Ayodhya: from the Babri Masjid to the Ram temple
Hindu activists tear down a sixteenth-century mosque they believe stands on Rama's birthplace; after decades of violence and litigation, a grand temple opens on the site in 2024.
- The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst (1996)
- Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy — Christophe Jaffrelot, Princeton University Press (2021)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
- M. Siddiq (D) Thr. Lrs. v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors. (Ayodhya judgment) — Supreme Court of India (2019)
The Babri Masjid (“Babur’s mosque”) was built in Ayodhya around 1528–29 by Mir Baqi, a commander of the first Mughal emperor. Many Hindus believe it was built on the exact birthplace of Rama, over a demolished temple. The site was disputed from at least the mid-nineteenth century, when Hindus and Muslims clashed there and the British fenced off separate areas of worship.
- The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst (1996)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
1949 to 1990
In December 1949 images of Rama were secretly placed inside the mosque. The government locked the building, and the dispute went to the courts. In the 1980s the Vishva Hindu Parishad launched a campaign to “liberate” the birthplace. In 1986 a court ordered the locks opened for Hindu worship, and in 1990 the BJP leader L. K. Advani led a chariot procession (rath yatra) across north India to rally support, leaving riots in its wake.
- The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst (1996)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
The demolition
On 6 December 1992 a crowd of tens of thousands of volunteers (kar sevaks) gathered at Ayodhya, broke through police lines and tore down the mosque with hammers and bare hands in a few hours, as BJP leaders watched. Riots spread across India, killing around 2,000 people, many of them in Mumbai, and in March 1993 bombings in Mumbai, organised by gangsters in revenge, killed 257 people.
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
- The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst (1996)
Verdict and temple
The dispute dragged through the courts for decades. In 2003 the Archaeological Survey of India reported remains of a large structure beneath the mosque; other archaeologists contested its reading. On 9 November 2019 the Supreme Court unanimously awarded the site to a trust for building a Ram temple, granting Muslims five acres elsewhere in Ayodhya, while condemning the 1992 demolition as illegal. In 2020 a special court acquitted all those accused of conspiring to demolish the mosque.
- M. Siddiq (D) Thr. Lrs. v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors. (Ayodhya judgment) — Supreme Court of India (2019)
- Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy — Christophe Jaffrelot, Princeton University Press (2021)
On 22 January 2024 Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the consecration of the new temple’s image of the child Rama, in a ceremony broadcast nationwide and celebrated with lamps in Hindu homes across India and abroad. Some senior Hindu religious leaders, including Shankaracharyas, objected to consecrating an unfinished temple in a politically timed ceremony. A few months later, in the 2024 election, the BJP lost the parliamentary seat that includes Ayodhya.
- Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy — Christophe Jaffrelot, Princeton University Press (2021)
- General Election to Lok Sabha 2024: statistical reports — Election Commission of India (2024)
Ayodhya is Rama's birthplace, and the Mughal general Mir Baqi built the mosque in 1528 over a temple there, as a deliberate humiliation. Reclaiming it righted a historic wrong; an archaeological report of 2003 found structures beneath the mosque.
- The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst (1996)
- M. Siddiq (D) Thr. Lrs. v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors. (Ayodhya judgment) — Supreme Court of India (2019)
A mosque where Muslims had prayed for four centuries was destroyed in front of the police, those accused were never convicted, and the courts handed the land to those who tore it down. Accepting the verdict has been an act of resignation, not consent.
- Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy — Christophe Jaffrelot, Princeton University Press (2021)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
There is no early evidence that the site was revered as Rama's birthplace before the eighteenth century, and archaeologists disagree over whether the remains under the mosque were a temple. The campaign was a modern political mobilisation as much as a religious one.
- The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics — Christophe Jaffrelot, Hurst (1996)
- India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy — Ramachandra Guha, Macmillan / Picador (2007)
Weighing the evidence of possession and faith, the court gave the site to a trust for the Hindu deity Ram Lalla and five acres elsewhere to the Muslim side, while calling the placing of idols in 1949 and the 1992 demolition serious violations of the law.
- M. Siddiq (D) Thr. Lrs. v. Mahant Suresh Das & Ors. (Ayodhya judgment) — Supreme Court of India (2019)
Why it matters today
For millions of Hindus the Ram temple is the fulfilment of a centuries-old longing and a moment of civilisational pride. For other Hindus it is a monument to their religion's capture by politics, built on the ruins of a mosque.
Ayodhya made Hindu nationalism a mass force and is the defining event of India's religious politics. For many Indian Muslims the demolition and the verdict mark the point at which they felt the republic's promise of equality break. Similar claims now target mosques in Varanasi and Mathura.