After Hindu Right wing organisations and the Dwarka Residents Federation opposed its construction saying Kejriwal is “hallucination of making Delhi the capital of Jihadi radicals and anti-Hindu anti-national elements”, the LG office has asked for land details of Haj House

Up until sometime last week, Delhi’s residents did not know of a site for the construction of Haj House in Dwarka. The land, which comes under the DDA’s public/semi-public category was allotted to the Delhi government on 25 October, 2007. Almost 14 years since, it becomes a point of heated discussion, not because it has failed to be constructed, but because the 5,000 square meter of land will accommodate a Muslim religious building.

A letter opposing its construction was delivered to the Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal. His office, we were told, has already contacted the Delhi State Haj Committee asking for all the steps taken for land acquisition including No Objection Certificates (NOC) – they have NOCs from the fire department, and the Airport Authority of India.

Signed under the name of the principal secretary revenue, the land was bought from the DDA at over Rs 94 lakh (Rs 94,24,372) in 2007. This came with the deal to pay a 2.5% license premium of the total sum every year, as told to us by a senior official of the Delhi State Haj Committee.

The site saw its foundation stone laid by then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit on July 8, 2008. A report from back then quotes Dikshit as saying ”The present Haj Manzil located at Asaf Ali Road is inadequate to accommodate large number of *Yatris* coming to Delhi. The government has to make tenting arrangements for boarding and lodging for about a month, which is not as comfortable as would be in the new spacious Hajj Manzil”.

This is true even now. For those unaware, Haj is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. There are 15 State government/ UT Administrations which have Haj houses as of March 2020, according to an answer in the Lok Sabha, including in Guwahati, Assam; Patna, Bihar; Ahmedabad, Gujarat; Mumbai and Nagpur, Maharashtra; Ghaziabad and Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh; Chennai, Tamil Nadu; Jaipur, Rajasthan; amongst others.

While Delhi does not have a Haj House, it happens to be the largest embarkation point in the country with it catering to Hajis from western UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, J&K, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand and Delhi. A total of 22,551 passengers went via Delhi in 2019, out of which 2,550 were Delhi residents.

In 2020, during Covid although the Haj was cancelled for international pilgrims, the Delhi State Haj Committee received 19,943 applicants. This year however, fewer applied with just 6,641 applicants. Now the process for 2022 will begin in October.

The building which accommodates Haj Manzil happens to be under the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB). The office of Delhi State Haj Committee is situated on the 1st floor of the building. During the year the DUSIB uses the rest of the space as a community centre, with three big halls which are booked for community functions including weddings.

In April, with a surge of Covid numbers it was decided that Haj houses will be used as temporary Covid care centres. At present, a part of the ground floor of the DUSIB building is still cordoned off.

During Haj, with no proper accommodation, tents are put in place for Hajis where they come accompanied by relatives who want to see them off. In 2019, we visited the facility documenting how for the first-time, women were allowed to go for Haj without Mahram (a male companion). The area was teeming with Hajis and also double the number of family members accompanying them to see them off.

This, the committee hopes along with providing essentials facilities can be done away with. We looked at the proposal for the Haj House, which has three floors which will include dormitories and dining rooms, conference hall, offices, medical room, passport section, a bank storage; a prayer hall in the ground floor and a lower ground floor with an Airline check-in counter, holding area and main kitchen.

While the Congress governments envisaged the new centre as one which would take Hajis closer to the Airport for an easier, hassle-free travel point, this was one of the contentions of the group opposing its construction. Their theory is this would make the airport: the IGI Airport and the Palam airport vulnerable – noting here however, that the AAI has given its NOC.

The Haj committee official says he doesn’t understand how and why this has suddenly become an issue. After all these years waking up to this allotment, he believes it could be because of the forthcoming elections – one being the Delhi municipal elections of 2022 and Uttar Pradesh assembly election the same year.

The only move made since 2008 is that the budget for construction was set in 2018 at approximately Rs 96 crore, by the current AAP-led government.

We did find under budget allotments to PWD zones one for the “Construction of Haj House (minor works)” in BE 2020-21 as 1000 lakhs. This obviously did not materialise.

While they also have plans to see the construction taking three years, the file for fund approval now awaits the signature of the current revenue minister Kailash Gahlot.

But with opposition one will have to see how this plan pans out. The protest against the Haj house was organised by groups like Hindu Shakti Sangathan, Samast Chetra Vaasi, Sampoorn Dehat and some resident’s part of the All Dwarka Residents Federation (ADRF) on August 6. This also had BJP’s Delhi head Adesh Gupta in attendance, who said, “(CM) Arvind Kejriwal believes in the policy of appeasement and not development.”

BJP, which also happens to be in power in the Centre, has kept up with the yearly meetings with the Saudi Arabia Government to decide India’s annual Haj quota.

Other right-wing groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) called the construction of the Haj House a move by the AAP “in the greed of the Muslim vote bank”, delving deeper into more sinister charges of “hallucination of making Delhi the capital of Jihadi radicals and anti-Hindu anti-national elements”.

The protest posters also went on to imply that all residents of Dwarka opposed this. This was called out and refused by 98 signatories of a statement by “Dwarka Eksath”, who said “We, the undersigned, residents of Dwarka, New Delhi strongly disagree with the letter written by All Dwarka Residents Federation (ADRF) to the Lieutenant Governor Delhi regarding Haj House land, which was allotted in 2008 in sector 22 for building a Haj House. We condemn the highly communal contents of the letter and assert that ADRF does not represent all residents of Dwarka as claimed by them. It is a small group out to foment trouble and incite hatred by provoking public disorder.”