In India, Hindu caretaker of a 350-year-old mosque says: ‘It’s one God for everyone’

The first call to prayer floats out of the dainty, whitewashed mosque, infusing the cold morning air of Banaras.

Wrapped in a blanket and a coarsely knitted cap, Bechan Yadav sits near the entrance of the dargah, a Muslim shrine, enjoying the warmth of a dying fire of twigs and branches.

Bechan, a devout Hindu popularly called Bechan Baba, is the caretaker of the Chowkhamba mosque – also known as Anarwali Masjid and Char-o-Dervish, literally meaning “four Sufi saints”.

The 70-year-old has just finished his first round of daily tasks of sweeping and mopping the premises, readying the shrine for the dawn or fajr prayers. The dargah looks spotless.

It will get another sprucing up before the sunset or maghrib prayers later.

Bechan, a second-generation caretaker, has been tending to the shrine for 60 years, initially as an associate to his father, Manu Yadav.

“I was seven or eight years old when I first visited the mosque with my father, who used to be the caretaker of this old structure,” he says. “And after my father died, I continued, doing my best to keep it up and standing.”

Bechan’s family moved to Banaras, a city in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh, more than 150 years ago. Situated near the Ganges and known as the spiritual capital of India, the city had its ancient name of Varanasi revived around 1947, but it is still called Banaras by many.

Bechan’s family were masons by caste. “My great-grandfather was a skilled mason who landed in the nearby locality of Mangala Gauri temple. Since then my family has resided there,” he says, as his face wrinkles into a smile. “In all senses, we are Banarasis.”

Seated on a wooden cot – which has been his home and refuge since his wife died 12 years ago – he calls out for his youngest son Sunil to make morning tea. Sunil’s stall is glued to one of the walls of the mosque and dargah.

For 48 years, while Bechan’s wife was around, he would go home for his meals and night’s rest. The couple had five sons and she never objected to his connection with the mosque. His sons share their mother’s stance on their dad’s occupation.

Garlanded photos of Hindu gods Shiva and Gopal (a variation of Krishna), markers of a practising Hindu, hang on the walls next to Bechan’s cot.

“All my life, I have been a devotee of Shiva and Gopal. I used to visit Kashi Vishwanath and Kal Bhairav temples each day around the year, but now my legs and knees have given up,” Bechan says of the most revered Shiva temples in the city.

“It’s hard to climb the ghats and steps of temples,” he adds, referring to the stone staircases on the embankments of the riverfront that lead into the interior of the city.

Now, Bechan visits only the Gopal temple nearby, with the help of his sons and volunteers who aid him up and down the stone steps.

‘We believe in harmony’

Hate politics has been sweeping India and gripped Banaras like never before. In January this year, the right-wing Hindu outfit Vishwa Hindu Parishad and nationalist militant organisation Bajrang Dal announced that non-Hindus would be banned from using the stone staircases or ghats, an iconic feature of Banaras’ cityscape.

But Bechan shrugged off such spiteful moves, firm in his conviction to continue his daily routine of caring for the Islamic shrine that dates back to more than 350 years.

Religion is keeping Indians apart, especially in the north: Pew survey

How does it feel, though, to be a Hindu tending to a mosque?

Sipping his freshly-made masala chai, wafting with the invigorating scent of ginger, he replies in Hindustani: “It’s one God for everyone, you just have different names. Sometimes He is addressed as Ishwar, sometimes as Allah, it’s one and the same. We are Banarasis, we believe in living together in harmony.”

Ishwar is the Sanskrit word for God or Supreme Being for Hindus, and Allah is the Arabic word Muslims use for God.

Even though the city is central to Hindu culture, where hundreds of thousands of people converge regularly for death and funerary rites in the belief it would liberate the souls to heaven, Varanasi also has mosques that date back to the Mughal emperors, who ruled India from the 16th to 18th centuries.

After the dawn prayers, a Muslim worshipper, Saheb Nizamuddin, joins the conversation. Their camaraderie is evident. He often helps Bechan with the maintenance of the shrine, conducting prayers, and making the call to prayers five times a day.

“Bechan Baba is blessed, everybody feels so,” Saheb says.

As the discussion snowballs to current affairs, he cites the philosophy of Ganga Yamuni Tehzeeb, the culture of a syncretic way of life fusing Hindu elements with Muslim religious practices.

“We live according to Ganga Yamuni Tehzeeb. How will this hateful politics affect us? For the last 17 years, I have been visiting the mosque every day all the way from Vishsheshwar Ganj, where I live,” Saheb says.

“Not once have I got carried away by any divisive thoughts. Together, we have organised many urs of Char-o-Dervish on the 19th of every month. So far, no one has ever objected to Bechan Baba organising the festivity!” he says, referring to the events commemorating the death of a Sufi saint.

“In Banaras one gets to see this pluralism,” says Rana Safvi, a noted historian who has been documenting India’s heritage. “Banaras had Brahmin king and a Muslim dewan.”

Safvi’s maternal grandfather was a dewan, the equivalent of a district magistrate, appointed by the royal family of Banaras. When her aunt was seven, as a Muslim girl, she was on “one of the lead elephants at the Ramlila celebrations, the re-enactment of the life of the Hindu god Rama”.

Sikhs, Muslims and Christians ‘live in fear’ in Hindu majority Uttar Pradesh

For many local Muslims, Bechan’s devotion to his faith has not impaired their relationship with him. Many who offer their prayers at the mosque have become his friends over the years. They have even invited Bechan’s family to marriages and Eid celebrations. Bechan has warmly reciprocated.

“Bechan Baba is always there. Earlier it was his father and then it was him,” says Dillu Rehman, the imam of Chowkhamba Masjid and a resident of Pili Kothi in Banaras who has been conducting Friday and Eid prayers since 2001. “The ‘real’ Banarasis know the naturality of this relationship, it’s syncretic living.”

As the first rays of dawn filter through the mosque’s walls, local Hindus head for their daily holy dip in the Ganges amid the sounds of temple bells ringing, windows and doors flinging open, and the swishing of brooms across courtyards.

Asked to share his memories on the upkeep of the shrine over the decades, Bechan’s face breaks into a faint smile.

“That’s a divine experience and it’s private,” he says.

“I am happy doing this, I am not a lettered man but I know that the shrine is of value. It is almost 353, 354 years old, even older than the much talked-about Dharhara Mosque, which is not even a quarter kilometre away from here,” he says. “I know things are written in Farsi inside. That tells me the antiquity of the shrine. I will do my best to keep it alive.”

Ironically, Dharhara is the same mosque that Mughal emperor Aurangzeb had commissioned in 1673 after demolishing a temple, whose destruction had been weaponised in the rhetoric of hate politics.

With his morning tasks done, Bechan prepares to start his own routine. Nanhe Khan, a young Muslim student of an oboe-like musical instrument, the shehnai, is already waiting for him.

He will be escorting the caretaker to the nearest ghat for a dip in the holy Ganges. Then, Bechan Baba will be off for his daily worship at the Gopal temple.

Nilosree Biswas is a filmmaker and author, most recently of Banaras Of Gods, Humans And Stories.