Himachal Pradesh: With Sanjauli mosque, BJP once again uses urban planning as a Hindutva weapon

Over the past two weeks, Hindutva organisations have been demanding the demolition of portions of a mosque in Sanjauli in Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh that they claim are illegal. On September 11, after a demonstration against the mosque turned violent, the police fired water cannons at and baton-charged protesters. The Congress has been in power in Himachal Pradesh since December 2022.

The objection to the allegedly illegal parts of the mosque is not just a town planning problem but is symptomatic of a larger, more insidious political strategy. It exemplifies how the Bharatiya Janata Party and allied Hindutva organisations are transforming a local urban planning matter into a tool of polarisation.

By framing the mosque as a symbol of encroachment and mobilising hate politics around it, the Hindutva movement is not only attempting to reshape the political landscape of Shimla but also transforming the very nature of urban planning itself into a battleground for identity and power.

Illegal construction in Shimla

Shimla’s problems of illegal construction and bad urban planning are not new. The Town and Country Planning Act of 1977 was the first law to formalise urban planning in the state. The Interim Shimla Development Plan introduced in 1979 was supposed to regulate the capital city until 2001 but it has continued for 44 years, with modifications, amid rampant construction across Shimla with little regard for safety and urban standards.

Over the years, successive state governments failed to finalise the Shimla Development Plan, conveniently ignoring violations and favouring extensive construction and development projects for electoral gain. The city of Shimla is governed by the district’s sole municipal corporation with other towns in the region being run by municipal councils. Compared to municipal councils, municipal corporations are better equipped in terms of funding and resources to manage regions with high population densities.

Up until it was in power in 2022, the BJP did not act on the 2017 orders of the National Green Tribunal banning new construction and restricting building heights in the Shimla Planning Area. Unauthorised and illegal construction has proliferated – news reports say there are 25,000 illegal structures across the state, nearly half of them in Shimla. In January, the Supreme Court approved the Shimla Development Plan 2041 that is expected to set a blueprint for the city’s growth.

The Sanjauli mosque

The controversy over the mosque in Sanjauli falls within this larger context of unregulated construction. The maulvi told The Print that the mosque dates back to 1947 though portions were added after 2007. But the mosque is not an isolated case. The leniency towards illegal construction is part of a broader town planning failure that transcends religious boundaries. What sets the case of the mosque apart is the selective outrage it has sparked, magnified and politicised by the BJP and Hindutva organisations.

The entire matter gained traction after a violent altercation on August 30 involving a group of men associated with the mosque and local traders. The matter quickly took on a religious hue, igniting protests with Hindutva groups seizing the narrative. On September 1, protesters chanted slogans such as “Himachal ne Thaana Hai, Devbhoomi ko Bachana Hai”, Himachal has vowed to save the land of the gods, echoing calls to protect Hinduism against what is claimed to be Muslim encroachment.

On September 12, a Muslim welfare committee met the Shimla municipal commissioner and offered to demolish the portions of the mosque a court order had deemed to be illegal, reported The Hindu. The committee said this was being done to ensure harmony in the neighbourhood.

The communal narrative around the Sanjauli mosque echoes Hindutva tactics elsewhere – for instance, in Uttarakhand, where Muslims have been accused of all kinds of “jihads” and of encroaching on what is seen as a holy land for Hinduism.

The Hindutva playbook is simple yet effective: present a religious minority as a threat to Hindu culture, thus uniting the majority under a singular identity that is centred around perceived victimhood.

This playbook of selective outrage penalises other communities for purportedly being at fault for violating Hindu sentiment, justifying legal action.

What is striking about the Sanjauli mosque is how quickly the matter escalated, after lying dormant for years. The mosque has been under scrutiny since 2010, with several hearings not resulting in conclusive action. Why, then, has it become such a flashpoint now?

Political vacuum, Hindutva outreach

Himachal Pradesh, which was created in 1971, did not have a grassroots movement advocating for statehood nor did it have a politically-mobilised indigenous population rallying around the idea of a distinct state. The state of Himachal Pradesh was carved out of Punjab for administrative convenience and water sharing between the two states.

Five decades on, as some seek to forge a unique identity for the state, Hindutva provides a convenient focu.

By bringing the Sanjauli mosque to the forefront, Hindutva groups are attempting to manufacture a cultural consciousness centered around the defence of Hinduism. This manufactured crisis serves as an issue around which to consolidate Hindu votes, a strategy that has been employed successfully in other parts of the country.

The sudden resurgence of this issue indicates a Hindutva attempt to shift from the inter-personal political culture of the Himalayan state’s polity towards a politics of cultural grievance.

Nirmanyu Chauhan is a master’s student at South Asian University.