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ISLAMABAD: An Indian lawmaker from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Medha Kulkarni, has come under criticism after leading a controversial &quot;purification&quot; ritual at a historic site in the western city of Pune, following a video showing Muslim women offering prayers at the location.&nbsp;Kulkarni, a BJP Member of Parliament, led a group that poured a mixture of cow dung and urine at the Shaniwarwada fort, describing it as an act to &ldquo;cleanse&rdquo; the site. The move came after a short video circulated online showing a few Muslim women offering namaz, Islamic prayers, in a quiet corner of the fort.&nbsp;Speaking to local media, Kulkarni defended her actions, saying:&nbsp;&ldquo;If offering namaz is not a crime, then neither is prarthana [Hindu prayer]. We only performed prayers and purification to maintain the sanctity of this place.&rdquo;&nbsp;However, the act has been widely criticized by opposition parties, minority rights groups, and heritage activists for promoting intolerance and politicizing a public monument. Opposition figures in Maharashtra accused Kulkarni of &ldquo;disturbing communal harmony&rdquo; and &ldquo;misusing religion for political visibility.&rdquo;&nbsp;A senior opposition leader from western state of Maharashtra said in a televised statement:&nbsp;&ldquo;No religion teaches hatred. This fort belongs to every Indian, not to one community. Such acts of provocation serve no purpose other than deepening divisions.&rdquo;&nbsp;Local civic groups have also pointed out that Shaniwarwada is a protected heritage monument, not a temple, and is open to visitors of all faiths. The fort, built in 1732, was once the seat of the Maratha Empire&rsquo;s Peshwas and is an important cultural landmark in western India. Notably, the Maratha leader Baji Rao I lived there with his wife Mastani, who was of mixed Hindu and Muslim heritage, a historical symbol of plural coexistence.&nbsp;Growing concerns over religious polarizationThe incident comes amid growing concern over rising religious polarization in India. Analysts and rights observers say that Hindu nationalist politics under the BJP has intensified communal rhetoric, often targeting religious minorities, particularly Muslims.&nbsp;Since the BJP came to power in 2014, human rights monitors have documented multiple incidents of violence linked to accusations of cow slaughter or interfaith relations. Several of these have resulted in mob lynchings and social boycotts of minority communities.&nbsp;Social activists warn that events such as the &ldquo;purification&rdquo; ritual at Shaniwarwada risk normalizing exclusionary ideas under the guise of cultural pride.&nbsp;&ldquo;Such symbolic acts, though seemingly minor, reinforce a message of division,&rdquo; said a Pune-based social worker. &ldquo;India&rsquo;s strength lies in its shared spaces and inclusive heritage, not in rituals of separation.&rdquo;&nbsp;Historical significance of ShaniwarwadaThe Shaniwarwada fort, an architectural symbol of the Maratha legacy, holds deep historical and cultural value. Despite its association with Hindu Maratha rulers, the fort also embodies India&rsquo;s composite heritage, reflecting centuries of cultural intermingling.&nbsp;The incident has sparked debate within India over whether religious practices of any kind should be performed at protected monuments. Heritage experts have called for stricter enforcement of archaeological site regulations to prevent political or religious appropriation of historical spaces.&nbsp;Broader implicationsObservers in South Asia note that such developments highlight a worrying pattern of identity-based politics encroaching on cultural heritage and public life.&nbsp;For Pakistan and the wider region, the episode underscores the importance of safeguarding pluralism, tolerance, and respect for all faiths, principles that have historically underpinned South Asia&rsquo;s shared civilization.

India

Indian MP Medha Kulkarni faces backlash after leading a 'purification' ritual at Shaniwarwada fort following a viral video of Muslim women praying there.

Indian lawmaker sparks outrage with ‘purification’ ritual at fort

Maham Khan

ISLAMABAD: At the recent Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Geneva, an Indian representative from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Aparajita Sarangi, claimed that &ldquo;Kashmir is an integral part of India&rdquo; and that &ldquo;the accession of Jammu and Kashmir to India was completely legal and irrevocable.&rdquo;&nbsp;However, a fact-based review of international documents and ground realities shows that this claim does not align with historical, legal, or international facts.&nbsp;1. Kashmir&rsquo;s status is defined by the UN as disputedThe United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed resolutions in 1948 and 1949, specifically Resolutions 47 and 51, that recognized Jammu and Kashmir as a disputed territory. These resolutions called for a free and impartial plebiscite to determine whether the region&rsquo;s people wished to join India or Pakistan.&nbsp;That plebiscite has never been held, and the region&rsquo;s status therefore remains undecided under international law.&nbsp;&ldquo;Kashmir&rsquo;s future must be determined by its people, not by unilateral declarations,&rdquo; Pakistan maintains in its consistent position before international forums.&nbsp;2. World&rsquo;s most militarized regionIf Kashmir were truly an &ldquo;integral part&rdquo; of India, it would not require the presence of hundreds of thousands of troops. Independent global assessments describe Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir as one of the most militarized zones in the world, with a long history of armed resistance and civilian unrest dating back to 1947.&nbsp;3. India&rsquo;s 2019 actions contradict international commitmentsIn August 2019, India revoked Article 370 of its constitution, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special autonomous status. Pakistan and international observers have called this action a violation of UN resolutions and an attempt to alter the region&rsquo;s demographic and political identity.&nbsp;Since then, Pakistan has marked August 5 as &ldquo;Youm-e-Istehsal,&rdquo; or Day of Exploitation, observing it as a reminder of what it calls India&rsquo;s &ldquo;unilateral and illegal actions&rdquo; in the occupied territory.&nbsp;4. Human rights concerns remain documented&nbsp;International human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have reported arbitrary detentions, restrictions on free speech, and limitations on movement in Indian-occupied Kashmir since the revocation of Article 370.&nbsp;Reports by Reuters and AFP indicate ongoing fears of demographic changes and suppression of dissent in the region.&nbsp;5. Global and Kashmiri voices call for self-determinationThe All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) and other Kashmiri political groups continue to demand implementation of the UN-mandated plebiscite. In 2025, APHC spokesperson Abdul Rashid Minhas reaffirmed the group&rsquo;s commitment to peaceful self-determination, despite restrictions and detentions.&nbsp;&ldquo;Kashmiris remain steadfast in their demand for the right to decide their own future,&rdquo; Minhas said earlier this year.&nbsp;Prominent Kashmiri leader Yasin Malik, currently imprisoned, has also consistently called for self-determination and an internationally supervised plebiscite.&nbsp;6. International concern over India&rsquo;s stanceDebate over India&rsquo;s 2019 actions has extended to foreign parliaments and academic circles. A 2020 US Congressional discussion raised concerns that India&rsquo;s decision could destabilize South Asia and escalate tensions with Pakistan.&nbsp;The Harvard Law Review (2021) described India&rsquo;s Kashmir policy as resembling &ldquo;settler colonialism,&rdquo; referring to demographic engineering through new domicile laws.&nbsp;Dispute recognized by the worldWhile India insists that Kashmir is an &ldquo;internal matter,&rdquo; the United Nations, international law, and decades of unresolved conflict demonstrate otherwise.&nbsp;Until the promised plebiscite is held and the will of the Kashmiri people is respected, the status of Jammu and Kashmir will remain disputed, not integral to India.&nbsp;As Pakistan consistently asserts: &ldquo;Kashmir&rsquo;s future lies in the right of its people to self-determination, not in unilateral claims.&rdquo;

Indian army soldiers light earthen lamp on a fence to celebrate Diwali, near the Line of Control in Akhnoor sector, Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. October 16, 2025. (AP)

Fact Check

Kashmir remains a UN-recognized disputed territory despite Indian claims. International law and UN resolutions call for a plebiscite to determine the region’s final status through the will of its people.

Fact Check: Why Kashmir can never be an integral part of India

It&rsquo;s happened. Again. Predictably. Inevitable.&nbsp;Perhaps it was bound to happen. In an era of unverified media and echo chambers amplifying right-wing Indian nationalist narratives, another seemingly innocent historical site has become collateral damage. This time, the 14th-century architectural marvel Adina Mosque in West Bengal has become the latest casualty of this aggressive Hindu nationalist revisionism. An innocuous post by Yusuf Pathan, brother of famed cricketer Irfan Pathan, documenting his visit to the historic Adina Mosque, was all it took.&nbsp; Pathan wrote on X (formerly Twitter): &quot;The Adina Mosque in Malda, West Bengal, is a historic mosque built in the 14th century by Sultan Sikandar Shah, the second ruler of the Ilyas Shahi dynasty. Constructed in 1373&ndash;1375 CE, it was the largest mosque in the Indian subcontinent during its time, showcasing the region&#39;s architectural grandeur.&quot; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/206772c2-98f7-433f-8c89-d7d47dbc6c7e-1.png" alt="Yusuf Pathan's post on X (Twitter) regarding Adina Mosque" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Yusuf Pathan&#39;s post on X (Twitter) regarding Adina Mosque</figcaption></figure> Historical fact, you might think. Not in today&rsquo;s India. No sooner had the post gone live than a digital avalanche of faux outrage, conspiracy theories, and archaeological fiction followed&mdash;largely driven by Hindu nationalist accounts hell-bent on turning every brick and dome into a misplaced remnant of a Hindu temple. Enter Grok&mdash;Elon Musk&rsquo;s latest toy and a large language model (LLM). For context, an LLM is a sophisticated system that processes and generates text by analyzing massive datasets, unlike a sentient intelligence But that didn&rsquo;t stop users from weaponizing it. An Indian X user, 𝐕𝐑 (@0xVeepul), asked Grok under Yusuf&rsquo;s post: &ldquo;Is the above information correct?&rdquo; To which Grok replied&mdash;calmly and factually: &ldquo;Yes, the information about the Adina Mosque is accurate based on historical records. It was built by Sultan Sikandar Shah in 1373&ndash;1375 CE and was the largest in the subcontinent at the time.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/7f765913-3caf-42fa-b5e2-cb16e2482cd1-2.png" alt="Screengrab from X" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Screengrab from X</figcaption></figure> Cue outrage. Unwilling to let facts spoil a good myth, other users doubled down. PlanH (@planH_In) declared with full nationalist indignation: &ldquo;Dear Yusuf Pathan, you are standing in the campus of one of the largest Hindu Temples, Adinath Temple, which was desecrated and occupied by Islamic invaders [&hellip;] It is time to undo the injustice and barbarity, and reestablish the temple.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/c63e9860-5048-49b7-958d-c0d2a1ba844c-4.png" alt="An Indian X user argues that the historic 14th-century Adina Mosque in West Bengal, India was originally a Hindu temple. (X)" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">An Indian X user argues that the historic 14th-century Adina Mosque in West Bengal, India was originally a Hindu temple. (X)</figcaption></figure> Once that claim didn&rsquo;t quite hold up to scrutiny&mdash;or reality&mdash;goalposts were shifted. Another user, now armed with poorly cropped images of carvings, asked Grok: &ldquo;@grok Can you verify this image belongs to the same place?&rdquo; Again, Grok tried to inject sanity: &ldquo;The images you shared appear to be close-ups of carvings at the Adina Mosque in Malda, West Bengal. Sources like OpIndia, and India Today indicate the mosque incorporates Hindu and Jain motifs from reused temple materials, matching the terracotta figures and designs shown. They align with the site&#39;s documented architecture.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/ddc6e295-1651-47d7-8ff0-b9aa103f10fd-6.png" alt="Grok fact-checks an Indian X user's claim that images from inside the Adina Mosque prove it was once a Hindu temple. (X)" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Grok fact-checks an Indian X user&#39;s claim that images from inside the Adina Mosque prove it was once a Hindu temple. (X)</figcaption></figure> In other words: yes, some recycled materials were used. That&rsquo;s not the same as &ldquo;Hindu temple desecrated by Islamic invaders.&rdquo; But nuance, it seems, is not welcome in this arena. The storm continues, echoing the now infamous Babri Masjid debacle&mdash;and, more ludicrously, the attempts to &quot;reclaim&quot; even the Taj Mahal as a Hindu site. Babri Masjid: The blueprint of manufactured outrage The Babri Masjid dispute remains the cautionary tale that refuses to fade. Constructed in the 16th century by Mir Baqi, a general under Mughal emperor Babur, the mosque stood in Ayodhya until it was demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992. The justification? The belief that it was built atop the birthplace of Lord Ram&mdash;a claim without conclusive historical proof. As Reuters have reported, the mosque&rsquo;s destruction triggered nationwide communal riots, leaving over 2,000 dead. The Supreme Court of India later ruled in 2019 that the demolition was unlawful&mdash;while paradoxically awarding the land for a Hindu temple, citing archaeological surveys. These very Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) surveys, ordered in 2003, claimed the presence of a pre-existing structure with &quot;non-Islamic&quot; architectural features. Yet these findings were hotly contested. Archaeologists Supriya Varma and Jaya Menon, court-appointed observers of the dig, later accused the ASI of methodological flaws and ideological bias (Huffington Post, December 2018). In their 2010 article in the Economic and Political Weekly, they argued the excavation &quot;did not find anything that supported ASI&rsquo;s conclusion.&quot; Historian and professor Arshad Islam, in his academic paper Babri Mosque: A Historic Bone of Contention (International Islamic University Malaysia), went further&mdash;arguing that the narrative of Ram&rsquo;s birthplace was a colonial invention.&nbsp; According to Islam, the British used such stories to divide Hindus and Muslims and consolidate imperial control&mdash;a legacy still haunting the subcontinent today. The Taj Mahal: From mausoleum to mythical mandir Not even India&rsquo;s most iconic monument is safe. In 2018, BJP Member of Parliament Vinay Katiyar claimed the Taj Mahal was originally a Hindu temple, named &ldquo;Tejo Mahalaya,&rdquo; and suggested it would be &ldquo;converted&rdquo; into a temple soon (Al Jazeera, Feb 6, 2018). This was not satire&mdash;it was a genuine policy statement. Let&rsquo;s be clear, historical records, including the Padshahnama from the Mughal period, confirm the land for the Taj was legally purchased from Raja Jai Singh. Archaeological evidence, according to the ASI, has found no indication of a temple beneath the structure. And the locked rooms, long a source of conspiracy theories, have been periodically opened for maintenance, and photos are public. Still, the myth persists&mdash;thanks largely to one man: P.N. Oak. A self-styled revisionist, Oak founded the &ldquo;Institute for Rewriting Indian History&rdquo; in 1964 and proposed, among other things, that virtually every major monument in India&mdash;Muslim, Christian, or otherwise&mdash;was originally a Hindu temple. His claims were so fantastical that India&rsquo;s Supreme Court dismissed a case based on his theories as &quot;frivolous&quot; and labeled it a &quot;publicity interest litigation.&quot; His &lsquo;ideas&rsquo; still inspire popular media. In October 2025, The Taj Story&mdash;a film starring Paresh Rawal&mdash;reignited this theory with a tour guide character demanding a &quot;DNA test&quot; for the Taj Mahal. According to The Print&mdash;an Indian digital platform&mdash;the film resurrects long-debunked conspiracy theories under the guise of entertainment. A pattern of appropriation This is no longer about academic disagreement. This is ideological repurposing masquerading as historical correction. From the Babri Masjid to the Adina Mosque, and even the Taj Mahal, the pattern is clear: 1. &nbsp; &nbsp;Identify an Islamic monument. 2. &nbsp; &nbsp;Launch a campaign of pseudohistorical claims. 3. &nbsp; &nbsp;Demand &ldquo;reclamation.&rdquo; 4. &nbsp; &nbsp;Ignore evidence, facts, and historians. 5. &nbsp; &nbsp;Repeat. This systematic targeting of Muslim heritage is not accidental&mdash;it&rsquo;s a calculated cultural war waged via hashtags, LLM prompts, and WhatsApp forwards.

Hindu devotees wait to enter the Hindu god Lord Ram temple after its inauguration in Ayodhya, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters)

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This systematic targeting of Muslim heritage is not accidental—it’s a calculated cultural war.

Articles tagged with "Hindu nationalism"

Indian lawmaker sparks outrage with ‘purification’ ritual at fort

Fact Check: Why Kashmir can never be an integral part of India

Another historic mosque dragged into Hindu temple narrative storm