only court direction remaining to be implemented is to erect a wall around the Shia side to separate it from the Sunni side to prevent any clashes.
After 27 years of this order being passed, the Shias have again sought court intervention to have it implemented. Their counsel Kamini Jaiswal urged the court to ask the state government to implement the order at the last hearing on Friday.
A bench, headed by Justice D.K. Jain, said: "We have passed orders and orders. What else can we do?"
"This is basically a problem of the administration. But the state does not have the courage to do this. It is very easy to put it on the court," he observed.
Tazia dispute drags for decades
The Sunnis are equally entitled.
It is the same religion with the same Prophet and the Religious book.
Yet, they fight.
The Court has given an order.
Why does the Govt fight shy to implement the Court's order?
Votebank politics or they enjoy having the Shias being massacred by the majority Sunnis?
The Sunni majority in the area objects to the Shia Muharram procession on the ground that the Shias utter Tabarra, a ritual regarded as a filthy abuse of elected imams, hurting the feelings of Sunnis. What filthy abuse? Religion is an area of peace and high thoughts. Therefore, it is odd that anyone can claim that filthy abuses fill the prayers. Ridiculous!
Always spoiling for a fight.
I maybe wrong, but then can anyone educate us as to what the dickens cause the annual chaos amongst fellow Muslims that makes life topsy turvy for those who are not Muslims?