Why Eknath Shinde wants to ‘liberate’ Maharashtra's centuries-old Haji Malang Dargah

A political row erupted in Maharashtra after Chief Minister Eknath Shinde declared that he is committed to the “liberation” of the centuries-old Haji Malang Dargah. His remarks evoked reactions from other political leaders, with All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi accusing him of “targeting the religious place of one particular faith”.

Located on a hillock south of Kalyan in Maharashtra’s Thane district, the shrine is claimed by both Hindus and Muslims.

What did Eknath Shinde say? Why is there a dispute over the centuries-old structure? Let’s understand.

Maharashtra CM stirs a row

Addressing the Malanggad Harinam Mahotsav, a religious gathering, on Tuesday in Thane, Shinde brought up the longstanding dispute over Kalyan’s Haji Malang Dargah. “I am aware of the deep-rooted beliefs you hold about Malang Gad’s liberation. Let me say…. Eknath Shinde will not stay quiet till he fulfills your wishes,” he said, as per Deccan Herald (DH).

The Maharashtra CM also referred to his political mentor Anand Dighe’s role in the “liberation movement” of Malang Gad after which, he said, “we started saying Jay Malang, Shri Malang”.

History of the centuries-old shrine

Situated on the lowest plateau of Malanggad – a hill fort on the Matheran hill ranges spanning the Thane-Raigad belt, the dargah was named after Haji Abd-ul-Rahman, a 12th-Century Sufi saint, according to an Indian Express report.

According to The Gazetteers of Bombay Presidency published in 1882, the shrine was built in honour of the Sufi saint from Yemen who was locally known as Haji Malang. He was believed to have come to India with several followers from the West Asian nation and settled in Malanggad during the reign of the local king, Nal Raja.

Local legends say that the king married off his daughter to the Sufi saint. The graves of both Haji Malang and Maa Fatima are inside the dargah premises, reported Indian Express.

Row over the shrine

The first communal tensions over the structure, which signifies the syncretic culture of Maharashtra, occurred in the 1980s when Shiv Sena leader Dighe started a protest, claiming it was located at the site of an old Hindu shrine belonging to Nath Panth, an order of yogis. He claimed the shrine belonged to Hindus as it was the site of a 700-year-old Machindranath temple, according to Indian Express.

In 1996, Dighe reportedly took the then state Chief Minister Manohar Joshi and some 20,000 Shiv Sainiks to the shrine to perform pooja on the occasion of Magh Purnima. Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray had also attended the pooja, the English daily noted.

Since then, Sena and other Hindu right-wing groups have been calling the structure – Shri Malang Gad.

While the shrine is still a dargah, several Hindus also offer prayers and perform aarti on its premises during full Moon day, reported Indian Express.

The Pir Haji Malang Saheb Trust, which manages the dargah, has had members from both Hindu and Muslim communities. “The stewardship of the dargah rests with a local Brahmin family. It is a syncretic shrine and historically people who are distressed and marginalised irrespective of their faiths visit the shrine,” Rama Shyam, who has written a thesis on the dargah, was quoted as saying by Indian Express.

Reactions to Shinde’s remarks

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appears to have backed Shinde over the issue. “When you evaluate religious sites, you need to see what was located there earlier. The government will look into the history of Malanggad and check its origins. We will take decisions based on that,” Maharashtra BJP president Chandrakant Bawankule is reported to have said.

“Anyone claiming that the dargah is a temple is doing it for political mileage,” Chandrahas Ketkar, one of the two trustees of the three-member trust, told Indian Express.

“In 1954, the Supreme Court in a case related to control of the dargah within the Ketkar family had made observations stating 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. Political leaders are raking it up now only to appeal to their vote bank and create a political issue,” he added.

AIMIM chief hit out at the Maharashtra chief minister for reigniting the issue. He wrote in a tweet on X on Wednesday (3 January), “Maharashtra CM & Deputy CM are openly celebrating criminal acts and inciting people to commit crime. This is the direct result of the civil & criminal Babri judgements. The judgements may have emboldened such acts. Men who have taken a constitutional oath feel no shame in targeting Muslim places of worship”.

The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sharad Pawar faction also targeted Shinde for “making utterances just so to feed communal strife”.

Notably, Shinde had grabbed headlines earlier as well when he visited the disputed shrine last February, performed aarti and offered saffron chadar inside the premises. As per Times of India (TOI), political observers say that the CM’s remarks are likely to set the tone for the campaign of his son Shrikant Shinde, who is an MP from Kalyan, in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

With inputs from agencies