The Ayodhya dispute is a political, historical, and socio-religious debate in India, centred on a plot of land in the city of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The issues revolve around the control of a site regarded since at least the 18th century among many Hindus to be the birthplace of their deity Rama, the history and location of the Babri Masjid at the site, and whether a previous Hindu temple was demolished or modified to create the mosque, which was built around 1530.
The site of the Babri Masjid has been claimed to be the birthplace of Rama since at least 1822. Hafizullah, a superintendent at the Faizabad court submitted a report to the court in 1822 in which he claimed, "The mosque founded by emperor Babur is situated at the birth-place of Ram." In 1855 local Muslims became convinced that the nearby Hanuman Garhi Temple was built over the site of a former mosque, and became resolved to demolish the temple, resulting in violent clashes leading to the deaths of many Muslims. In 1857, a chabutra (platform) was erected in the courtyard of the Babri Masjid at the supposed site of Rama's birthplace.Varma, Supriya, & Menon, Jaya (2010). Was There a Temple under the Babri Masjid? Reading the Archaeological “Evidence.” Economic and Political Weekly, 45(50), 61–72. As a consequence of this dispute was a court case in 1885 requesting the construction of a temple to enclose the chabutra, considered to mark the birthplace of Rama, in the courtyard of the Babri Masjid, which was rejected by citing that Hindu side doesn't enjoy proprietary rights. This decision was appealed a year later and the Faizabad district court once again rejected it by "citing the passage of time" as the reason for rejection although the court agreed with the Hindu petitioner's claim by taking note that "It is most unfortunate that a masjid should have been built on land specially held sacred by the Hindus. But as that event occurred 356 years ago it is too late now to remedy the grievance." This was followed by Hindu riots in 1934 following a cow slaughter which damaged the Babri Masjid. In 1949 devotees of Rama placed idols dedicated to him in the mosque, and the structure was subsequently declared off-limits to Muslims.
The Babri Masjid was destroyed during a political rally on 6 December 1992 which has been acknowledged as a criminal offence by the Supreme Court; this triggered riots all over the Indian subcontinent. Many attempts were thwarted previously, one of which led to the 1990 Ayodhya firing incident. A subsequent land title case was lodged in the Allahabad High Court, the verdict of which was pronounced on 30 September 2010. In the judgment, the three judges of the Allahabad High Court ruled that the Ayodhya land be divided into three parts, with one third going to the Ram Lalla or Infant Rama represented by the Vishva Hindu Parishad, one third going to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board, and the remaining third going to Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu religious denomination. While the three-judge bench found no evidence that the mosque was constructed after demolition of a temple, it did agree that a temple structure predated the mosque at the same site. The Archaeological Survey of India had conducted an excavation of the disputed site on the orders of the Allahabad High Court. The report of the excavation concluded that there were ruins of "a massive structure" beneath the ruins of the mosque which was "indicative of remains which are distinctive features found associated with the temples of north India", but found no evidence that the structure was specifically demolished for the construction of the Babri Masjid. The report received both praise and criticism, with some other archaeologists contesting the results of the report.
On 5 February 2020, the Government of India made an announcement for a trust named as Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra to reconstruct a Ram temple there. It also allocated an alternative site in Dhannipur, Ayodhya to build a mosque to replace the Babri Masjid that was demolished in 1992. On 22 January 2024, the Ram Mandir was officially opened. Prime Minister Narendra Modi led its consecration, claiming it to be the start of a new era. The temple is expected to be fully completed by July 2025.
Religious background The land on which the medieval mosque, Babri Masjid, stood has come to be regarded by Hindus to be the birthplace of the Hindu deity, Rama, and is at the core of the Ayodhya dispute.
Ram Janmabhoomi (Rama's birthplace)
Rama is one of the most widely worshipped Hindu deities and is considered the seventh incarnation of god Vishnu. According to the Ramayana, Rama was a prince born in the Ikshvaku dynasty's capital city Ayodhya (which may not be the same as modern Ayodhya) to parents Kaushalya and Dasharatha in the Treta Yuga.
The Ayodhya Mahatmya, described as a "pilgrimage manual" of Ayodhya, traced the growth of the sect in the second millennium CE. The original recension of the text, dated to the period between 11th and 14th centuries, mentions the janmasthana (birthplace) as a pilgrimage site. A later recension adds many more places in Ayodhya and the entire fortified town, labelled Ramadurga ("Rama's fort"), as pilgrimage sites.
Babri Masjid (Mosque of Babur)
Babur was the first Mughal emperor of India and the founder of the Mughal Empire. It is believed that one of his generals, Mir Baqi, built the Babri Masjid ("Babur's Mosque") in 1528 on his orders. The belief has been in currency since 1813–14, when the East India Company's surveyor Francis Buchanan reported finding an inscription on the mosque walls attesting to this fact. He also recorded the local tradition, which believed that emperor Aurangzeb () built the mosque after demolishing a temple dedicated to Rama.
However, between 1528 and 1668, no extant text mentions the presence of a mosque at this site. The earliest historical record of a mosque comes from Jai Singh II, a Rajput noble in the Mughal court, who purchased the land of the mosque and the surrounding area in 1717. His documents show a three-domed structure resembling the mosque, which is labelled the "birthplace" (chhathi). In the courtyard can be seen a platform (chabutra) to which Hindu devotees are shown circumambulating and worshipping. All these details were corroborated by the Jesuit priest Joseph Tieffenthaler half a century later. Tieffenthaler also said that "The reason for this is that once upon a time, here was a house where Beschan [Vishnu] was born in the form of Ram." Thus being the first to suggest that Babri Masjid had any proximity to a site associated with Rama's birth, according to historians' like R.S. Sharma.
The Baburnama, Babur's diary in which he meticulously documented his life, bears no mention of either the construction of a mosque in Ayodhya or the destruction of a temple for it (there is a known lacuna in his diary between 3 April and 17 September 1528, which period covers Babur's visit to Ayodhya); neither do his grandson Akbar's court documents, the Ain-i-Akbari, nor his contemporary Hindu poet-saint Tulsidas' epic poem Ramcharitmanas, dedicated to the Hindu god Rama.
Both Hindus and Muslims are said to have worshipped at the "mosque-temple": Muslims inside the mosque and Hindus outside the mosque but within the compound. In 1857, a British administrator erected a railing between the two areas in order to prevent disputes between the two communities. In 1949, following India's independence, an idol of Ram was placed inside the mosque, triggering the dispute.Note that this gives the date of the erection of the railing (which it calls a fence) as 1859, not 1857.
Historical background
Gupta period In Buddha's time (600 BCE) the present-day Ayodhya was called Saketa and was one of the six largest cities of North India. During the Gupta times, either Kumaragupta or Skandagupta made it their capital, after which it came to be called Ayodhya. Kalidasa wrote Raghuvamsa here, and referred to Gopratara tirtha (Guptar Ghat), where Rama was believed to have entered the waters of Saryu in his ascent to heaven. According to a local tradition recorded by Francis Buchanan and Alexander Cunningham, Ayodhya became desolate after Rama's ascent to heaven and "Vikramaditya" revived it (whereas in Raghuvamsa, Rama's son Kusa revived it). Prabhavatigupta, the daughter of Chandragupta II, was a Rama devotee. Her son, Pravarasena II wrote Sethubandha, in which Rama is regarded as identical to Vishnu. He also built a temple to Rama at Pravarapura (Paunar near Ramtek) in about 450 CE.
Gahadavala period
After the Guptas, the capital of North India moved to Kannauj and Ayodhya fell into relative neglect. It was revived by the Gahadavalas, coming to power in the 11th century. The Gahadavalas were Vaishnavas. They built several Vishnu temples in Ayodhya, five of which survived until Aurangzeb's reign. Indologist Hans T. Bakker concludes that there might have been a temple at the supposed birth spot of Rama built by the Gahadavalas.: "It was forbidden to build temples or monasteries of more than a certain dimension in the city, and the existing temples fell into decay and disappeared or were replaced by mosques. The latter took place with the temple on the supposed spot of Rama's birth, dating from the early eleventh century. This small temple was replaced by a mosque, the Babri Masjid, in 1528, during the reign of the first Moghul emperor, Babur, a deed which was to have far-reaching consequences." In subsequent years, the cult of Rama developed within Vaishnavism, with Rama being regarded as the foremost avatar of Vishnu. Consequently, Ayodhya's importance as a pilgrimage centre grew. In particular, multiple versions of Ayodhya Mahatmya (magical powers of Ayodhya) prescribed the celebration of Ram Navami (the birthday of Rama).
Mughal period
In modern times, a mosque was located at the supposed birth spot of Rama, which sat on a large mound in the centre of Ayodhya, called the Ramadurg or Ramkot (the fort of Rama). The mosque bore an inscription stating that it was built in 1528 by Mir Baqi on the orders of Babur.
According to an early 20th-century text by Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar and the surrounding historical sources examined by historian Harsh Narain, the young Babur came from Kabul to Awadh (Ayodhya) in disguise, dressed as a Qalandar (Sufi ascetic), probably as part of a fact-finding mission. Here he met the Sufi saints Shah Jalal and Sayyid Musa Ashiqan and took a pledge in return for their blessings for conquering Hindustan. The pledge is not spelled out in the 1981 edition of Abdul Ghaffar's book, but it is made clear that he ordered the construction of the Babri mosque after conquering Hindustan in order to fulfil this pledge. The original book was written in Persian by Maulvi Abdul Karim, a spiritual descendant of Musa Ashiqan, and it was translated into Urdu by Abdul Ghaffar, his grandson, with additional commentary. The older editions of Abdul Ghaffar's book contain more detail, which seems to have been excised in the 1981 edition.
Lala Sita Ram of Ayodhya, who had access to the older edition in 1932, wrote, "The faqirs answered that they would bless him if he promised to build a mosque after demolishing the Janmasthan temple. Babur accepted the faqirs' offer and returned to his homeland.";
The fact that Babur came in the guise of a Qalandar is corroborated in Abdullah's Tarikh-i Dawudi, where it is detailed that he met the Sultan Sikandar Lodhi in Delhi in the same disguise. The inscription on the Babri mosque also names him as Babur Qalandar. Musa Ashiqan's grave is situated close to the Babri mosque site, whose shrine uses two of the same type of black basalt columns used in the Babri mosque, indicative of his role in the destruction of the prior temple.;