NEW DELHI: For nine centuries, Indians prayed at the forest shrine of Baba Haji Rozbih, a revered Sufi saint whose grave is one of the capital Delhi’s oldest Islamic sites.
Then, in early February, the Delhi Development Authority reduced the site to rubble, the latest victim of a “demolition programme” it says has cleared “illegal religious structures” including a mosque, tombs, shrines and Hindu temples.
The destruction has sparked heartbreak from residents and worried warnings from historians at the loss of priceless heritage.
“It’s a blow … to the history that made India what it is today”, said historian and author Rana Safvi.
The demolitions come at a sensitive time, as Hindu nationalists have been emboldened to claim ancient Islamic monuments for the country’s majority faith.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in January inaugurated a temple in the northern city of Ayodhya, built on the site of a centuries-old mosque whose destruction by Hindu zealots in 1992 sparked sectarian riots that killed 2,000 people nationwide, most of them Muslims.
General elections due this year are expected to begin in April – with Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) widely tipped to win.
The Delhi demolition campaign is officially about development, and it has targeted Hindu structures as well as Muslim ones.
But the DDA has not given details on what, if anything, will replace the razed structures, many of which were built hundreds of years before current zoning rules were put in place.
“This shrine was of a Sufi saint, who was one of the earliest – if not the earliest – to come to Delhi”, said Safvi.
“I have seen people of all faiths going and paying reverence to the saint.”
“MAZE OF MODERN DEVELOPMENT”
Baba Haji Rozbih’s shrine dated from the late 12th century, when the great Mayan city of Chichen Itza was at its height in Mexico.
It was already 500 years old when India’s Taj Mahal was built.
Baba Haji Rozbih’s shrine was less ambitious, a simple low-walled enclosure deep in the sprawling forest park of Sanjay Van – far from any roads or buildings and difficult for all but regular worshippers to find.
But for those who visited the shrine, its loss was no less bitter.
“I have spent nights here praying – and everything is gone,” said a man who asked not to be named for fear of backlash.
“If we do not protect our history, then who will?”