Babri Mosque: A Historic Bone of Contention

• Since 1855, the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya has been the source of sporadic clashes between Hindus and Muslims
• After a thorough scrutiny of the available historic literature on the mosque, this article argues that to regard it as the birthplace of the Hindu deity Rama is untenable and the notion was actually put into circulation by British colonial officials to serve British interests in the Indian subcontinent
• Successive colonial administrations tried to strengthen their grip on South Asia by playing off one group against another in the name of caste, race, and, most importantly, religion
• The ongoing Hindu-Muslim conflict in India is largely the outcome of British policies
• With their agenda of 'divide and rule' that aimed at consolidating their hold over the subcontinent the British tried to create a huge chasm between Hindus and Muslims
• They labelled Muslims as the oppressors and Hindus as the oppressed, working to gain the support of the Hindu masses by provoking their hatred of the Muslims; and they strongly backed their religious and other claims in a vast amount of biased literature
• It was with this colonial agenda that they endorsed the Hindu claim to the site of the Babri Mosque
• Successive colonial administrations tried to strengthen their grip on South Asia by playing one group against another on issues of caste, color, race, and most importantly, religionh
• The town of Ayodhya was founded by Nawab Safdar Jang (1739-54) and his son Shuja-ud-Daula (1754-75) of Awadh, who made it their capital
• With regard to the foundation of Ayodhya, the Awadh gazetteer states that orthodox Hindu tradition maintains that this town was established to provide extra precautions not for life on this transitory earth, but on the chariot wheel of the Great Creator himself
• It is, however, far-fetched to claim as Valmiki does in Ramayana that the present-day Ayodhya is the birthplace of Rama
• The particulars of Ayodhya as found in Valmiki are not corroborated by archaeological findings from the present site
• In August 2003, an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) report claimed uninterrupted human habitation in Ayodhya from the mid-13th century BCE until the 16th century CE
• The specific contentious structure can be wholly seen in the context of the mosque and its location as a kind of embankment to hold the excess water that surged from the southeast
• As K. N. Pannikkar maintains, Ayodhya does not appear to have had human habitation even after the 7th century BCE
• Early literary sources sharply disagree over the exact location of Ayodhya
• It seems that Chandragupta II (380-415), who assumed the title of Vikramaditya, moved his capital in the beginning of the 5th century CE, to the town of Saketa, which he renamed Ayodhya
• Present-day local belief exists regarding the "rediscovery" of Ayodhya by Vikramaditya, presumably lost after Tretayuga, which had existed into the mythical period
• Fa Hein, a Chinese Buddhist traveler of the 5th century CE, visited the region and recorded finding a place called Sha-ki, which was later identified as Saketa
• Thus, the available archaeological evidence and historical sources only support the view that present-day Ayodhya situated on the right bank of the river Sarayu was identified as Saketa before the 5th century CE and was not the Ayodhya of Valmiki's Ramayana
• Ayudhya had been a spiritual center for many Indian beliefs, which grew concurrently in various forms
• Ayodhya had also been home to a significant Jaina community, though Jaina tradition correlates it with the birthplace of the first and the fourth Jaina Tirthankaras
• It appears that there was no trace of the worship of Rama in the present town of Ayodhya until the 2nd millennium of the Common Era
• After a thorough study of the available literary, epigraphical and archaeological evidence, we may safely and unreservedly record that the cult of Rama was not known in Ayodhya before the 11th century CE 
• Presumably, the Rama cult became known only from the 13th century CE and gradually gained a foothold with the slow progress of the Ramanandi sect
• The British East India Company focused its attention right from the beginning of its presence in India on controlling the Muslim-ruled provinces of the Subcontinent
• On behalf of the East India Company, Francis Hamilton Buchanan (1762-1829) completed a preliminary statistical survey of Gorakhpur in 1813-1814 that also included the Arabic and Persian inscriptions of the Babri Mosque of the town of Ayodha
• However, the British made no effort to categorize Ayodha according to the religious belief of its people
• In 1870 Patrick Carnegy published a regional history of the area that claimed that the Mughals had destroyed three temples in Ayodhya and replaced them with mosques because in his words, of "the well-known Mahomedan principle of enforcing their religion on all those whom they conquered"
• Carnegy maintained that since Nawab Safdarjang's transfer of his capital in 1740 from Ayodhya to Faizabad, the former had increasingly become a Hindu town
• Similarly, W.C. Benet categorized Ayodhya as a Hindu town in 1877 and highlighted "about a hundred and fifty years ago there was a revival
• British officials thus tried their utmost to ensure that Ayodhya was seen as a sacred place for the Hindus
• Sushil Srivastava points out that British visitors to Ayodhya in the 19th century had generally maintained that the Hindu revitalization of Ayodhya was a recent act 
• It is interesting to note that many landlords and Mahants (monks/abbots) of Hanuman Garhi in Ayodhya had cooperated with the British colonial authorities to suppress the 1857 Indian revolt
• As Sushil Srivastava suggests, British civil servants and other officials viewed Indian affairs from the perspective of James Mill as articulated in The History of British India (1817), viz, to highlight the division of Indian society into Hindus and Muslims who never saw eye to eye on almost any matter, particular in the arena of religion
• Charles Wood, the Secretary of State, wrote a letter on March 3 1822 to Lord Elgin, te then Governor-General of India, in which he stated that they would keep and continue their rule in India if they divided the Indian people successfully and did not allow them to cooperate with each other
• According to Abdur Rahman Chisti's Mirat-i-Masdudi, the Muslim leader Saiyid Salar Masud Ghazi invaded Awadh or Ayodhya in 1030 CE, effectively subjugating the region and establishing his headquarters in Bahraich, a district north of Ayodhya
• Before the advent of Babur in India, Muslims had already settled in Ayodhya, which they believed housed the tombs of the Prophets Nuh, Shish and Ayyub as well as the graves of many saints, including followers of Saiyid Salar Masud Ghazi
• Emperor Babur defeated and killed Sultan Ibrahim Lodi (1517-1526) in the battle of Panipat in 1526 CE and became the master of the northern Indian territories
• During an outbreak of violence in Ayodhya on March 27 1934 rioters damaged or stole some of these inscriptions on both sides of the pulpit
• The above verses clearly indicate that Mir Baqui, not Babur, was the one who built the Babri Mosque
• Nonetheleess, the Hindus of Ayodhya later launched a strong campaign that maintained tat this Mosque was built by Babur after demolishing a Hindu temple, which was identified as Ramjanmbhumi (the birthplace of Rama)
• Nonetheless, had the Mosque been built after the destruction of a Rama temple, the above inscriptions would have recorded the fact
• It may be relevant at this juncture to explore Babur's attitude toward other religions
• Many references in his memoirs show that he visited Hindu temples, which indicates his fairness and tolerance towards other religions
• Neither medieval Persian sources nor Hindu books that include narratives on Ayodhya, however, refer to the demolition of any temple
• Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari written in 1598 provides some interesting information regarding the province of Awadh that evidently acknowledges Ayodhya as one of the holy places of ancient times and the abode of the king Ramachandra, a supreme and spiritual leader of the tretayuga
• It does not, however, mention the demolition of any temple on the site
• Similarly, Khulasatu-t Twarikh of Sujan Rai Bhandari (1695/96) has this to say about the town: "In the Hindu books it is called Ayodhya, the birthplace of Ramchand. His building over the ocean, his going to Lanka with a countless host of monkeys and bears, his slaying Ravana, and his recovery of his wife are well known. The history of Ramayana is an account of his strange and wonderful deeds
• Rai Chaturman Saksena's Chahar Gulshan or Akhbar-i-Nawadir (1759/60), which notes that Ayodhya was the birthplace (zadgah) of Rama, does not mention the destruction of any Rama temples to build the Babri Mosque either
• The series of violent conflicts between Hindus and Muslims over the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya started during the years 1853-1856
• Soon after the revolt of 1857, British officials encouraged Hindu religious claims to this Mosque
• However, Muhammad Ashghar, the khatib and muazzin of the Mosque, filed a petition on November 30 1858 with the magistrate complaining that Beg Singh, the leader of the Bairagis of Janmasthan, had conspired with Nabi Ghulam, the police officer of Awadh, to erect a platfrom 2-3 inches high close to the dome and pulpit overnight, dug a hole next to it, lighted a fire for the purpose of Hindu worship inside the Mosque and written the name Rama on its walls
• Though in 1860 it was regarded as a registered mosque, the khatib soon soon filed another petition on November 1 1860 in which he complained that about twenty days previously, Iqbal Singh had raised an illegal chabutra close to the Mosque and near the grave of Qazi Quduh and was expanding it every day
• A further inquiry bu the Assistant Commissioner on December 19, 1860 showed the existence of a small hut that belonged to Iqbal Singh, but no further extension of chabutra was allowed
• Between 1860 and 1884 as many as six petitions were filed by the Muslims of Ayodhya against encroachment and damage to the mosque precinct
• Another petition dated November 28 1883 was filed by Saiyid Muhammad Asghar against Raghubir Das, Mahant, regarding the painting of the walls of the Mosque
• Again on January 29 1885 Mahant Raghubir filed a civil suit at the Faizabad SubJudge's court against the Secretary of State asking for permission for the construction of  a temple over the chabutra
• The Mahant appealed in 1885 against the judgment of the sub-judge in the District Court of the Faizabad
• The Mahant made a second appeal on May 25 1886 to the highest court of the state
• No important event transpired during the period 1886-1933 on the issue of the Babri Mosque, but during 'Eid al-Adha on March 27, 1934, communal violence was sparked by the slaughter of a cow in the neighboring village of Shahjahanpur, Ayodhya
• In 1936 the Commissioner of Waqfs conducted an inquiry into the possession of the property
• Following the independence movement and the partition of the country in 1947, millions of Indian Muslims, including many from Ayodhya, felt unsafe and left for Pakistan
• On receiving the report, the district Magistrate K. K. Nayar sent on the same day an urgent radio message to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary and Home Secretary of U.P. as follows: "A few Hindus entered Babri Masjid at night when the Masjid was deserted and installed a deity there
• Jawahar Lal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, was enraged and ordered Govind Ballabh Pant, the then Chief Minister of U.P., to have the idols removed immediately
• Seeing this injustice to Muslims and violation of their place of worship, Akshay Brachmachiari, a man of principle and Secretary of the Faizabad District Congress, had the moral courage to send a memorandum to Lal Bahadur Shastri, then Home Minister in the UP Government, and went on hunger strike twice in 1950
• Muslim shops were boycotted in the town of Ayodhya and Muslims were being coerced to admit that the site was actually that of a temple
• On January 16 1950 Gopal Singh Visharad filed a civil suit for the declaration that he should be allowed access for worship and visit without let or hindrance to the images of Rama and others in the Janmabhumi 
• The civil suits nos. 2 and 25 of 1950 filed by Shri Paramhans Ram Chandar Das against Zahoor Ahmad and another no. 26 of 1959 filed by Nirmohi Akhara against Baby Priya Datta Ram and others asked for the discharge of the Receiver appointed under section 145, and the delivery of custody of the Mosque to them 
• A dispute started after the death of Babu Priya Datta Ram, the Receiver, and on October 20, 1970 K.K. Ram Verma replaced him
• The court deliberately lingered over these cases and thus provided a suitable environment for extremists to hijack the Mosque-temple issue for their political agendas
• Umesh Chandra Pandey, a local lawyer, filed an appeal on January 25 1986 in the court of the munsif asking permission to open locks and allow Hindus to perform puja inside the Mosque
• On February 3 1986 Mohammad Hashim, a resident of Ayodhya, filed a writ petition to nullify the District Judge's order before the Lucknow Branch of the High Court
• During the same month, Muslim leaders established the Babri Masjid Action Committee to initiate a mass movement to free the Mosque from Hindu encroachment
• From the very beginning, Muslim leaders were willing to accept the court's verdict, while Hindu groups renounced any court ruling that went against their interest
• On October 19 1990 R.V. Venkataraman, the president of India, promulgated the 1990 Rama Janmabhumi-Babri Masjid (Acquisition of Area) Ordinance to acquire the disputed site
• Soon afterwards the Hindus started their construction activities; the government was completely apathetic and showed no intention of stopping them through the Supreme Court banned the unauthorized construction and many members of parliament and the legislative assembly asked for the arrest of those who violated the judicial order
• The Indian History Congress, a reputed organization, has cautioned against the ongoing threat to communal harmony of the nation 
• On January 11 1996 an additional charge-sheet was filed by CBI against a group of eight persons
• Advani and his colleagues Joshu and Uma Bharati faced two charges in different courts, namely making provocative speeches on December 6 1992 prior to the destruction of the mosque and hatching a plot to raze the mosque from 1990 onward
• In the waker of the communal unease created by the demolition of the Mosque, Narasimha Rao, the then Prime Minister of India, promised to rebuild it but it has not been done yet