(“Babar’s Mosque”) Mosque built in
1528 on the outskirts of the city of
Ayodhya, which was constructed at the
order of Mir Baqi, a general of the
Moghul emperor Babar (1483–1530).
The site has long been a source of controversy between the Hindu and Muslim
communities, and British sources
recorded conflicts there in 1855 and
\1934. Local tradition holds that the
mosque was built on the birthplace of
the Hindu deity Rama, and that it was
constructed only after demolishing the
Hindu temple there, although there is
little hard evidence for the latter claim. A
few months after India gained independence in 1947, several local Hindus surreptitiously installed images of the child
Rama, his wife Sita, and his brother
Lakshmana; they spread the tale that
the images had miraculously appeared
in a ball of light. The government had
only recently quieted the Hindu-Muslim
massacres that accompanied the division of British India into India and
Pakistan, and it was reluctant to reinflame religious passions. Its solution was
to padlock the compound’s gates and
send the case to the courts for resolution, where it languished for almost
forty years.
The early 1980s saw renewed controversy over the site, when the Hindu religious organization Vishva Hindu
Parishad (VHP) first began calling for its
“liberation” and proclaiming that the
existing structure was an insult to all
Hindus. This campaign portrayed the
mosque as a symbol of Muslim iconoclasm. Moreover, it depicted government efforts to protect the mosque as an
attempt to appease the Muslim community and retain their votes. In 1986 the
VHP’s drive to liberate the site was aided
by the national government headed by
Rajiv Gandhi, which in a patent attempt
to claim Hindu support, unlocked the
compound’s gates so that Hindus could
worship on the site.
The pressure intensified as the
decade progressed, culminating in a
series of campaigns to begin constructing a Hindu temple on the site. Many of
these campaigns coincided with national
elections, and the emotion they generated helped benefit the electoral fortunes
of the Bharatiya Janata Party, a political
party with close ties to the VHP.
Eventually, on December 6, 1992, the
mosque was demolished. The whole
operation was carefully planned; the
demolition teams were highly trained,
and the first thing they did was to
destroy all the television cameras there
to prevent any media coverage by outsiders. It was carried out with the blessing of the state government, which
made no attempt to protect the building. The demolition was followed by
riots, particularly in the state of
Maharashtra, in which over three
thousand people were killed, most of
them Muslims.
Even after the destruction of the
Babri Masjid, the site remained a bone
of contention. Immediately following
the demolition, Prime Minister P. V.
Narasimha Rao promised to rebuild the
mosque on the same spot, but he did
nothing to accomplish this during his
time in office. Various Hindu groups,
76
Baba
including traditional religious leaders
such as the Shankaracharyas, have
been calling for the construction of the
Ram Janam Bhumi temple at the site.
Anticipating nothing but trouble ahead,
the government again has sent the matter to the courts for resolution, where it
remains to this day and may remain for
four more decades. For further information see Sarvepalli Gopal, Anatomy of a
Confrontation, 1991; and Christophe
Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist
Movement in India, 1996.