Ram Janmabhoomi Temple

According to historian Ram Sharan Sharma, “Ayodhya seems to have emerged as a place of religious pilgrimage in medieval times. Although chapter 85 of the Vishnu Smriti lists as many as fifty-two places of pilgrimage, including towns, lakes, rivers, mountains, etc., it does not include Ayodhya in this list.” Sharma also notes that Tulsidas, who wrote the Ramcharitmanas in 1574 at Ayodhya, does not mention it as a place of pilgrimage. According to historian Romila Thapar “If we do not take Hindu mythology in account the first historical description of the city dates back recently to the 7th century, when the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang observed there were 20 Buddhist temples with 3000 monks at Ayodhya, amongst a large Hindu population. In 1528, nobles under Mughal emperor Babur constructed a mosque over the disputed site. The mosque, called the Babri Masjid, has become a source of contention for some Hindus.

At the end of the 19th century, Ayodhya contained 96 Hindu temples and 36 Muslim mosques. Little local trade was carried on, but the great Hindu fair of Ram Navami held every year was attended by about 500,000 people.”In 1528, the Babri Mosque was constructed by Babur’s general, Mir Baqi on the orders of Babur after the alleged demolition of a Ram temple.From the time of its construction until 1859, the mosque was a place of worship for Muslims. That decade saw the first instances of religious violence at the site. In response, the British colonial administration extended access to a portion of the outer courtyard of the Masjid to Hindus who wished to conduct religious ceremonies there. The semi-governmental Waqf Board, an Indian Muslim trust, owned the land on which the mosque stood. This state of affairs persisted until 1949, when activists of the Hindu Mahasabha desecrated the mosque by placing idols of Rama inside.

The Hindu activists then claimed that the idol had “miraculously appeared” inside the mosque.This resulted in an uproar, and both the Sunni Wakf Board and the Hindu activists filed civil suits staking their respective claims to the site. The land was declared to be under dispute, and the gates of the mosque were locked.In 1989-90, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) intensified its agitation in favor of a temple by laying the foundation for a Ram temple on the adjacent property.On 6 December 1992, the VHP and its associates, including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), organised a rally involving 150,000 VHP and BJP kar sevaks at the site of the mosque. The ceremonies included speeches by BJP leaders such as Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharti. The mob grew restive through the duration of the speeches, and stormed the mosque shortly after noon.

A police cordon placed there to protect the mosque was heavily outnumbered. The mosque was attacked with a number of improvised tools, and brought to the ground in a few hours. This occurred despite a commitment from the state government to the Indian Supreme Court that the mosque would not be harmed. The demolition of the mosque triggered large-scale rioting across the country, with more than 2000 people, mostly Muslim, perishing in the violence. On 3 April 2009, the BJP released its election manifesto, again promising to construct a temple to Rama at the site.