NEW DELHI - A 1991 law, which freezes the status and character of places of worship in India as at the time of independence in 1947, has come under increasing scrutiny, with Hindu groups asserting their ownership over two important mosques in the state of Uttar Pradesh in court cases.

One spot is the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi, which is built on the ruins of a 16th century Hindu shrine. The temple was partially destroyed in 1669 on the orders of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who then had the mosque built at the site.

The other is Mathura's Shahi Eidgah Mosque, built in 1670 also on the orders of Aurangzeb, and is adjacent to the Krishna Janmasthan Temple Complex - where Lord Krishna is believed to have been born - and on land where it is claimed a temple once stood.

It is with the aim of putting a lid on such disputes that the Indian government, which was then led by the Congress party, enacted the Places of Worship Act in September 1991. It bars the conversion of a place of worship of any religious denomination into one for another denomination. Even conversion from one section of a religious community to another within the same religion was also barred.

The Act states that the religious character of a place of worship must continue to be the same as it existed on Aug 15, 1947 and prohibits judicial attempts to change it.

It was passed at a time of widespread bloody Hindu-Muslim violence in India, fanned by a provocative 1990 chariot rally by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lal Krishna Advani that preceded the demolition of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in December 1992.

Professor Faizan Mustafa, a constitutional law expert, told The Straits Times that the law was passed with the "noble intention of bringing closure to religious disputes".

"We can't keep going back into the past and looking at what was the original character of this place and... that place because there is no end to it," he said.

"One has to see that our history is bloodstained and there was no rule of law at that point of time. Whatever the monarchs or the invaders thought fit, they did it, but today we live in a rule of law society and what was done by the likes of Aurangzeb cannot be repeated."

The law was passed amid opposition from parties such as the BJP and Shiv Sena. Ongoing Hindu claims over the mosques in Varanasi and Mathura have been contested with the argument that these claims violate the provisions of the law.

But as these cases progress, there have been growing calls for the government to reassess the law. This has prompted fears of renewed communal strife in India that could result from any move that violates the Act or attempts to amend or repeal it.

"If the 1991 Act goes, then of course, the floodgates will open," added Prof Mustafa, referring to many other disputes over places of worship in India, including those centred on Hindu temples that were built on the ruins of Buddhist shrines.

"That will not be right. If a country is debating just on religious issues, then you can't really make progress… Somewhere there has to be some closure."

He suggested that disputing parties should instead attempt an out-of-court settlement "in a spirit of accommodation and large-hearted tolerance and broad-mindedness".

In 2019, the Supreme Court handed over the disputed Babri Mosque site to Hindu litigants, who had argued that it is the birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Ram.

But the five-judge bench described the 1991 Act as one that protects India's secular principles and said that "non-retrogression is a foundational feature of the fundamental constitutional principles".

"In preserving the character of places of public worship, Parliament has mandated in no uncertain terms that history and its wrongs shall not be used as instruments to oppress the present and the future," the bench had added in its judgement.

But BJP leader and lawyer Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay last year challenged the validity of the Places of Worship Act in the Supreme Court, arguing that "a temple doesn't cease being a temple just because its roof and walls are demolished".

"The mosque constructed at temple land cannot be a mosque, not only for the reason that such construction is against Islamic law, but also on grounds that the property once vested in the deity continues to be deity's property and right of deity and devotees are never lost, howsoever long illegal encroachment continues on such property," he said.

The petition is still pending in the Supreme Court.

Mr Upadhyay does not believe that repealing the Act risks opening the floodgate for religious disputes or threatens India's social fabric and argues that not doing so allows the "illegal barbarian act of invaders" to "continue in perpetuity".

"No, historical wrongs must be corrected," he told The Straits Times.

Mr Nikhil Mehra, an advocate at the Supreme Court, said the Act's passage reflects an "ostrich-heads-in-the sand" approach and is a sign of the "failure of our politics".

According to him, the Act raises several questions, especially around the principle of non-retrogression. "The complete closing of past claims is unacceptable because it limits known religious rights of Hindus and also denies them access to a natural forum (the courts) for the adjudication of history," he told ST.

But Mr Mehra added there cannot be "constant retrogression" though. "There has to be a clear basis that a claim can only be made on those places of worship which were in active use when taken over by an invader and that a consistent claim has been raised throughout on them - not merely at the time of the filing of the relevant legal proceeding."

Professor Rameshwar P. Bahuguna, a historian from the Jamia Millia University in Delhi, noted there was a dangerous trend emerging around attempts to undermine the Places of Worship Act.

"We have to unearth the past and try to understand it to the best of our abilities to find out how those societies were different from us," he said.

"There is no point in back-projecting modern issues and ideologies on the past. The past is not there as a mirror image of the present. We read history to understand past society. We don't study history to take revenge," he said.

Even the Taj Mahal and Qutub Minar, two of India's iconic tourist attractions, have been dragged into these revisionary efforts, albeit unsuccessfully. A BJP leader had recently made a failed judicial attempt at opening more than 20 sealed rooms inside the Taj Mahal, while arguing that Hindu groups claim the iconic structure was a temple.

An editorial in The Indian Express on May 18 said that what the government does with the Places of Worship Act and how it responds to the current campaign being fought in the courts - one that is "framed by majoritarian politics in terms of culture and faith" - will determine how India looks at its history as well as future.

"The stakes couldn't be higher, all need to tread with caution - and the Constitution," it added.