Over the years, Muslims praying in open places has become a normal scene in many places across the world. But on Friday, a Hindu nationalist crowd gathered in their usual saffron, the roars of their signature slogans “Jai Shri Ram(Hail Lord Ram) and “Hail the Motherland” filled the air. Then a cry resounded: “The Muslims are here. And the crowd started to charge.

Long before now, no one had given much thought to the parking lot outside the Sector 37 police station in Gurgaon, a satellite city of India’s capital Delhi. But over the past few Fridays, the dusty, trash-strewn piece of concrete has turned into a religious battleground.

For more than a decade, this parking lot has been one of the hundreds of sites Muslims in Gurgaon have used as a makeshift prayer ground on Friday, their designated day of common prayer, for Jumma namaz. These prayers are usually held in mosques, but Gurgaon, a city that developed in the 1990s from the scrub on the outskirts of Delhi to serve India’s new middle class, suffers from a severe shortage, with around 13 to accommodate a city of more than 1.5 million inhabitants. people. Attempts to build more mosques in the area, even on land owned by Muslims, have met with resistance and hostility.

Instead, the thousands of Muslim laborers who flocked to this expanding metropolis for construction work on corporate skyscrapers and luxury apartments in Gurgaon have found another option. Unable to walk for miles to a mosque to offer namaz, they began to pray on empty plots of land. They even sought permission from the administration, and by 2018 the Muslim community had been granted permission to pray outdoors in 108 locations in the district.

“People are forced to pray in the open because we have no other choice,” said Altaf Ahmad, co-founder of the Gurgaon Muslim Council.

But in 2018, rumblings of discontent began, when Hindu vigilantes realized that Muslims were praying on public land. They began to stage protests, sometimes with more than 100 people, disrupting dozens of Friday prayers and fracturing the modern metropolis along with a centuries-old schism.

In response, the Gurgaon administration reduced the number of namaz sites from 108 to 37, much to the dismay of Muslim leaders who felt that the administration was bending to the demands of the fanatics. “They told us it was temporary and just to calm the situation,” Ahmad said. But this year, after a lull due to Covid, objections have come back in force.

Every Friday for months, members of Hindu self-defense groups alongside residents have gathered, sometimes armed with axes and wooden rods, at the sites of namaz to try to prevent them from happening. Slogans such as “shoot the traitors” were shouted and Hindu prayers and songs were read in an attempt to drown the Quran readings. Cow dung was deposited at the sites and the police had to hold back the crowds regularly so namaz could go on.

Last month, an umbrella organization of Hindu groups, the Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti, told police it was prepared to use weapons and go to jail if the namaz was not arrested.

At the forefront of the fight is Dinesh Thakur, who goes by the name of Dinesh Bharti, a nod to his dedication to Bharat, sense mother India. Thakur, who has set up his own one-man Hindu nationalist army called Bharat Mata Vahini, has been detained more than 10 times and arrested and charged three times for his community actions.

On Friday, Thakur sprinted towards Shehzad Khan, the Muslim leader who was there to lead the prayer, and began to confront him, stepping inches from his face and shouting “no.” namaz here ”, until he was dragged by five policemen. As the Muslims silently entered the area to namazHeads down and holding their prayer rugs, a line of armed police held back the Hindu nationalist crowd. Seven were arrested by the police.

” Drive namaz in broad daylight, it is earthly jihad, ”Thakur declared before being arrested. “It’s an international conspiracy. They do namaz outside, then they build a shrine, then they build a mosque, and then inside the mosque, they harbor terrorists and weapons and they pose a threat to the nation. I will not stop my fight until it becomes illegal.

Residents joined the protests, including Ravinder Kumar, 45, a software engineer and co-secretary of the Gurgaon Sector 47 Resident Welfare Association. “So many strangers came here to namaz, and that created an environment of fear, ”Kumar said. “Then they roam our park and we’re afraid they’re here for theft. A few days ago, an AK47 rifle was seized from a Muslim in Gurgaon by police. We don’t want such things in our area.

Kumar admitted that so far no criminal incidents have been committed by anyone coming for Friday prayers.

For the Muslim community, praying in the few public sites they have left has become a declaration of their rights in society. The number of public places where Muslims are allowed to pray in Gurgaon has recently been reduced to 20, and due to continued protests, it is likely to decline further. Mufti Mohammad Saleem Qasmi, president of the Muslim organization Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, said they will continue to hold Friday prayers in these spaces because it is a matter of justice.

On Friday as the cries of “Jai Shri RamSounded and the police restrained the demonstrators with batons, about 50 Muslims sat side by side in the direction of Mecca and bowed their heads to the ground. Khan then led a prayer for Hindu-Muslim harmony. “Muslims are as many citizens of India as Hindus. Our ancestors also sacrificed themselves for this country, ”he said. “Guide us, Hindu and Muslim brothers, to remain united in a bond of brotherhood. “

Washi Ahmer, 25, was among those who came to pray. “We are not afraid, but that is not just what is happening,” he said. “We have been praying here for 10 to 12 years but this whole protest is new. They want to divide the nation. They have a problem with our existence.

Developments in Gurgaon reflect the divisions between Hindus and Muslims that have opened up across India since the Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata came to power in 2014.

“When this first happened in 2018, it hurt me a lot,” Ahmad said. “But there has been so much pressure on Muslims since then that now I have gone numb. I no longer feel this pain.

To improve community harmony, last Friday the Sikh community stepped in and offered its five gurdwaras in Gurgaon as spaces for namaz. But that made the problem even worse. Several people set up a picket in front of a gurdwara with placards and handed out brochures asking how Sikhs could let Muslims enter their place of worship when their ninth Sikh guru was killed by the Mughals.

Ultimately, in the name of security, no Muslims prayed in the gurdwara. Daya Singh, 72, Gurudwara Shri Guru Singh Sabha committee member, said: “We know it’s not really about namaz, this is all part of the plan to alienate Muslims.

The Gurgaon administration says it has resolved the problem. “We are committed to preserving community harmony and public order in the region,” said Deputy Commissioner of Gurgaon, Dr. Yash Garg. “Namaz is now offered peacefully. This problem is caused only by the marginal elements on both sides. It is a free country for all religions, the Muslim community can build another mosque if they wish.