The Ayodhya Temple Mosque Dispute

'A sensational book' India Today A shocking exposé of the event that changed Indian politics forever P.V. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister of India when, on 6 December 1992, thousands of kar sevaks stormed into the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The nation watched in horror as the centuries-old mosque was razed to the ground, in the presence of paramilitary forces and senior political leaders, marking a turning point in post-Independence Indian history. Many hold Rao responsible for not preventing the demolition, while others accuse him of being a co-conspirator. In this tell-all account, Rao reveals what really transpired in the run-up to that fateful day. Drawing on the Supreme Court order, parliamentary proceedings, eyewitness reports and his own insights, he presents a comprehensive view of the machinations that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Nearly three decades after the event, Ayodhya: 6 December 1992 remains a valuable resource to understanding the political manoeuvres behind the Ram Mandir issue and the dangers of exploiting religious sentiments for narrow electoral gains.

Ayodhya tussle - For Hindus, Ram Janma Bhoomi is a “Place of Veneration” and for Muslims, Babri Masjid is a “Place of Ritual Prostration”. The Babri Masjid (Mosque of Babur), the Tughlaq-style mosque, was built in 1528 by General Mir Baqi on the orders of Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur, the founder and first emperor of the Mughal dynasty in the Indian subcontinent. The building is facile with Islamic architectural elements but devoid of minarets (Call Towers for prayers), etc. The Babri Masjid was neither a mausoleum nor a cenotaph. The placing of Ram Lalla Idol on December 22, 1949 inside the Babri Masjid Central Dome became the aggravating point of the title dispute. The blood-curdling Ram-Janma-Bhoomi–Babri-Masjid dispute is over a tiny area of 2.77 acres of land out of the 3.287 million square kilometre vast tract of India. Solutions from the erstwhile British rulers and Indian Prime Ministers found no results. At last, it was the reign of the 14th Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Damodardas Modi, that witnessed the lawful solution – amicable both for the Hindus and for the Muslims. Now, the golden era of peace and prosperity, brotherhood and tolerance has blossomed in the Indian soil. The “Basic Structure” (Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) enshrined in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution has been reaffirmed by this landmark judgment. We can assert that this book takes you to the inroads of the cementing facts and figures of the Ayodhya Dispute unravelled by this unanimous historical judgment of the Supreme Court of India.

"In recent years much has been written about what Tambiah calls 'the strange malformations' that have resulted at the end of the twentieth century from complex combinations of nationalism, ethnicity, demands for self-determination, and social groups defining each other in terms of religious identity. No one, however, has analyzed how these factors lead to the violence that has become the characteristic of our time as brilliantly as Tambiah has in this remarkable book. His insights as a social science into the political and cultural history of South Asia are informed by a passionate humanism that gives us a new understanding of the dark tragedies of our time."—Ainslie Embree, Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University "Resolutely transgressing disciplinary and spatial boundaries, Tambiah offers a scholarly but accessible, a focused but wide-ranging analysis that places ethnicity on the borderlines of the old and the new, the past and the present, politics and culture...With uncanny skill, he turns the contemporary worry about ethnic politics and violence into a brilliant meditation on the history of nationalism, nation-states, and world-capitalism—in a word, modernity itself. No student of modernity, let alone ethnicity in South Asia and other regions, can afford to ignore this thoughtful inquiry into our modern history."—Gyan Prakash, Princeton University

Contributed articles.

Ayodhya tussle - For Hindus, Ram Janma Bhoomi is a "Place of Veneration" and for Muslims, Babri Masjid is a "Place of Ritual Prostration". The Babri Masjid (Mosque of Babur), the Tughlaq-style mosque, was built in 1528 by General Mir Baqi on the orders of Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur, the founder and first emperor of the Mughal dynasty in the Indian subcontinent. The building is facile with Islamic architectural elements but devoid of minarets (Call Towers for prayers), etc. The Babri Masjid was neither a mausoleum nor a cenotaph. The placing of Ram Lalla Idol on December 22, 1949 inside the Babri Masjid Central Dome became the aggravating point of the title dispute. The blood-curdling Ram-Janma-Bhoomi-Babri-Masjid dispute is over a tiny area of 2.77 acres of land out of the 3.287 million square kilometre vast tract of India. Solutions from the erstwhile British rulers and Indian Prime Ministers found no results. At last, it was the reign of the 14th Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Damodardas Modi, that witnessed the lawful solution - amicable both for the Hindus and for the Muslims. Now, the golden era of peace and prosperity, brotherhood and tolerance has blossomed in the Indian soil. The "Basic Structure" (Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity) enshrined in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution has been reaffirmed by this landmark judgment. We can assert that this book takes you to the inroads of the cementing facts and figures of the Ayodhya Dispute unravelled by this unanimous historical judgment of the Supreme Court of India.