Hari Shankar Jain is a Hindu nationalist and a lawyer in India’s Supreme Court. He is also the President of the Hindu Front for Justice.

Jain is widely acclaimed within the Hindu rightwing in India for championing the cause of the Hindutva project through legal means. He was also part of the legal team in the Ram Janmabhoomi civil suit legal battle. He represented Hindu Mahasabha, an ultra-right group in the case.

In 2015, Mr. Hari Shankar Jain was also the critical petitioner in a case in a civil court claiming that the Taj Mahal was originally a Hindu Temple.

He took the case to the Agra court and said he was looking forward to winning the case and performing Hindu prayers at the Taj Mahal.

Jain is an unabashed supporter of the campaign for the construction of a temple for Lord Ram on the disputed site where the 16th-century Babri mosque stood until Hindu extremists demolished it in December 1992.

In December 2019, when the Supreme Court of India alloted five acres of land allotted to the Sunni Central Waqf Board in the Ram Janmabhoomi civil suit, Jain filed a review petition on behalf of Hindu Mahasabha claiming that land was wrongly allotted to  Muslims.

In 2020, Jain filed a petition in an Uttar Pradesh court to “reclaim” Shahi Idgah Masjid, which he claims is the original janmabhoomi (birthplace) of Lord Krishna.

“This suit is being filed for removal of encroachment and superstructure illegally raised by Committee of Management of alleged Trust Masjid Idgah with the consent of Sunni Central Board of Waqf on land Khewat No.255 at Katra Keshav Dev, city Mathura belonging to deity Shree Krishna Virajman,” he told The Times of India.

He has also filed a range of petitions in various courts seeking the removal of mosques he considers “disputed” and even pressed for the right of the Hindus to worship in the 12th-century Qutub Minar complex in India’s capital, Delhi.

Some of his controversial statements:

“Currently, the Waqf Board owns a whopping 6 lakh acres of land – the largest, only after India’s Defence Forces and Indian Railways. In reality, the Waqf Board was never in possession of such an obscene amount of land; however, owing to the lack of knowledge and indifferent nature of Hindus pertaining to this law, the Waqf Board is literally running amok usurping lakhs of acres of land across the country. The Land Jihad being perpetrated by the Board is far more dangerous than Love Jihad. Hindus should unite and fight this battle legally,” he said at the Ninth All-India Hindu Rashtra Convention organised by Hindu Janajagruti Samiti

“On 6^th December, Karsevaks assembled in Ayodhya. The religious sentiments of the Karsevaks had been hurt due to the delay in the verdict by the Court. Nobody wanted to demolish the Babri structure; however, Hindus felt intensely that in independent India, they are facing injustice and not able to even worship. Therefore, the Babri structure was demolished. Hindus were not even allowed to perform symbolic seva,” he told Sanatan Prabhat.