Ayodhya: The Battle for Indias Soul

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December 3, 2012, 10:14 AM IST

Ayodhya: The Battle for India’s Soul

By Krishna Pokharel and Paul Beckett

[This Wall Street Journal investigation is being published in serialized form. A new chapter will be posted each morning this week on India Real Time.]

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Copyright: The British Library Board
A photograph of the Babri Masjid from the early 1900s. Click here to view related slideshow.

Our story begins in 1949, two years after India became an independent nation following centuries of rule by Mughal emperors and then the British.

What happened back then in the dead of night in a mosque in a northern Indian town came to define the new nation, and continues to shape the world’s largest democracy today.

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The legal and political drama that ensued, spanning six decades, has loomed large in the terms of five prime ministers. It has made and broken political careers, exposed the limits of the law in grappling with matters of faith, and led to violence that killed thousands. And, 20 years ago this week, Ayodhya was the scene of one of the worst incidents of inter-religious brutality in India’s history.

On a spiritual level, it is a tale of efforts to define the divine in human terms.

Ultimately, it poses for every Indian a question that still lingers as the country aspires to a new role as an international economic power: Are we a Hindu nation, or a nation of many equal religions?

CHAPTER ONE

The Sarayu river winds its way from the Nepalese border across the plains of north India. Not long before its churning gray waters meet the mighty Ganga, it flows past the town of Ayodhya.

In 1949, as it is today, Ayodhya was a quiet town of temples, narrow byways, wandering cows and the ancient, mossy walls of ashrams and shrines.

The town’s residents included both Muslims and Hindus. But most noticeable were the Hindu holy men known as sadhus, with painted foreheads, long beards and loose robes. They flocked there, as they do today.

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Copyright: The British Library Board
Details of an 18th century painting of Ayodhya.

Hindu scriptures say Ayodhya is the birthplace of Lord Ram, making it one of the religion’s holiest places. (Ayodhya means “unconquerable” in Sanskrit.)

Among the sadhus, back then, was Abhiram Das, a muscular priest with a strong voice, a severe visage and a quick temper, according to two of his surviving disciples. In his mid-40s, he had arrived in the town 15 years before from the countryside of Bihar, to the east, they say.

He revered Ram. And, his disciples say, he made it his mission to restore Ram to the exact place he believed the god had been born: a site then occupied by a mosque called the Babri Masjid.

The mosque was named after the Mughal ruler, Babar, whose troops had built it more than 400 years before. Inside, the mosque had space for about 90 people to pray, according to two elderly Muslims in Ayodhya. Verses of the Koran were written on the walls inside. On the minbar, or pulpit, under the central dome was inscribed in Persian: “Place for the angels to descend.”

The complex had two courtyards, ringed by a perimeter wall and separated by a wall with a railing. In the outer courtyard was a small wooden platform with an idol of Ram where Hindus worshipped.

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A map of India showing Ayodhya.

Abhiram Das wanted to establish Ram inside the building itself. He was not alone in his quest: a movement of sadhus dedicated to that goal was gathering momentum.

They claimed the mosque had been built from the ruins of an ancient temple to the Hindu god, which Muslims disputed. The site had been an occasional flashpoint for violence between the two communities in the past.

Abhiram Das told his disciples that he had a recurring dream that Ram made an appearance under the building’s central dome, the two disciples said.

One day in mid-1949, the sadhu repeated his vision to the city magistrate in neighboring Faizabad, the city which oversees the administration of Ayodhya.

His words immediately struck a chord with the magistrate, Guru Dutt Singh, according to an account given by Mr. Singh’s son, Guru Basant Singh. Mr. Singh’s reply, his son said: “Brother, this is my old dream. You are having it now; I am having it for a long time.”

The two men started to talk about how a statue of a young Ram might be surreptitiously put in a Muslim place of worship, Mr. Singh’s son said.

The use of idols marks one of the great differences between Hinduism and Islam. Islam strictly prohibits idol worship because God, to its followers, is an invisible and indivisible entity. Hinduism holds that God can exist in many forms and devotees worship idols as mediums to God. So a statue of Ram itself would be a deity.

There are various versions of what transpired a few weeks later. Many Hindus have come to believe that it was a miracle. Mr. Singh’s son, speaking in detail for the first time about those events, said it was, rather, a carefully-planned plot to return Ram, in the view of his father and Abhiram Das, to the deity’s place of birth.

**

At the time, India as a country was only two years old, its promise as a fledgling democracy challenged by the fact that it was rent in two – geographically, demographically, socially, emotionally — by the Partition that created the Muslim nation of Pakistan in the territory’s northwest and northeast.

The migration of many Muslims to Pakistan consolidated the Hindu majority in the new India. Muslims comprised 24.4% of India’s population in 1941; they were down to 10% of post-Partition India a decade later, according to census data.

Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister, was striving to stabilize the new country. He was determined to establish India as a secular nation that respected the religious beliefs, or lack of them, of all its citizens.

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Click here for an overview of key players in chapter one.

“All of us, to whatever religion we may belong are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations,” he said in a message to the nation when India became independent on Aug. 15, 1947.

Still, many Hindus felt aggrieved about Pakistan’s creation and the choice given to Muslims to move or stay. They used a term that would be repeated countless times over the following decades: Muslim “appeasement.”

Even within Nehru’s Indian National Congress party, there were many who supported the drive to make India a Hindu-dominated country. Some in Congress were actively involved in the formation of the All India Hindu Mahasabha, a conservative Hindu political party, several years before.

The party opposed the creation of Pakistan and blamed Congress for it. The man who killed Mahatma Gandhi in early 1948, Nathuram Godse, was an activist of the Hindu Mahasabha. He was hanged in November 1949.

Partition had little effect in Ayodhya, though. Many Muslims stayed, maintaining a cultural mix that had existed for hundreds of years.

Muslim artisans made many of the idols that Hindu devotees worshipped in the temples. Hindu priests bought clothes and flowers for temple statues from Muslim vendors. One temple in Ayodhya even had a Muslim manager.

“Why would we leave our country?” said Mohammad Hashim Ansari, a local tailor, who was then in his late 20s. “We belong to this land.”

**

Guru Dutt Singh, the Faizabad city magistrate, was tall and obstinate, with a neatly-trimmed moustache. He graduated from Allahabad University in what was then the United Provinces; today, it is in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

He joined the Provincial Civil Services but, his son said, refused to kowtow to his colonial masters. He insisted on wearing a self-fashioned turban in contrast to the hats favored by the British.

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Singh Family
Guru Dutt Singh, Faizabad city magistrate in 1949.

During a posting to Bareilly, when he first met one of his superiors, Michael Nethersole, the British man asked him: “Why don’t you wear a hat?”

“Why don’t you wear Indian headgear?” Mr. Singh retorted, according to his son.

Yet Mr. Singh also demanded respect for rank: He scolded his son for cheekily referring to Mr. Nethersole, as “Leather Sole” because “He is, after all, a district magistrate,” his son recalled being told. Mr. Nethersole’s descendants couldn’t be traced.

In his duties, which included preventing riots, Mr. Singh sought to be even-handed about religion, his son said. At times, he told Hindus that he would lock them up if they created trouble.

At other times, he called Muslims for consultation and said, “I consider you as my younger brothers; I’m your elder brother and we both belong to Mother India,” his son said.

What Mr. Singh considered his neutrality at work, however, fueled his resentment at what he saw as “the appeasement of minorities” – Muslims, in other words — his son said.

His father was not in favor of the creation of Pakistan. But once it existed, he believed, “If a country has been made for you, you should all go there,” his son said.

Mr. Singh was a devout Hindu, eschewing alcohol and maintaining a vegetarian diet. He visited Ayodhya at least annually, staying in a guest house at a temple. Since college days, Ram had been his religious focal point.

Ram is one of the incarnations of Lord Vishnu, who is part of Hinduism’s holy trinity: Vishnu is the protector; Brahma is the creator; Shiva is the destroyer.

According to Hindu scriptures, Ram was born in Ayodhya tens of thousands of years ago. He was the eldest son of the Hindu King Dasharath of the Solar Dynasty, so-called because the monarchs were believed to be descendants of the sun. Ram is revered as “maryada purushottam,” an excellent man of honor.

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Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
A Ram shrine at an Ayodhya ashram.

It was to Ayodhya that Ram returned from exile after rescuing his wife, Sita, from the demon god Ravan in Sri Lanka, according to an ancient Sanskrit version of the Ramayan, the Hindu text about Ram’s life.

Benevolently, Ram ruled over his kingdom from Ayodhya, becoming the epitome of good governance, the Ramayan says. And, in the twilight of his life, he was said to walk through a door in Ayodhya directly to heaven.

As Mr. Singh aged, his conviction grew that he wanted to put Ram back where he believed he belonged, his son said. He thought Muslims should yield the Babri Masjid.

“He used to have this tussle in him that ‘While I so much respect their religion, why don’t they reciprocate?’” his son said.

In the mid-1940s, Mr. Singh met K.K. Nayar, an administrator in the national Indian Civil Service, Mr. Singh’s son said. The service was a precursor to today’s Indian Administrative Service and the two men were stationed in the same city.

Mr. Nayar was from Kerala in the south. He was erudite and more soft-spoken than Mr. Singh. The two men found common cause in their reverence of Ram and their desire to take action, Mr. Singh’s son said. Both men were also sympathetic to the Hindu Mahasabha, the conservative Hindu political party, but refrained from actively supporting it because of their government jobs, he said.

Together, the men asked the official in charge of appointments in the United Provinces to post them at the same time to Faizabad, which administered Ayodhya, according to Mr. Singh’s son.

Mr. Singh moved there in 1948 as city magistrate. Around the same time, Mr. Nayar moved there as district magistrate, the most senior administrative post in the district. Both men are now deceased. Mr. Nayar’s son declined to be interviewed.

**

The Singhs moved into Lorpur House, a yellow, British-era mansion. Starting in mid-1949, Mr. Singh, Mr. Nayar, Abhiram Das and other local officials met there to plan how to install Ram in the Babri Masjid, according to Mr. Singh’s son.

As the family’s only child, Guru Basant Singh was then about 15 years old. He said he was in charge of serving tea and water at the meetings and at times hid behind the door to listen in on the planning.

The meetings were held in secret after sunset, he said. A Hindu servant was posted at the door with instructions to tell any visitors that his father was resting.

His version of events is confirmed by Mahant Satyendra Das, one of Abhiram Das’s surviving disciples, who is now the government-appointed head priest at the site of the mosque.

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Dharam Das
Abhiram Das in the later days of his life.

He joined Abhiram Das in 1958. That year, the sadhu gave him a detailed account of events, said Mr. Das, who recalled their discussion in an interview. (The two men share a surname but were not related.)

“Top district officials” including K.K. Nayar and Guru Dutt Singh, worked with Abhiram Das on how the idol might be put in the Babri Masjid, which was locked and guarded, Mr. Das said the sadhu told him.

One guard, a Hindu, took the afternoon and evening shift. Another guard, a Muslim, took night watch, Mr. Das said he was told.

The Hindu guard agreed to let Abhiram Das and a small group of sadhus sneak into the mosque with an idol of Ram during his watch, Abhiram Das told his disciple, adding: “We took the Hindu guard into confidence by telling him about the virtues he will earn by being part of this extremely holy work.”

The Hindu guard would then hand over the keys to the Muslim guard at midnight, as usual, Mr. Das said the sadhu told him.

On the other hand, the Muslim guard was “briefed” by Guru Dutt Singh and K.K. Nayar “what he had to do,” according to Guru Dutt Singh’s son. He was threatened with his life if he did not cooperate, Mr. Singh’s son said. The guards and their descendants couldn’t be traced.

The statue of Ram would be about seven inches tall, made of eight metals, and would depict an infant – a “Ram Lalla” – befitting the place of his birth.

Both Mr. Singh, the city magistrate, and Mr. Nayar, the district magistrate, knew how furious Nehru and the government in New Delhi would be if the mosque was infringed upon, said Mr. Singh’s son. They both decided that they would resign rather than obey any order to remove the statue, he said.

Other details fell into place and the meetings ended around October 1949, according to Mr. Singh’s son. Now, the planners had to await their moment.

In late November 1949, religious friction in Ayodhya was on the rise. Sadhus and devotees of Ram lit sacred fires outside the mosque and read from the Ramayan as they listened to speeches about how Ram should be returned to his birthplace. Members of the crowd scuffled with local Muslims.

The planners, said Mr. Singh’s son, set their date for soon after: The night of Dec. 22, 1949, a Thursday.

“We decided that since the country has now got political liberation, we should also liberate the birthplace of Lord Ram,” Abhiram Das told Mr. Das, the latter said.

**

In the chill of the north Indian winter, the Hindu guard ended his shift that night. But before he left, as planned, Abhiram Das and two other sadhus gained access, Abhiram Das told his disciple.

When the Muslim guard came for his round of duty, the Hindu guard handed over the keys. Around 3 a.m., an auspicious time in Hinduism, Abhiram Das and the other sadhus started ringing small bells inside the mosque. They lit a lamp and sang to the tiny idol that was placed on the pulpit under the central dome: “God appeared, compassionate and benevolent,” the sadhu told his disciple.

The Muslim guard made a statement to local authorities soon after that at around 3 a.m. he saw the area under the central dome bathed in a golden light, according to Mr. Singh’s son and others. He said the light illuminated a tiny figure of Ram that seemed to have appeared by itself.

The Muslim guard’s “revelation” and the statement had been planned in advance to appear to bear witness to a religious miracle, said Mr. Singh’s son.

Bindeshwari Prasad, a sadhu living in Ayodhya, was there that night, the youngest of a group of sadhus camped outside, he said in an interview at the red-brick ashram where he now lives. He described the events in mystical terms.

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Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
Bindeshwari Prasad, a sadhu who still lives in Ayodhya.

“I and other people sleeping there that night saw Ram Lalla in our dreams; we all woke up at 3 in the morning,” Mr. Prasad said, his voice a whisper and his skin stretched like bark on his aged body. He claimed they could see the idol on the floor through the railings.

Abhiram Das was there, he recalled. The lock to the mosque was broken and the group of sadhus entered. “We went near the Lord and sang religious hymns and worshipped him,” said Mr. Prasad.

Armed constables, alerted to what was happening, shot a few rounds in the air, Mr. Prasad said. A bullet grazed his abdomen, he said, pointing to the spot. He said another sadhu took a bullet in the toe.

Mr. Singh’s son said the police had instructions only to fire in the air, as part of the planning his father and the others had done.

Back at Lorpur House, Guru Dutt Singh was kept informed of what was happening by two messengers who worked in a bicycle relay from Ayodhya to Faizabad to convey the latest news, his son said.

Mr. Singh, in turn, entrusted a Hindu employee in the household to take hand-written messages to K.K. Nayar with a special order to give the missives only to him. “That was how they communicated,” said Mr. Singh’s son.

When the officials realized the statue had been successfully installed, and the mosque was filled with sadhus, Mr. Singh and Mr. Nayar took a car to the site, according to Mr. Singh’s son and Mr. Prasad.

Later that morning, Mr. Singh offered prayers, or puja, in Lorpur House, his son said: “I don’t know what he said but it is my understanding that he was telling God, ‘Let happen what has been happening.’”

Then Mr. Singh imposed an order that prohibited the gathering of large groups of people in Ayodhya. But he made it clear to police that they were not to obstruct Hindus, his son said.

After, Mr. Singh left his Faizabad home for nearby government accommodation where visiting officials stayed. He gave instructions that if anyone inquired about his whereabouts, they were to be told he was “out of station,” his son said.

Word spread quickly to neighboring communities. Thousands of Hindu devotees came to see the idol in the mosque.

Abhiram Das helped whip up enthusiasm. That day, Dec. 23, he visited a local school. Rajendra Singh, the son of a local officer of the Hindu Mahasabha, the conservative Hindu party, was a pupil then.

“Lord Ram has appeared! Lord Ram has appeared!” he recalled Abhiram Das saying.

**

There was a dissident voice among the local sadhus. Akshaya Brahmachari was about 35 years old at the time and a devotee of Ram.

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Meera Behen
Akshaya Brahmachari with his disciple Meera Behen, right, in an undated photo.

He also was a local Congress party officer who defended the rights of Muslims to remain in India “as equal citizens” rather than move to Pakistan, according to a disciple, Meera Behen, who was then a high school student.

There was rising friction in town that day as loudspeakers announced “the appearance of God, exhorting all Hindus to come for audience,” Mr. Brahmachari wrote in a memorandum a few months later. But local officials, including K.K. Nayar, showed no interest in removing the idol or defusing the situation, he wrote.

He added: “Communal poison was spread in an organized manner and the attitude of the officials gave the idea to the people that either the Government wanted all that to happen, or they had completely given in to the communalists.”

TOMORROW: The fight to keep the idol in the mosque and the legal battle that ensued.

 

[asad71]

By Krishna Pokharel And Paul Beckett

[This Wall Street Journal investigation is being published in serialized form. A new chapter will be posted each morning this week on India Real Time. Click here to read chapter one.]

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Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
A replica of the idol of Ram placed in the Babri Masjid on Dec. 22, 1949. Click here to view related slideshow.

Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s prime minister, was greatly perturbed by an idol of Lord Ram being placed in a mosque.

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Staff/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Jawaharlal Nehru, left, with U.S. President Harry Truman.

Polished, intellectual and skeptical of religion, Nehru was trying to propel the nation into an era of modern socialism and scientific thinking. But the events in Ayodhya forced him to grapple anew with the centuries-long friction between Hindus and Muslims – and to try to counter the spreading belief that a deity had materialized in the dead of night.

“I am disturbed at developments at Ayodhya,” Nehru said in a telegram on Dec. 26, 1949, to Govind Ballabh Pant, chief minister of United Provinces, which roughly included what is now the state of Uttar Pradesh. “Earnestly hope you will personally interest yourself in this matter. Dangerous example being set there which will have bad consequences.”

The provincial government wanted the statue removed. K.K. Nayar, the district magistrate in Faizabad, who also oversaw Ayodhya, refused. He wrote to a provincial official that removing the idol was “fraught with the gravest danger to public peace” and would lead to a “conflagration of horror,” according a copy of his correspondence.

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Around that time, Guru Dutt Singh, the city magistrate, resigned. His son, Guru Basant Singh, said his father quit because “his work was done” and the idol’s installation, which Mr. Singh helped plan, had succeeded.

Local Hindus added religious items to the mosque: more idols; six black ammonite stones; a small silver throne; brass utensils for worship; and clothes for the deity, according to an official list compiled later.

Muslims weren’t welcome. Mohammad Hashim Ansari, a local tailor, headed to the Babri Masjid with a few others the morning after the idol of Ram was installed, said Mr. Ansari and another local Muslim who was there. The police stopped them at the gate. The Muslims returned home, they said.

Nehru kept pushing. In early January, he wrote again to Mr. Pant. The chief minister called him soon after.

Mr. Pant “intended taking action, but he wanted to get some well-known Hindus to explain the situation to people in Ayodhya first,” Nehru wrote in a separate letter to the governor-general of India dated Jan. 7, 1950.

Weeks passed. The idol stayed.

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The Wall Street Journal/Court Files
The idols installed in the Babri Masjid in 1949, shown in a photo taken in 1950.

The discord in Ayodhya threatened Nehru’s desire for India to be a democracy in which all beliefs were equally respected. He also feared that it would have repercussions “on all-India affairs and more especially Kashmir,” the disputed territory between India and the newly-created Pakistan, he wrote to Mr. Pant on Feb. 5, 1950.

Nehru added that he would be willing to make the 600-kilometer trip from Delhi to Ayodhya himself. But, he also noted, “I am terribly busy.”

Nehru didn’t make the trip. By March, he was sounding defeated as local officials continued to balk at removing the idol.

“This event occurred two or three months ago and I have been very gravely perturbed over it,” he wrote in a letter to K.G. Mashruwala, an associate of Mahatma Gandhi.

Nehru lamented that many in his Congress party had become “communal” toward Pakistan and India’s Muslims. “I just do not know what we can do to create a better atmosphere in the country,” he wrote.

In 1952, Nehru visited Uttar Pradesh to campaign for Mr. Pant in an election, according to a person who heard him speak. He told the crowd, in Hindi, “The Ayodhya event has put me to shame,” this person said.

**

In January 1950, a decades-long legal battle began between Ayodhya’s Hindus and Muslims over the site of the Babri Masjid. The first case was filed by a Hindu , Gopal Singh Visharad, in the Victorian Gothic district court building in neighboring Faizabad.

Mr. Singh Visharad – “Visharad” denotes expertise in Hindu scripture — was a lawyer who had moved to Ayodhya because he wanted to live in a Hindu holy place, according to his son, Rajendra. Rajendra was the schoolboy who witnessed Abhiram Das, the sadhu, spreading the word on the morning of Dec. 23, 1949, that Ram had appeared in the mosque.

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Krishna Pokharel/The Wall Street Journal
The house where Gopal Singh Visharad lived in Ayodhya.

A stern-looking man with a broad nose and a thick moustache, Mr. Singh Visharad, then 42 years old, was the Ayodhya secretary of the Hindu Mahasabha, a conservative Hindu political party that opposed Nehru’s Congress. He was close to Mr. Nayar, the district magistrate, and Guru Dutt Singh, the city magistrate, according to Rajendra Singh.

Mr. Singh Visharad had celebrated the appearance of the Ram Lalla idol and worshipped at the site for a few days, his son said. But when he went there on Jan.14, 1950, the police stopped him at the gate.

By then, another local magistrate had already issued an order seizing the building. A receiver was named and the place was locked for devotees. As an interim arrangement, the receiver appointed a small team of priests to attend daily to the statue of Ram Lalla at the site because it was, after all, a deity that needed feeding, bathing, and clothing, according to Hindu ritual.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Singh claimed the right to worship the deity in the building “without any obstruction whatever” and asked for a “temporary injunction” to prevent government officials from removing the idols.

The judge granted the injunction but didn’t rule on the question of his right to worship.

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Click here for an overview of key players in chapter two.

The next day, Anisur Rahman, a Muslim about 30 years old, filed a court petition of his own — the first Muslim legal volley in the dispute. Mr. Rahman made tin boxes that he sold from a shop in the local market in Ayodhya. He lived with his family close to the Babri Masjid.

Weeks before the idol was installed, he had sent messages to district officials that he saw “imminent danger” to the mosque from the sadhus gathered around it, according to the official records of Mr. Nayar, the district magistrate.

Mr. Nayar had dismissed Mr. Rahman as an “exception” among Muslims in Ayodhya whom, he wrote, “are far from agitated,” according to the records.

Petitioning the High Court in Allahabad, a major city in the state, Mr. Rahman sought to have any cases claiming title to the site of the Babri Masjid heard by a court outside Ayodhya and Faizabad.

He claimed that “in view of the highly strained relations between the two communities and also district authorities not being free from communal bias,” there was no prospect of a fair hearing around Ayodhya.

He also noted in an affidavit that district authorities had done nothing to help Muslims take back their mosque after the idol was installed. Instead, they had seized the building.

Mr. Rahman’s effort was countered by about 20 Muslims from Ayodhya, who signed identical affidavits in a local courtroom.

They said they had no objection if the Hindus continued to possess the Babri Masjid. “Babri Masjid has been built by demolishing Ram birthplace temple,” they said. “It’s against the Islamic law to pray there,” the affidavits said.

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Krishna Pokharel/The Wall Street Journal
Farooq Ahmad, the shopkeeper who remembers Anisur Rahman.

Mr. Rahman’s petition was dismissed. Muslim lawyers today doubt the authenticity of the Muslims’ affidavits.

Mr. Rahman sold his shop. Sometime in the early 1950s, he migrated with his family to Pakistan, according to several local Muslims. His descendants could not be traced.

A Muslim shopkeeper in Ayodhya recalled Mr. Rahman telling him, before leaving: “We don’t get any justice here. Nobody helps us.”

In late 1950, a mercurial sadhu filed a similar court case to Gopal Singh Visharad’s. He was a member of Ayodhya’s famous Digambar Akhara, a group of Hindu holy men devoted to Ram.

Both Hindu suits named five local Muslim men as defendants, alleging they had put pressure on local government officials to remove the idols by making “baseless and dishonest assertions.”

The most prominent among the defendants was Haji Phenku, one of Ayodhya’s biggest property owners at the time.

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Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
The Faizabad District Court.

At court, Mr. Phenku, then 65 years old, and the other Muslims refuted the allegations, according to legal papers. They also claimed that the Babri Masjid had been used by the Muslims as a mosque ever since it was built in 1528. They said no Hindu temple existed at the site before the construction of the mosque.

Mr. Phenku boarded a horse cart at his residence at least once a month to travel from Ayodhya to the courthouse, about 10 kilometers away, said his son, Haji Mahboob Ahmad, in an interview.

When Mr. Phenku returned home, he recounted his experience, often with frustration. “The judge again adjourned the hearing and asked us to appear on the next date,” Mr. Phenku said repeatedly, according to his son.

Gopal Singh Visharad, the lead Hindu petitioner, regularly cycled to court. He was resigned to the fact that it would be a prolonged dispute because he believed the government didn’t want to deal with the implications of a verdict, according to his son.

The hearings dragged on, with little progress, for nine years. Then, in 1959, another suit was filed by a sect of sadhus known as the Nirmohi Akhara.

The name means “Group Without Attachment,” a reference to the fact that the 12,000 sadhus it claims as members have abandoned the material world for the company of their deity, Ram. The sect had tried, in the late 19th century, to build a temple near the mosque but had been prevented by the court.

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Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
Bhaskar Das.

Bhaskar Das is the head of the sect. Now in his mid-80s, he is a thin man and an imposing sight. His wrinkled head is shaved close with a longer outcropping of hair knotted in a tail at the back. A Y-shaped pattern of white paint, accentuated with vermillion stripes, starts at the bridge of his nose and runs in two lines up his forehead.

Mr. Das came to Ayodhya in 1946 to learn Sanskrit at the age of 18. Soon after, he visited an idol of Ram located on the wooden platform where Hindus worshipped in the outer courtyard of the Babri Masjid. The Nirmohi Akhara maintained the platform.

“I felt belongingness with Lord Ram” and decided to lead the life of a sadhu, Mr. Das said in an interview at the sect’s ashram in Faizabad, a collection of four-story white buildings off a street clogged with traffic.

In its 1959 petition, the group claimed that Ram’s birthplace “has been existing before the living memory of man.”

It also claimed that the Babri Masjid building had never been a mosque but had been a temple since ancient times and was rightfully the possession of the Nirmohi Akhara. The suit was added to the others.

Two years later, in December 1961, representatives of the local Muslim community responded.

Leading the case was the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Board of Waqfs, a body created by Indian law to be responsible for the protection and preservation of “waqfs,” or Muslim religious and cultural sites.

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Krishna Pokharel/The Wall Street Journal
Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Board of Waqfs.

It listed Mohammad Hashim Ansari, the tailor, and other Ayodhya Muslims as co-petitioners.

The board, based in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, claimed that the Babri Masjid was registered with it as a public mosque and is “vested in the Almighty.”

In 1964, the court consolidated all four suits – of Gopal Singh Visharad; the sadhu from the Digambar Akhara; the Nirmohi Akhara, and the waqf board.

The litigants became used to the delays that plague India’s court system today. It took 17 years to settle on the appointment of a new receiver at the Babri Masjid site after the death of the first receiver.

In court, the judge would listen for about 15 minutes, set a date for the next hearing, and adjourn, according to two people involved in the case.

“Many judges came and went but the case was not decided,” said Haji Mahboob Ahmad, 74 years old. He replaced his father, Haji Phenku, as the defendant in one of the Hindu suits after his father died in 1960.

**

OB-VN860_igurud_D_20121203073233.jpg
Singh family
Guru Dutt Singh, left, and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Guru Dutt Singh and K.K. Nayar – the administrators who were instrumental in the idol’s placement — turned to politics. They played no further direct role in the Ayodhya dispute.

Mr. Singh joined the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a Hindu nationalist party, within six months of resigning his administrative post. The party was founded by a former president of the Hindu Mahasabha, the first conservative Hindu party in India.

In the 1951 national election, the Jana Sangh won three seats in Parliament, compared with 364 seats won by Nehru’s Congress party. Mr. Singh became the Jana Sangh’s district chief in Faizabad, said his son.

A photo from the late 1960s in the reception room of the family’s Faizabad residence shows Guru Dutt Singh with a young Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then national president of the Jana Sangh and later prime minister of India.

Mr. Nayar was transferred to another post in early 1950. He took voluntary retirement in 1952. He settled in Faizabad and joined the Jana Sangh with his wife. In 1967, he was elected to the national Parliament from a constituency near Ayodhya.

**

Among the sadhus of Ayodhya, the idol’s installation was overwhelmingly supported.

Akshaya Brahmachari, the young sadhu who had opposed the move, argued with others that “all Ayodhya is Ram’s birthplace,” according to his disciple, Meera Behen, and others who knew him. He asked: “Why do you diminish His glory by putting him in a mosque?”

He was assaulted and banished from the sadhus’ fraternity. He went to Lucknow and sat on a series of fasts from Jan. 30, 1950, in a bid to press the government to remove the idol. But a state government minister responded that, “Ayodhya’s situation is better now and the case is pending in a court of law at the moment. The final decision can be taken only after a judgment from the court.”

Abhiram Das, the sadhu who championed installing Ram in the mosque, organized festivals to commemorate the event.

OB-VN861_ihashi_D_20121203073833.jpg
Krishna Pokharel/The Wall Street Journal
Mohammad Hashim Ansari.

One pamphlet printed by him in December 1953 exhorted Ayodhya’s residents to participate in a reading of the Ramayan, the Hindu holy text, at the site. Another pamphlet mentions him as the “savior” of Ram’s birthplace.

Hindu control of the site and the lack of action by the courts frustrated Ayodhya’s Muslims. Mohammad Hashim Ansari, the tailor, said that in 1954 he and about 100 local Muslim men sought permission to offer prayers at the site. It was denied.

When they tried to force themselves into the mosque, they were arrested and spent two months in jail, Mr. Ansari later testified in court.

**

Tomorrow: An incident 2,000 kilometers away catapults the dispute in Ayodhya onto the national stage.

 

[SQ8]

Finally an account that gives a greater understanding to the issue.

 

[asad71]

http://blogs.wsj.com...emIndiaUpdate_t

December 5, 2012, 10:41 AM IST

Ayodhya, the Battle for India’s Soul: Chapter Three


By Krishna Pokharel and Paul Beckett

[This Wall Street Journal investigation is running in serialized form. A new chapter will be posted each morning this week on India Real Time. Read chapters one and two.]

OB-VO162_itamil_EA_20121204051014.jpg
Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
A painting on a Muslim house in Meenakshipuram, Tamil Nadu. Click here to view related slideshow.

In the 1980s, the Ayodhya dispute escalated from a local issue to a national one. It fed, and was fed by, other points of tension in Indian politics and society that set Hindus and Muslims on a collision course over the span of the decade.

ayodhya_logo3.jpg

Each side came to feel that its religion and status in India was under threat – and both sides responded with political pressure and shows of force.

It started in 1981 in Meenakshipuram, an unremarkable village deep in the countryside of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, more than 2,000 kilometers from Ayodhya.

The village hit the national news when its low-caste Hindus – about 400 families, villagers say — converted, en masse, to Islam.

“We became Muslims to become equal,” said 65-year-old N. Hidayathullah, one of the converts, in an interview on the porch of his modest home, as a herd of goats wandered by.

The families had felt ill-treated by local upper-caste Hindus, he said. “Nobody told us to convert; it was our desire to be treated with respect,” he added.

**

OB-VN788_iayodh_D_20121203020610.jpg
Vishwa Hindu Parishad
Sadhus during the 1984 dharma sansad

At stake was more than belief: In India, how you worship defines your community, most likely your marriage and whom you vote for, your approach to life, and your identity.

In 1984, Hindu leaders responded to what they viewed as the threat of Islam emanating from the Meenakshipuram conversion.

About 500 sadhus — Hindu holy men — from across India gathered at Vigyan Bhavan, a government-owned conference center in New Delhi. They comprised a “dharma sansad,” or religious parliament.

The meeting was put together by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a conservative Hindu organization founded in the 1960s. The chief organizer was Ashok Singhal, then the VHP’s joint general secretary.

OB-VO170_irecen_D_20121204060426.jpg
Krishna Pokharel/The Wall Street Journal
Ashok Singhal today

The son of a government official in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, Mr. Singhal graduated with a degree in metallurgical engineering from Banaras Hindu University in 1950. Now 86 years old, he has worked to promote Hindu causes ever since. “Our culture is under siege,” he said in an interview at the VHP’s offices in New Delhi.

The religious parliament began with a song by a group of musicians. “This country’s soil is sacred,” they sang, according to a later account of the event published by the VHP. “Every girl is an image of a goddess, every boy is Ram.”

After a sadhu blew a conch shell, speeches began. Among the speakers was Karan Singh, a former minister in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s cabinet. At the time, he was an independent member of Parliament. Courtly and soft-spoken, he is the son of the last Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr. Singh was the founder of an organization to espouse the values of universal brotherhood and human welfare contained in the Vedas and Upanishads, Hindu sacred texts. He formed it in direct response to the events of Meenakshipuram, he said in an interview in the book-lined study of his Delhi mansion.

The mass conversion to Islam “was, first of all, a clear statement that the way Hinduism was functioning is not acceptable to a large number of people,” Mr. Singh said. At the time, the message was: “People are leaving because we are not following our principles.”

At the religious conference, Mr. Singh spoke about the need to reconnect individual life and politics with the tenets of Hinduism, and to rid society of the dowry system and the stigma of “untouchability” that relegated lower-caste Hindus to an underclass, according to the VHP’s account of the event. He also rued the fact that Hindu holy sites had been neglected.

OB-VN796_iayodh_D_20121203022208.jpg
Vishwa Hindu Parishad
Karan Singh, at the center, during 1984 dharma sansad.

“We cannot even light a holy lamp” at Ram’s birthplace in Ayodhya, he told the sadhus. “How shameful a matter is it for 80% of this country’s residents who call themselves Hindus?”

The gathering issued a code of conduct for individuals, families and society. Its code for the country’s statesmen included the demand that three important holy sites be “given back to Hindu society.”

The Babri Masjid, the mosque in Ayodhya that many Hindus claimed was Lord Ram’s birthplace – “Ram Janmabhoomi” in Hindi — was top of the list.

Ram appealed to Hindus of all castes: one story recounted in the Ramayan, the text about his life, has him happily eating berries given to him by a lower-caste woman.

A few months after the religious parliament, the VHP followed up with a rally for devotees led by a motorized chariot. Hindu scripture says Ram rode a chariot into battle.

The rally started at Sitamarhi in Bihar in late September 1984. The district is believed by Hindus to be the place where Sita, Ram’s wife, emerged from the earth.

OB-VO169_irecen_D_20121204060405.jpg
Vishwa Hindu Parishad
The 1984 rally from Sitamarhi to Ayodhya.

Thousands of the faithful joined the procession, which reached Ayodhya 12 days later. There, they descended to the banks of the Sarayu river, cupped its water in their palms and, according to several participants, took an oath.

The crowd totaled about 50,000 that day, according to Mr. Singhal of the VHP, who was among them. Similar oath-taking ceremonies were held at major rivers around the country.

The Hindus at the Sarayu that day wanted to go further than keeping a tiny statue of Ram inside the Babri Masjid. They wanted to build a house of worship where Ram sat: “We will give up everything to build Lord Ram’s temple at his birthplace,” they swore, according to several people who took part.

The organizers say they were surprised by the number of supporters. “People found that this is an agitation which will be successful,” Mr. Singhal said. “Such a large number of people came from small villages to witness and join the movement.”

A day later, the chariot started rolling again. But its journey was interrupted when, on Oct. 31, 1984, Mrs. Gandhi, the prime minister and Jawaharlal Nehru’s daughter, was shot dead at her New Delhi home by two Sikh bodyguards.

Soon, Ayodhya would become a defining issue for the country’s new leader: Mrs. Gandhi’s 40-year-old son, Rajiv.

**

Rajiv Gandhi was a political beginner. Eschewing politics, he worked as a pilot for Indian Airlines and married an Italian, Sonia Maino.

OB-VO204_AYODHY_D_20121204084241.jpg
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Click here for an overview of key players in chapter three.

He was elected as a member of Parliament in 1981, following the death of his younger brother, Sanjay, in a plane crash. Soon after Mr. Gandhi succeeded his mother, he called for national elections. His Congress party won the biggest Parliamentary majority in India’s electoral history.

Mr. Gandhi brought the promise of a new kind of Indian leader. He was young and interested in promoting technology. Within months, however, he was deeply embroiled in the historical tussle between Muslims and Hindus and the sense of victimhood that both sides felt.

The catalyst was a case brought by a Muslim woman called Shah Bano. She had been divorced by her husband several years before and was left destitute. She asked the Supreme Court to force her ex-husband to pay maintenance.

In the spring of 1985, the Supreme Court ruled in her favor, citing the provisions against destitution in Indian criminal law that applied to all Indians.

Prominent members of the Muslim clergy viewed the ruling as a threat to Islamic law, which had long governed their personal matters. It does not require the equivalent of alimony. But the justices had ordered a divorced man to pay maintenance.

At first, Rajiv Gandhi backed the verdict. Arif Mohammed Khan, a Muslim and minister in Mr. Gandhi’s government, made a long speech in Parliament in praise of the ruling.

In an interview, Mr. Khan said he did so at the prime minister’s request. Afterward, he received a note from Mr. Gandhi, he said, which congratulated him on a “wonderful performance” and a “great speech.”

But the Muslim clergy protested, heaping pressure on the prime minister. They demanded he counter the verdict through an act of Parliament. “The Muslim clergy found this as an opportunity to mobilize the Muslims and project themselves,” said Mr. Khan.

Mr. Gandhi succumbed and started preparations for a law that would effectively overturn the Supreme Court ruling.

But he also wanted to find a way to mollify Hindu outrage over the Muslim protests and to counter anticipated Hindu claims that Muslims were being appeased by the government, said Mr. Khan.

The prime minister, he said, found his answer in a court case in Faizabad, the city next to Ayodhya.

The case sought to have the lock removed on the main gate of the Babri Masjid, granting greater public access to the idol that had been sitting in seclusion under the central dome for almost four decades.

Mr. Gandhi’s calculation, Mr. Khan said, was that the Hindu focus on the Shah Bano case “will be redirected to Ayodhya.”

**

OB-VO174_ipande_D_20121204061453.jpg
Krishna Pokharel/The Wall Street Journal
Umesh Chandra Pandey at his residence in Lucknow.

Umesh Chandra Pandey filed the petition to open the lock in late January 1986. He was a 30-year-old lawyer and occasional journalist who then lived in Faizabad.

His interest in the issue had begun three years earlier, when the editor of a local Hindi newspaper asked him to write a feature on the festival commemorating Ram’s birthday, Mr. Pandey and the editor said in interviews.

Mr. Pandey said he also heard leaders from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad claiming that there never had been an official order to lock the Babri Masjid gate.

“I thought, ‘If this is so, then how has this lock been put there?’” he said.

Adding drama and urgency, a prominent sadhu had threatened to set himself ablaze if the lock was not removed, according to Mr. Pandey and other accounts. Other sadhus threatened to get themselves arrested by trying to unlock the gate themselves, according to the VHP’s Mr. Singhal.

Mr. Pandey, a short man who speaks in emphatic phrases, said he spent a couple of weeks examining court papers. He came to the conclusion that there had never been a formal order putting the lock in place, he said. (Priests who cared for the idols in the building entered through a side gate.)

Soon after Mr. Pandey filed his petition, he found out that a copy had been sent to the state agency in charge of internal security, he said.

OB-VO194_iarif1_D_20121204074125.jpg
Paul Beckett/The Wall Street Journal
Arif Mohammed Khan

The petition also attracted the interest of Rajiv Gandhi and Arun Nehru, a cousin of Mr. Gandhi’s and a powerful adviser to the prime minister, according to Arif Mohammed Khan, the government minister at the time.

Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Nehru wanted to ensure that the petition succeeded so Hindus would feel assuaged, Mr. Khan said. The prime minister asked Mr. Nehru to coordinate the government’s participation in the case, including dealing with the state government of Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Khan said.

Other officials from the time say Mr. Nehru, the adviser, was the more influential in seizing on the issue and the prime minister acquiesced. Yet others say Mr. Gandhi was unaware of what was happening.

Either way, said Mr. Khan: “The buck stops at the door of the prime minister” as the head of the government.

When asked about the episode in a brief telephone conversation, Mr. Nehru responded: “That’s none of your damn business.”

The government ensured that two senior local officials appeared – unusually — before the judge, rather than submitting affidavits, Mr. Khan said. They testified that law and order could be maintained if the lock was removed, a key consideration in the judge’s deliberations.

Mushtaq Ahmad Siddiqui, one of the lawyers representing Muslims in their legal claims to the Babri Masjid site, said he also asked to be heard before the judge.

“You may, there is no hurry,” he said the judge responded. “The matter is continuing for 36 years – you will be allowed sufficient time.” He was referring to the fact that litigation over the site had begun in 1950.

On the afternoon of Feb. 1, 1986, the judge ruled there had been no official order that placed the lock on the mosque’s gate. He ordered the lock opened “forthwith,” according to witnesses. The judge is now deceased.

Within 30 minutes, a senior police officer in Ayodhya broke the lock. A camera crew from Doordarshan, the government-run television channel, was there. The event was broadcast to the nation.

Mr. Pandey, the man who filed the petition, said he couldn’t sleep that night. The next morning, he went to the site.

“I was without words,” he said. “But I was thankful to God that I was able to look and to offer my prayer.”

The gate opening was the first that millions of Hindus had heard of Ayodhya and the battle over Ram’s birthplace. It energized them en masse because Ram was a role model. Grandmothers told their grandsons to aspire to be like him: obedient to their parents, faithful to their family, honest in their dealings.

OB-VO173_imani1_D_20121204061220.jpg
Mani Shankar Aiyer
Rajiv Gandhi, right, in an undated photo with Mani Shankar Aiyer.

Rajiv Gandhi received the news during a visit to the Maldives, according to Mani Shankar Aiyar, his speechwriter at the time.

In the hours before a state banquet, the prime minister was putting the finishing touches on his formal dress and on his speech when he received a telephone call, Mr. Aiyar said in an interview. Mr. Gandhi was told the lock was opened, Mr. Aiyar said.

The lock opening quickly took on a mystical aspect. Mr. Pandey claimed that on the afternoon of the decision, a monkey sat on the roof of the Faizabad court house. A monkey was symbolic because Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, was a loyal friend of Ram.

The animal, unusually for a monkey, sat still for more than 30 minutes, Mr. Pandey said. Then, when the judge issued his order, the monkey walked to the flagpole on the courthouse roof and touched the Indian flag, according to Mr. Pandey. “I don’t think this can happen without the Almighty’s permission,” he added.

**

The lock opening shocked Muslim elders and lawyers who had been following the Ayodhya dispute because they saw in it a threat to their mosque and to their religion. They gathered the next day in an orphanage in Delhi.

“Today, it appears we have become second-class citizens,” said one elder, close to tears, according to two people who were there.

The leaders worried that the next step would be the Babri Masjid’s destruction.

On Feb. 3, 1986, two days after the lock was opened, a small group of Muslim lawyers petitioned the high court in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, to order that nothing more happen to the site, according to two of the lawyers.

The judge issued a notice that the “status quo” be maintained.

OB-VO175_ijilan_D_20121204062124.jpg
Zafaryab Jilani
Zafaryab Jilani in the mid-1980s

Zafaryab Jilani, one of the lawyers, was then just shy of his 36th birthday. The lock opening would vault him to the forefront of the Muslim movement seeking to retain the Babri Masjid site for Islam.

Born in a town close to Lucknow, Mr. Jilani pursued his legal studies at Aligarh Muslim University.

There, he gained his first experience in organizing protests. He said he was part of a small group that, in 1970, led students in opposing government plans to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the school’s incorporation by an act of Parliament.

The students were angry about previous government measures that stopped Muslims from being the sole administrators of the university. Faced with the protests, the government scrapped the golden jubilee festivities and, ultimately, undid the administrative changes.

After the Babri Masjid lock opening, Mr. Jilani started organizing protests again.

He and a handful of associates called meetings of prominent local Muslims; it included one gathering of about 200 in a hall in Lucknow, Mr. Jilani said in an interview.

They created the Babri Masjid Action Committee to organize public strikes and demonstrations– and to push back against what the leaders viewed as Hindu aggression.

On Feb. 7, 1986, Mr. Jilani said he and about eight others met the then-chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Vir Bahadur Singh. The chief minister denied any involvement in the lock opening, Mr. Jilani said.

“I haven’t done it. Whatever has been done, it is at the behest of some other leaders, top leaders,” Mr. Jilani said the chief minister told them. Mr. Singh died a few years later.

A week after that meeting, the new committee held its first event: a “Black Day,” or state-wide public strike, Mr. Jilani said. Later, tens of thousands protested in Lucknow and other cities.

**

In May 1986, the government used its huge majority in Parliament to push through a law that effectively reversed the Shah Bano ruling and made it clear Muslim personal law would prevail.

Mr. Gandhi’s supporters say the prime minister was only trying to clarify that matters of Muslim personal law would be governed by Islam, as they had been for decades.

The law’s passage cemented the idea among many Hindus that the government was kowtowing to Muslims. Muslim leaders, on the other hand, were angry about the lock opening. The prime minister’s plan to do something to mollify both sides had gone awry.

Arif Mohammed Khan, the minister who had supported the Shah Bano ruling, resigned from the government. He recalled that Mr. Gandhi said to him at the time: “The situation is such that I am feeling very helpless.”

And, as Mr. Gandhi’s grandfather, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, had feared in 1950, the new prominence of the Babri Masjid dispute complicated the delicate political equation in the late 1980s in Kashmir, the Himalayan region fought over by India and Pakistan.

Militants who favored a separate country of Kashmir used the opening of the lock on the mosque to rebuke Indian Muslims who favored embracing India’s secularism and democracy.

The militants said, according to Mr. Jilani: “Your government is not sincere with you, how do you expect that government to be sincere with us?”



Tomorrow: The last chances at a settlement slip away.

 

[Rig Vedic]

The site has seen clashes between Hindus and Muslims for centuries.

I am not in favor of any unconstitutional steps.

But these controversies are an outcome of our perverse educational system, which has been messed up by fake secularists. Muslim youth should not be denied the opportunity of educating themselves about the savagery, brutality and barbarism of the Islamic invaders who converted their ancestors from Dharma.

Once that is done Muslims will themselves tear down mosques built on the holy sites of their own ancestors.

 

[Trishula]

Ayodhya is the birthplace of Lord Rama who build the bridge over Lanka which can be seen today

This does not give the full account on how Hindus tried to win back this site even before the Lord Rama statue was placed there

 

[Trishula]

The Austrian Jesuit Joseph Tieffenthaler wrote in 1768: “Emperor Aurangzeb demolished the fortress called Ramcot, and erected on the same place a Mohammedan temple with three cupolas. Others believe that it was constructed by Babor.”[12] Tieffenthaler also writes that Hindus celebrated Ram Navami (Rama's birth festival) in front of the mosque, and that the mosque was built on a temple.[13] He wrote: "The reason is that here existed formerly a house in which Beschan (Vishnu) took birth in the form of Rama and where it is said his three brothers were also born. Subsequently Aurangzeb and some say Babur destroyed the place in order to prevent the heathens from practising their ceremonies. However, they have continued to practice their religious ceremonies in both the places knowing this to have been the birth place of Rama by going around it three times and prostrating on the ground."[

 

[Black Widow]

Its Long Post, I will read and then comment later, or can some one please summarize the article??

 

[Spring Onion]

Finally an account that gives a greater understanding to the issue.

Ayodhya : A midnight raid that changed course of history


NEW DELHI: On the night of December 22-23, 1949, an idol of Ram Lalla "mysteriously" appeared inside Ayodhya's Babri Masjid, setting in motion a chain of events that was to change the course of Indian politics in later decades. Little is known about what happened on that fateful night. But a new book now reveals how the events unfolded and claims those who pulled the strings of the Ayodhya strategy were also those accused in the Mahatma Gandhi murder case.



Authors Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K Jha interviewed a number of surviving eyewitnesses and accessed archival material to uncover the buried story of how the mosque turned into a temple overnight — a tale that describes the motivations of local players, the administrative collusion and the grand plan of a nationwide rightwing political mobilization intended to pitchfork Hindu Mahasabha as a major political player in post-independent India.


Central to the cast of local characters was Baba Abhiram Das, a well-built, 6-foot-tall local sadhu of the Nirvani akhara, who led three others into the mosque with the idol. Abhiram, later known as 'Ramjanmabhoomi Uddharak' (liberator) or simply as Uddharak Baba, died in 1981.



The researchers pieced together events of that night through extensive interviews with Abhiram's brother and cousins, who were all in Ayodhya in 1949. Two of his cousins —Indushekhar Jha and Yugal Kishore Jha — claim to have followed Abhiram into the mosque



But that was not the original plan. According to the researchers, Abhiram was to have been accompanied by Baba Ramchandra Das Paramhans, who later became a central figure in the Ayodhya movement. Another sadhu, Vrindavan Das, was to join the two with an idol of Lord Ram. The trio was supposed to go inside the 16th-century mosque around 11pm — with a sympathetic guard looking the other way — plant the idol below its central dome and keep the deserted place of worship under their control till the next morning, when a large band of sadhus would pour in for support.

But that night, Paramhans "went missing", surfacing again in Ayodhya a few days later, the researchers claim. Forty-two years later, Paramhans had his own version of the event, telling The New York Times he was "the very man who put the idol inside the masjid".




According to the book, Ayodhya: The Dark Night (HarperCollins), to be released later this month, Abhiram went ahead with the plan regardless. The lone occupant of the mosque, muezzin Muhammad Ismael, was beaten up and made to flee. As the intruders sat inside the mosque waiting for dawn, Gopal Singh Visharad, Faizabad unit president of the All India Hindu Mahasabha, was at a printing press, readying posters and pamphlets announcing the 'miracle' of Rama Lalla 'reclaiming' the Babri Masjid.


That morning, Ayodhya woke up to cries of 'Ram Lalla' from inside the mosque. Significantly, say the authors, one of the first persons to reach the spot was Faizabad DM, K K K Nair, a Malayalee known for his rightwing Hindu leanings. Though he was at the spot at 4am, the DM did not inform his superiors in Lucknow about the takeover till 9am, allowing time for Ram bhakts to gain complete control of the mosque. According to the book, on December 21, a day before the surreptitious planting of the idols, Nair had met a group of sadhus at a low-profile Ayodhya temple, Jambwant Quila, where the plan was given final shape.


Many of local Mahasabha leaders involved in the plan were the acolytes of Mahant Digvijai Nath, head of the Gorakshapeeth in Gorakhpur and president of the UP unit of Mahasabha. A day after the Ayodhya event, he became all-India general secretary of the party.
The book claims Digvijai Nath — a main accused in the Gandhi murder case but later let off — was the master strategist of the Ayodhya takeover. His old association with DM Nair helped the plan immensely. The larger design, the authors argue, was to make Ayodhya the fulcrum of a right-wing mobilization. The effort failed then, but later became the basis of major political movement culminating in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992


A midnight raid that changed course of history - The Times of India

 

[vsdoc]

@Andromache - Ayodhya / Babri has nothing to do with Mandir or Masjid.

Please accept it and move on.

 

[Spring Onion]

Ayodhya / Babri has nothing to do with Mandir or Masjid.

Please accept it and move on.

NEW DELHI: On the night of December 22-23, 1949, an idol of Ram Lalla "mysteriously" appeared inside Ayodhya's Babri Masjid, setting in motion a chain of events that was to change the course of Indian politics in later decades. Little is known about what happened on that fateful night. But a new book now reveals how the events unfolded and claims those who pulled the strings of the Ayodhya strategy were also those accused in the Mahatma Gandhi murder case.



Authors Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K Jha interviewed a number of surviving eyewitnesses and accessed archival material to uncover the buried story of how the mosque turned into a temple overnight — a tale that describes the motivations of local players, the administrative collusion and the grand plan of a nationwide rightwing political mobilization intended to pitchfork Hindu Mahasabha as a major political player in post-independent India.


Central to the cast of local characters was Baba Abhiram Das, a well-built, 6-foot-tall local sadhu of the Nirvani akhara, who led three others into the mosque with the idol. Abhiram, later known as 'Ramjanmabhoomi Uddharak' (liberator) or simply as Uddharak Baba, died in 1981.



The researchers pieced together events of that night through extensive interviews with Abhiram's brother and cousins, who were all in Ayodhya in 1949. Two of his cousins —Indushekhar Jha and Yugal Kishore Jha — claim to have followed Abhiram into the mosque



But that was not the original plan. According to the researchers, Abhiram was to have been accompanied by Baba Ramchandra Das Paramhans, who later became a central figure in the Ayodhya movement. Another sadhu, Vrindavan Das, was to join the two with an idol of Lord Ram. The trio was supposed to go inside the 16th-century mosque around 11pm — with a sympathetic guard looking the other way — plant the idol below its central dome and keep the deserted place of worship under their control till the next morning, when a large band of sadhus would pour in for support.

But that night, Paramhans "went missing", surfacing again in Ayodhya a few days later, the researchers claim. Forty-two years later, Paramhans had his own version of the event, telling The New York Times he was "the very man who put the idol inside the masjid".




According to the book, Ayodhya: The Dark Night (HarperCollins), to be released later this month, Abhiram went ahead with the plan regardless. The lone occupant of the mosque, muezzin Muhammad Ismael, was beaten up and made to flee. As the intruders sat inside the mosque waiting for dawn, Gopal Singh Visharad, Faizabad unit president of the All India Hindu Mahasabha, was at a printing press, readying posters and pamphlets announcing the 'miracle' of Rama Lalla 'reclaiming' the Babri Masjid.


That morning, Ayodhya woke up to cries of 'Ram Lalla' from inside the mosque. Significantly, say the authors, one of the first persons to reach the spot was Faizabad DM, K K K Nair, a Malayalee known for his rightwing Hindu leanings. Though he was at the spot at 4am, the DM did not inform his superiors in Lucknow about the takeover till 9am, allowing time for Ram bhakts to gain complete control of the mosque. According to the book, on December 21, a day before the surreptitious planting of the idols, Nair had met a group of sadhus at a low-profile Ayodhya temple, Jambwant Quila, where the plan was given final shape.


Many of local Mahasabha leaders involved in the plan were the acolytes of Mahant Digvijai Nath, head of the Gorakshapeeth in Gorakhpur and president of the UP unit of Mahasabha. A day after the Ayodhya event, he became all-India general secretary of the party.
The book claims Digvijai Nath — a main accused in the Gandhi murder case but later let off — was the master strategist of the Ayodhya takeover. His old association with DM Nair helped the plan immensely. The larger design, the authors argue, was to make Ayodhya the fulcrum of a right-wing mobilization. The effort failed then, but later became the basis of major political movement culminating in the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992


A midnight raid that changed course of history - The Times of India[/QUOTE]

 

[veekysingh]

we will get it ,

 

[zaxcollix]

Its Long Post, I will read and then comment later, or can some one please summarize the article??

Its a good article, well researched. However its focus on the 'Ram Janmabhoomi' starts only from 1947 and not before, hence its an incomplete account.

Here is the gist of the article, history from 1947 onwards...

- A sadhu and the City Magistrate (CM) of Ayodhya both had had a life changing dream of the God Ram appearing in Babri Masjid. They got together and planned to rebuild Ram Temple at its old site. CM respected islam but was disturbed by the lack of respect for hinduism by muslims.

- As claimed by the City Magistrates son and disciple of the Sadhu, they installed a deity of Lord Ram inside Babri masjid in 1949. This was support by the malayalee district magistrate, who was his boss.

- Nehru who dint care much for religious and its followers tried to remove the statue but locals refused to cooperate. Nehru made sure hindus cannot worship in the new temple/masjid and tried to have the deity removed. Hindu Mahasabha worker took court injunction to prevent this.

- Local muslim filed case in court saying its masjid and hindus should not be allowed. He lost the case and migrated to pakistan. 20 other seperate muslims from ayodhya filed court cases saying masjid is actually demolished temple and offering namaz there is haram.

- Ayodhya's largest property owner at that time (a muslim) filed a case in 1950 saying Babri Masjid is a mosque and hindus should not be allowed. Sadhu from Digambar Akhara also filed a case seeking rights for hindus. Sadhu's from Nirmohi Akhara also jumped in in 1959 seeking same.

- In 1981 400 low caste families in Tamil Nadu mass converted to Islam sparking a massive hindu revival moment. VHP was born and made Ayodha temple a key issue for hindu revival. 1984 Rath yatra by VHP resulted in 50,000 hindus taking oath in Sarayu river to build temple in Ayodhya. Similar oaths in other part of India.

- 1984 Rajiv Gandhi (RG) become PM, and in 1986 goofed up in 'Shah Bano' case. To deflect national anger he arranges for lock on Babri Masjid to be opened allowing for hindus to enter. In 1986 Babri Masjid action committee (BMAC) formed to prevent this by politial and legal action.

- In 1989, after Bofors scandal Rajiv Gandhi tries to leverage religious Ayodhya moment for political gains. Starts political rally from Ayodhya and talks about Ram Rajya. After valuation and re-validating property status, RG decides to acquire property around Babri M to build temple as compromise solution. VHP arranges for bricks for temple building in which 275,000 villages and 60 million people participated. BMAC claims ground has muslim graves .

- RG lost election in 1990 and VP singh become PM. BJP also start rath yatra to Ayodhya after seeing congress using religion in politics. After negotiations with VHP, VP singh decides to hand over land around Babri Masjid for building temple and pass ordinance. BMAC meet VP singh and he goes back on his promise to VHP and passes second ordinance cancelling the first ordinance.

- angry BJP withdraw support and Chandra Shekar (CS) becomes PM with congress support. CS tries to collect all facts to resolve issue but congress withdraws support in 1991. RG killed in 1991 during election campaign.

- 1992 Narsimha Rao (NR) is PM. NR promises to resolve issue in 3 months but BMAC disagrees. Pissed off VHP calls for temple building and BJP is in power in UP. Kalyan singh uses same trick on congress by promising to protect BM and goes back on his word. Babri Masjid is finally demolished.

....to be continued .....in chapter 5 tomorrow.

 

[KS]

A detailed account of the incident..well researched...but its just starts relatively late into the complete history of the issue...which started on 1528. Without putting things into perspective, one should not draw conclusions from anything.

Also it does not take into account the issue of the kashmiri pandit episode which also sparked an emotional outburst of hindu nationalism in the north..

 

[kernelx]

Guys there is a new story going to appear about Babri mosque. Times of India published an article by Amit Bhattacharya . right now I have no authority to post links so I am pasting few paragraph of the story so that you guys come to know how Hindu extremist exploit the sentiment of common hindus and make a story about Babri Mosque is the place of a temple and finally they demolish the Mosque. Here is the story.......

"NEW DELHI: On the night of December 22-23, 1949, an idol of Ram Lalla "mysteriously" appeared inside Ayodhya's Babri Masjid, setting in motion a chain of events that was to change the course of Indian politics in later decades. Little is known about what happened on that fateful night. But a new book now reveals how the events unfolded and claims those who pulled the strings of the Ayodhya strategy were also those accused in the Mahatma Gandhi murder case.

Authors Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K Jha interviewed a number of surviving eyewitnesses and accessed archival material to uncover the buried story of how the mosque turned into a temple overnight — a tale that describes the motivations of local players, the administrative collusion and the grand plan of a nationwide rightwing political mobilization intended to pitchfork Hindu Mahasabha as a major political player in post-independent India.

Central to the cast of local characters was Baba Abhiram Das, a well-built, 6-foot-tall local sadhu of the Nirvani akhara, who led three others into the mosque with the idol. Abhiram, later known as 'Ramjanmabhoomi Uddharak' (liberator) or simply as Uddharak Baba, died in 1981.

According to the book, Ayodhya: The Dark Night (HarperCollins), to be released later this month, Abhiram went ahead with the plan regardless. The lone occupant of the mosque, muezzin Muhammad Ismael, was beaten up and made to flee. As the intruders sat inside the mosque waiting for dawn, Gopal Singh Visharad, Faizabad unit president of the All India Hindu Mahasabha, was at a printing press, readying posters and pamphlets announcing the 'miracle' of Rama Lalla 'reclaiming' the Babri Masjid."


so "the dream", "the mosque land is in actual the land of temple" all was a darama