#Babri Masjid Ayodhya

[bauliya]

I regret tossing out my NCERT SST textbooks in the raddi, they were proof of how far the overton window has shifted in less than a decade, with standard government approved textbook material about minority rights in 2015 being borderline seditious in 2024. my political science and sociology textbooks in 2016 and 2017 had entire chapters on babri masjid demolition and the 2002 pogroms and how BJP rode that wave of hate into electoral victory, and now that same material can only be published in online-only paywalled journals at the threat of lawsuits, violence, and denial of FCRA licenses.

[timetravellingkitty]

Baba Lal Das was the pujari appointed by the Lucknow High Court in 1981 to look after the Ram idols placed in Babri Masjid. In the 1992 documentary Ram Ke Naam he criticised the Vishwa Hindu Parishad's agitation of the Hindus to build Ram Mandir and condemned L.K. Advani's Ram Rath Yatra. He was brought in as a key witness in a suit against the VHP and BJP by the Central Bureau of Investigation soon after the demolition of Babri.

He was shot dead an year later.

[whenmemorydies]

Thinking about Modi-fan Priyanka Chopra praising Monkey Man just one month after taking her family for a photo op at Narendra Modi and the BJP’s newly consecrated, Hindu nationalist pet project, the Ayodhya Ram Mandir, built on the ruins of the Babri Masjid which was razed by fascist, far-right Hindu supremacists (including many in the RSS) in 1992.

For context: whilst being a stunning action film, Monkey Man has also been lauded for its critique of far-right Hindu nationalism. The defining event triggering the main protagonist’s quest for revenge is the razing of his village and the rape and murder of his activist mother, after a fascist Hindu nationalist guru deems the location a “holy site” and seeks to expropriate the land on which the village sits.

Chopra’s cognitive dissonance is real. And so is her raging self interest.

[daaft-prick-69]

[meetdheeraj]

Ram Temple at Ayodhya is living proof of what is called justice in India and Hindu psyche. Powerful have the right to demolish places of worship, arson and murder. State and judiciary will stand by them. Judiciary for its part would concede demolition was wrong but will still side with demolishers. It's same as judges asking rapist, "now that you have raped her, marry and we will clear you of your crime."

And it is this absurd judgement that CJI Chandrachud says was suggested to him by lord Ram himself. If you know or have read of Maryada-Purushottam, you'll find this utterly insulting to his memory and name. Rest of you, you only seek Ram to demean Muslims for you have never known the real Siyavar Ram.

[iamadarshbadri]

The Magnificent Ram Mandir and the Indian Democracy

There is something extraordinary about India. One such occasion—there are far too many—was the inauguration of the Ram Mandir on January 22, 2024. Well, you might wonder what makes it so unique. The commotion surrounding the occasion was rather unusual. At the function, the leader of the right-wing cadre-based organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), known for its open antagonism…

[cartoonmirror]

Ayodhya's Politics

[economicsinaction]

The BJP has a point about Indian history

The forthcoming inauguration of Ram temple in Ayodhya rekindles the debate on the destruction of Babri Masjid. I am neither a supporter of the BJP nor a practicing Hindu. However my point is that the religious polarisation that we witness in India is partly due to the way secular politicians and intellectuals in independent India have handled certain sensitive issues. They did not have a grounded…

[vicky-nanjappa]

Security detail for Ram Mandir high as major threats persist from Jihadi elements

Vicky Nanjappa Ahead of the grand opening of the Shri Ram Mandir in Ayodhya the focus of the security agencies is at an all time high.  The recent arrests made by the Anti Terrorism Squad of Uttar Pradesh proved to be a major breakthrough. It was learnt that four ISI agents were passing on crucial information about Ayodhya. This gives a clear indication that the ISI wants to fan violence and…

[metamatar]

Ram ke Naam (English: In the Name of God) is a 1992 documentary by Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan. The film explores the campaign waged by the right-wing Hindu nationalist organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad to build a temple to the Hindu deity Ram at the site of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, as well as the communal violence that it triggered. A couple of months after Ram ke Naam was released, activists of the VHP and other Hindu nationalist groups demolished the Babri Masjid in 1992, provoking further violence

[bfpnola]

definitely a longer piece so these excerpts are far from showcasing everything this piece has to offer! read the whole thing on your own time, and in general, just check out jewish currents, an educational, leftist, anti-zionist jewish magazine!

Every August, the township of Edison, New Jersey—where one in five residents is of Indian origin—holds a parade to celebrate India’s Independence Day. In 2022, a long line of floats rolled through the streets, decked out in images of Hindu deities and colorful advertisements for local businesses. People cheered from the sidelines or joined the cavalcade, dancing to pulsing Bollywood music. In the middle of the procession came another kind of vehicle: A wheel loader, which looks like a small bulldozer, rumbled along the route bearing an image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi aloft in its bucket. For South Asian Muslims, the meaning of the addition was hard to miss. A few months earlier, during the month of Ramadan, Indian government officials had sent bulldozers into Delhi’s Muslim neighborhoods, where they damaged a mosque and leveled homes and storefronts. The Washington Post called the bulldozer “a polarizing symbol of state power under Narendra Modi,” whose ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is increasingly enacting a program of Hindu supremacy and Muslim subjugation. In the weeks after the parade, one Muslim resident of Edison, who is of Indian origin, told The New York Times that he understood the bulldozer much as Jews would a swastika or Black Americans would a Klansman’s hood. Its inclusion underscored the parade’s other nods to the ideology known as Hindutva, which seeks to transform India into an ethnonationalist Hindu state. The event’s grand marshal was the BJP’s national spokesperson, Sambit Patra, who flew in from India. Other invitees were affiliated with the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the international arm of the Hindu nationalist paramilitary force Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of which Modi is a longtime member.

...

On December 6th, 1992, a mob of 150,000 Hindus, many of whom were affiliated with the paramilitary group the RSS, gathered at the Babri Masjid, a centuries-old mosque that is one of the most contested sacred sites in the world. Over the preceding century, far-right Hindus had claimed that the mosque, located in the North Indian city of Ayodhya, was built not only upon the site where the Hindu deity Ram was born but atop the foundations of a demolished Hindu temple. The RSS and its affiliates had been campaigning to, in the words of a BJP minister, correct the “historical mistake” of the mosque’s existence, a task the mob completed that December afternoon. “They climbed on top of the domes and tombs,” one witness told NPR. “They were carrying hammers and these three-pronged spears from Hindu scripture. They started hacking at the mosque. By night, it was destroyed.” The demolition sparked riots that lasted months and killed an estimated 2,000 people across the country.

The destruction of the Babri Masjid was arguably Hindu nationalism’s greatest triumph to date. Since its establishment in 1925, the RSS—whose founders sought what one of them called a “military regeneration of the Hindus,” inspired by Mussolini’s Black Shirts and Nazi “race pride”—had been a marginal presence in India: Its members held no elected office, and it was temporarily designated a terrorist organization after one of its affiliates shot and killed Mohandas Gandhi in 1948. But the leveling of the Babri Masjid activated a virulently ethnonationalist base and paved the way for three decades of Hindutva ascendance. In 1998, the BJP formed a government for the first time; in 2014, it returned to power, winning a staggering 282 out of 543 seats in parliament and propelling Modi into India’s highest office. Since then, journalist Samanth Subramanian notes, all of the country’s governmental and civil society institutions “have been pressured to fall in line” with a Hindutva agenda—a phenomenon on full display in 2019, when the Supreme Court of India awarded the land where the Babri Masjid once stood to a government run by the very Hindu nationalists who illegally destroyed it. (Modi has since laid a foundation stone for a new Ram temple in Ayodhya, an event that a prominent RSS activist celebrated with a billboard in Times Square.) The Ayodhya verdict came in the same year that Modi stripped constitutional protections from residents of the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir and passed a law that creates a fast track to citizenship for non-Muslim immigrants, laying the groundwork for a religious test for Indian nationality. Under Modi, “the Hinduization of India is almost complete,” as journalist Yasmeen Serhan has written in The Atlantic.

To achieve its goals, the RSS has worked via a dense network of organizations that call themselves the “Sangh Parivar” (“joint family”) of Hindu nationalism. The BJP, which holds more seats in the Indian parliament than every other party combined, is the Sangh’s electoral face. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is the movement’s cultural wing, responsible for “Hinduizing” Indian society at the grassroots level. The Bajrang Dal is the project’s militant arm, which enforces Hindu supremacy through violence. Dozens of other organizations contribute money and platforms to the Sangh. The sheer number of groups affords the Sangh what human rights activist Pranay Somayajula has referred to as a “tactical politics of plausible deniability,” in which the many degrees of separation between the governing elements and their vigilante partners shields the former from backlash. This explains how, until 2018, the CIA could describe the VHP and Bajrang Dal as “militant religious organizations”—a designation that applies to non-electoral groups exerting political pressure—even as successive US governments have maintained a warm relationship with their parliamentary counterpart, the BJP.

...

The most extreme figures in the Hindu nationalist and Zionist movements were especially frank about the nature of their partnership: “Whether you call them Palestinians, Afghans, or Pakistanis, the root of the problem for Hindus and Jews is Islam,” Bajrang Dal affiliate Rohit Vyasmaan told The New York Times of his friendly relationship with Mike Guzofsky, a member of a violent militant group connected to the infamous Jewish supremacist Meir Kahane’s Kach Party.

...

In 2003, Gary Ackerman—a Jewish former congressman who was awarded India’s third-highest civilian honor for helping to found the Congressional Caucus on India—told a gathering of AJC and AIPAC representatives and their Indian counterparts that “Israel [is] surrounded by 120 million Muslims,” while “India has 120 million [within].” Tom Lantos, another Jewish member of the caucus, likewise enjoined the two communities to collaborate: “We are drawn together by mindless, vicious, fanatic, Islamic terrorism.”

[magicalgirlypop]

i'm sure my non indian followers are confused about why i'm suddenly reblogging stuff about a temple. so let me explain.

on 22nd january, 2024, the ram mandir in ayodhya was inaugrated. it was believed to be built on the birthplace of the lord ram, a hindu god. celebrations were everywhere. not just in india, but abroad, the indian hindu diaspora also celebrated the opening of the temple. saffron flags and chants of "jai shri ram" were everywhere.

so, what's the problem?

the first is that this temple was built on the side of a 500 year old mosque, which was demolished by hindu extremists in 1992. you're probably going to hear that this mosque was built on the site of a demolished temple originally, and they're just reclaiming it. but that is a lie. in fact, the supreme court claims that there was no evidence of a temple under the babri masjid. in fact, that is one of the longest run s@nghi misinformation campaigns. once upon a time, the demolition of the babri masjid was seen as a national shame, the actions of a few fringe hindu nationalists. but now, its a celebrated almost mainstream event, which does not hold promise for where this country is headed.

oh, but hindus are just celebrating a place of worship being opened on what they believe to be a holy site, right? wrong. its not just about the celebrations, but how the treatment of religious minorities in india would get worse. it was already pretty bad, especially under our current fascist government, but now we're seeing churches and mosques being vandalized with saffron flags and chants of "jai shri ram", muslim owned shops being burned, crowds calling for the demilition of more mosques, muslim owned properties being subject to more violence than ever, and honestly many more that could be happening as we speak.

india has always been a hellhole for religious minorities and it has been more so ever since m0di gained power. but the building of this temple is just going to make things so much worse, especially for indian muslims. remember that when you see someone celebrating the ram mandir, this is what they're celebrating. this is what they're turning a blind eye to and even encouraging.

with all this in mind, i encourage non indians to steer clear of anyone celebrating the ram mandir. i don't care if its their religion, i don't care if they're "just celebrating", what they're celebrating is a temple built on the site of a demolished mosque and with the blood of many. don't buy their "500 years of struggle" bs, its a lie.

[shehzadi]

hindutva are celebrating the construction of a temple today (22.01.24) in ayodhya, uttar pradesh on the ruins of babri masjid, a mosque they destroyed in 1992. one of the common disputes around it is the existence of a temple before the masjid. the most extreme hindu nationalists don’t care either way because they just want mosques destroyed. the more liberal types dig up ‘proof’ of temple remains as if that justifies the violence muslims are facing centuries later.

[newspatron]

Ram Temple in Ayodhya | A Symbol of Faith and Struggle for Hindus

If you are interested in learning more about the Ram temple in Ayodhya, and why it is a symbol of faith and struggle for millions of Hindus, then you should read this article.

The Ram temple in Ayodhya is one of the most sacred and revered places for Hindus around the world. It is believed to be the birthplace of Lord Ram, the seventh incarnation of Lord Vishnu, the supreme deity of Hinduism. Lord Ram is considered to be the ideal king, warrior, son, husband, and father, and his life story is narrated in the epic Ramayana. The Ram temple in Ayodhya is not only a place…

[krsnaradhika]

so many posts abt supposed hinduphobia not a single word about all the incidents this week of people playing bhajans and dancing right in front of masjids do you really think we are oppressed when such things happen without consequences?

I was gonna post, did not possess the ideal temper for it until now but I'm gonna answer that.

That's wrong. Hindus who are doing this are wrong. No matter what anybody says, it's always gonna be wrong to impose your belief upon others. And so is disrespecting others' faith in any way. Not cool, definitely not what Sanātana teaches us. Live and let live, peacefully. The world is one family.

"Supposed Hinduphobia", huh? Y'all really like crying so do it off anon. I have posts about it, as you pointed out already, questioned all these incidents when you can see it dancing naked and yet you want to live in denial. Islamophobia is very real, so is Hinduphobia. You cannot deny the wounds and blood of others. Kashmiri Hindus? I am gonna ask this again and again and again till nobody answers me. That wasn't Hinduphobia? What about the forced conversion and rape of Hindu girls in Pakistan? Sexualizing vigrahas of goddesses, putting meat on them, vandalizing them? What are all these people denying the existence of the temple beneath the Babri mosque despite all these evidences and trying to speak on the behalf of Shri Rama that he wouldn't have wanted it? Pakistan very recently has disrespected a Hindu temple despite it being named a global heritage site. Nobody fucking questioned the one peeing on the Shiva temple very recently. "Do you think we are being oppressed when such things happen without consequences?" No religion is devoid of shitheads, anon. We have many in our community, there are plenty in the others. As I said, you cannot deny anybody's suffering. Not Hindus', not Muslims'. I've stepped into this mire only when I saw supposed liberals and leftists speaking ill of Rama Lalaa and the Ayodhya temple. It's irritating seeing people like you. And do not dare put words in my mouth. I've never denied Islamophobia.