Meghalaya Governor’s Remarks On Mosque Inside Kolkata Airport Triggers Debate

The presence of an old mosque inside the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport in Kolkata that is holding up runway expansion plans has become the subject of debate once again after Meghalaya Governor Tathagata Roy tweeted about it last week.

The Governor tweeted: “Now that Hon’ble Supreme Court has ruled mosques are not essential for offering of namaz, Airports Authority must take immediate steps for relocation of the sparingly-used mosque from inside NSCBI Airport Kolkata, which is holding up the extension of a runway and is a security risk”. That triggered a raging debate in social media and evoked a scathing response from a Muslim minister in the Mamata Banerjee government who pointed out that there is a temple as well inside the airport.

The small mosque, called Gouripur Jame Masjid, located at the northern end of the secondary runway (see this map) has held up plans by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to expand the runway. “The expansion of the secondary runway is necessary for the airport to handle more traffic. We are managing with only the primary runaway now, but in five years’ time, Kolkata airport’s capacity to handle flights will cross saturation levels,” said a top officer of AAI. The AAI had requested the masjid authorities many times in the past to shift the place of worship and even offered to relocate it to a larger plot of land and construct a larger mosque there. But the clerics have turned down the requests, said the AAI officer.

The mosque is 280 metres from the northern end of the 2,790 metre (9,150 feet) long secondary runway. This report in Sunday’s edition of The Times Of India that many pilots using the northern approach for landing have complained about the presence of the structure so close to the runway and some pilots have even missed the touchdown point because of the distraction caused by and obstruction of a clear line of vision due to the presence of the mosque.

The small mosque, and the pathway leading to it from the main road outside the airport, are enclosed in 10-feet-high barbed wire fence. Apart from holding up the secondary runway’s expansion plans, the mosque is also holding up the construction of a taxiway connecting the northern ends of the primary and secondary runways. This taxiway is vital to enable the Kolkata airport to handle more flights and needs to be at least 30 feet wide for wide-bodied aircraft. But thanks to the barbed wire fence enclosing the pathway to the mosque, the taxiway cannot be constructed. AAI officers said they had approached the mosque authorities with plans to construct an alternate pathway, but the latter have asked the AAI to go to the hardline Islamic school and cradle of the controversial Deobandi Islamic movement, Darul Uloom Deoband, which is infamous for passing fatwas like the one on Salman Rushdie and banning photography as ‘un-Islamic’.

Office-bearers of the masjid committee who did not want to be named confirmed this. “Shifting of the mosque or any part of it is a religious issue and our religious scholars need to be consulted. We cannot agree or disagree (to the AAI’s proposal) on our own and so we have asked the AAI to approach the ulemas in Deoband,” said a masjid committee member. The masjid authorities had, in the past too, rebuffed AAI’s proposals to shift the mosque on the plea that the issue is a religious one that can only be decided by Islamic scholars, or ulemas.

But the AAI, being a government body, cannot approach the Islamic school directly. “This issue needs to be handled by the Civil Aviation Ministry and maybe even at the political level. But as far as we know, the scholars in Deoband have not been formally approached ever,” said the AAI officer. But it is not that the Deobandi ulemas would have considered the matter sympathetically, given the fact that they have ruled in the past that “a mosque will always remain a mosque”. Incidentally, this plea was also taken by advocate Rajeev Dhawan who appeared for the main petitioner in the Ayodhya title suit.

The Kolkata airport, spread over a thousand hectares, is in urgent need of expansion to handle more traffic. But the AAI has been able to enhance only the passenger handling capacity at the terminal. “The airport is on the verge of reaching its current capacity to handle 20 million passengers and the expansion plans to double this capacity are underway with the construction of a third terminal and the renovation of the old domestic terminal. But it is vital to enhance the airport’s capacity to handle more aircraft, and for this, the expansion of the secondary runway to the north is vital. If we can’t do that, then the NSCBI will not be able to handle the expected additional traffic after 2020 and the city will need a second airport,” said an AAI officer. But there is just no land around Kolkata for a second airport, and the state government has also communicated this to the AAI when the latter had floated this proposal recently.

The AAI had, many times in the past, informally requested the Bengal government to prevail on the masjid authorities to agree to shift the place of worship. But the present Mamata Banerjee government, and the Left Front government before it, had shied away. In fact, present mass education minister Siddiqullah Chowdhury, who is also the president of the Bengal branch of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, has opposed the banning of triple talaq, has ruled out the shifting of the mosque. He has been quoted in The Times Of India report as contending that the ‘Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991’, prohibits shifting or demolition of religious places.

Chowdhury, who also opposes the punishment meted out to razakars and war criminals accused of 1971 Bangladesh war genocide and calls the criminals “religious leaders”, contends that there is a temple in front of the old domestic terminal and a Christian missionary school outside the eastern boundary wall of the airport. It is a different matter that these structures are not holding up the expansion of the airport. Chowdhury had recently said that Muslims will be governed primarily by the Quran, which shall prevail over India’s Constitution.

Unless the secondary airport is extended by another 850 metres to 900 metres (and if the masjid is removed, there is enough land to allow this extension), the airport will not be able to handle more aircraft. Only smaller aircraft like ATRs and Bombardiers can now land and take off from the secondary runway, but it is imperative to make it suitable for larger aircraft as well so that both the runways can be used. The secondary runway has only CAT I and II instrument landing systems at present and, thus, is unsuitable for use in adverse weather conditions.

Governor Roy’s tweet sparked a debate, with most respondents speaking in favour of relocating the masjid. Many also referred to the demolition of a 500-year-old Shiva temple at Chandrakona in Bengal’s West Midnapore district by the state government earlier this year to construct a road and wondered why the mosque could also not be demolished. In fact, Tathagata Roy had responded to this tweet about the temple demolition that time by pointing out the presence of the mosque inside the Kolkata airport.