A nearly five-century wait ended with the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on 22 January. However, this historic event has been surrounded with a barrage of anti-Hindu criticism in the West. Sputnik India worked to dig deeper in order to debunk their bias.
On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi headlined the consecration ceremony of the grand Lord Ram Temple in Ayodhya.
The Supreme Court paved the way for the construction of the temple following a centuries-long dispute in 2019 after the Babri Mosque that stood there in 1992 was destroyed by an enraged mob.
History of the Ram Temple-Babri Mosque Dispute
Though the demolition of the mosque in the 1990s led to widespread riots in India, historical evidence suggested that a mega Ram Temple previously stood at the site before Mir Baqi, a military commander in Mughal ruler Babur’s armed forces, razed it to turn the place into a Muslim religious place in 1528.
Despite the destruction of one of their holiest shrines, the Hindus continued to wage a battle for the temple with the Marathas first seeking control of the site in the early 1750s.
This was followed by a demand by a group of Sikhs in 1858 that the Babri Mosque be declared the birthplace of Lord Ram. For the uninitiated, Lord Ram is revered in Sikhism, with the Hindu God finding a place in the religion’s holy scriptures, the Guru Granth Sahib and the Dasam Granth.
Subsequently, in 1885, a priest named Raghubar Das, associated with Nirmohi Akhara, a religious sect within the ambit of Hinduism, that considers Lord Ram as their main deity, filed a first legal case on the issue in a British court. India was under the rule of the British crown at the time.
ASI Surveys Confirm Grand Temple Did Exist Beneath Babri Mosque
Post-independence, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), carried out two excavations – one before the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1976-77 and the other after its destruction, both of which confirmed the existence of a large-scale temple structure beneath it.
KK Muhammed, the ASI’s regional director and a member of the team that carried out the first excavation at the site in 1976-77 underlined that there was “strong archeological evidence” of a mega temple structure below the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya.
Ayodhya Ram Temple as Important For Hindus as Mecca is for Muslims
Furthermore, he stressed that the “Ram Temple at Ayodhya is as important for Hindus as Mecca and Medina are for Muslims.”
Interestingly, in the run-up to the consecration ceremony of the Ram Temple, Muslims, at least the ones who were residing in Ayodhya, welcomed its construction, because the Babri Mosque held little significance as it was in no way associated with Islam’s founder, Prophet Muhammad or his family members.
Against this backdrop, Sputnik India spoke with Athar Husain Siddiqui, the secretary of the proposed Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), which is being built on the Supreme Court’s orders after it asked the government to grant five acres of land to the Muslim side in place of the Babri Mosque site if the Ram Temple could emerge as a fulcrum of Hindu-Muslim unity in the nation.
Siddiqui emphasized that Lord Ram represents Awadh and Ayodhya is a part of the Awadh region and Awadh is known worldwide for its Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb (Ganges–Yamuna Culture – North India’s composite high culture that focuses on unity between people of different religions).
On the other hand, Iqbal Ansari, an ex-litigant in the Ram Janmabhoomi (birthplace)-Babri Masjid case, who took part in the consecration ceremony on Monday, denied that there was any discord between Muslims and Hindus over the Ram Temple, asserting that it was a “media creation”.
This article is republished under content sharing arrangement between Blitz and Sputnik.
