Malanggad: Haji Malang Dargah
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
A dargah and a dispute
As in 2023
Zeeshan Shaikh, January 4, 2024: The Times of India
Decode Politics: Why Eknath Shinde has dug up a dargah dispute in the hills
What is the shrine, and what is the dispute?
Located on the lowest plateau of Malanggad, a hill fort 3,000 feet above sea level on the Matheran hill ranges, the Haji Malang Dargah is revered by both Hindus and Muslims.
Chandrahas Ketkar, one of members of the trust that runs the dargah, whose family has been managing it for the past 14 generations, told The Indian Express: “Anyone claiming that the dargah is a temple is doing it for political mileage… In 1954, the Supreme Court in a case related to control of the dargah within the Ketkar family observed that the dargah was a composite structure that cannot be governed either by Hindu or Muslim law, but only by its own special custom or by general law of trusts.”
The trust has had both Hindu and Muslim members, and while the shrine remains a dargah, Hindus continue to perform aarti on its premises on full moon day.
The first sign of communal strife over the shrine came in the mid-1980s when Shiv Sena leader Anand Dighe started an agitation claiming that the shrine belonged to Hindus as it was the site of a 700-year-old Machindranath temple. In 1996, he insisted on leading 20,000 Shiv Sainiks to the shrine to offer prayers.
The then Chief Minister Manohar Joshi along with Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray also attended a prayer that year. Since then the Sena as well as right-wing groups refer to the structure as Shri Malang Gad.
