ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE RAM MANDIR DISPUTE

The Ramayana states that the location of Rama's birthplace is on the banks of the Sarayu river in the city of Ayodhya. A section of Hindus claim that the exact site of Rama's birthplace is where the Babri Masjid once stood in the present-day Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. According to this theory, the Mughals demolished a Hindu shrine that marked the spot, and constructed a mosque in its place. People opposed to this theory state that such claims arose only in the 18th century, and that there is no evidence for the spot being the birthplace of Rama.

The political, historical and socio-religious debate over the history and location of the Babri Mosque, and whether a previous temple was demolished or modified to create it, is known as the Ayodhya dispute.

In 1992, the demolition of Babri Masjid by Hindu nationalists triggered widespread Hindu-Muslim violence. Since then, the archaeological excavations have indicated the presence of a temple beneath the mosque rubble, but whether the structure was a Rama shrine (or a temple at all) remains disputed.

Several other sites, including places in other parts of India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal, have been proposed as birthplaces of Rama.

DEMOLITION OF BABRI MASJID 

On 6 December 1992, a large crowd of Hindu Kar Sevaks (volunteers) demolished the 16th-century Babri Mosque in the city of Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh. The demolition occurred after a political rally at the site turned violent.

In Hindu mythology, the city of Ayodhya is the birthplace of the God-king Rama. In the 16th century a Mughal general, Mir Baqi, had built a mosque, known as the Babri Masjid, at a site considered by some Hindus to be Ram Janmabhoomi, the actual birthplace of Rama. In the 1980s, the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) began a campaign for the construction of a temple dedicated to Rama at the site, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as its political voice. Several rallies and marches were held as a part of this movement, including the Ram Rath Yatra led by L. K. Advani.

On 6 December 1992 the VHP and the BJP organised a rally at the site involving 150,000 volunteers, known as kar sevaks. The rally turned violent, and the crowd overwhelmed security forces and tore down the mosque. A subsequent inquiry into the incident found 68 people responsible for the demolition, including several leaders of the BJP and the VHP. The demolition also resulted in several months of intercommunal rioting between India's Hindu and Muslim communities, causing the death of at least 2,000 people.