Hinduism Case Study – Violence & Peace 2018

Destruction of the Ayodhya Mosque

India is a religiously diverse country, home to millions
of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains and more.
Most of the country is Hindu (about 74%), while
Muslims are the most significant minority (about
14%).1 While many Indian Hindus live in peace with
their neighbors, some have also been the perpetrators
of extreme violence against minority groups,
particularly Muslims. These conflicts are rooted in
long standing hostilities, particularly after the violent
Idols of Rama and his wife Sita at a Hindu
temple in Ayodhya, similar to the idols placed partitioning of colonial India into the modern
in Babri Masjid. By Vishwaroop2006, countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in 1947.
Wikimedia Commons: http://bit.ly/2w1nfSW

Note on this Case Study:

An example of this violence has centered around the
city of Ayodhya in a conflict that has lasted decades.
No religion is inherently violent or peaceful. Ayodhya is a holy city of Hinduism which many Hindus
However, religions are powerful forces. They
can inspire horrific violence. They can also
believe to be the birthplace of Rama: the divine hero of
inspire nearly unfathomable acts of love and the Ramayana, a Hindu holy epic. In 1992, an
peacebuilding. The Hindus described here organized mob of at least 75,000 Hindus descended on
span a wide range of values regarding the one of Ayodhya’s mosques—the Babri Masjid—and
intersection of their religion and violence.
Some are the perpetrators of violence, some tore it to the ground using hammers, rods, and shovels,
are working to end violence and promote while Indian authorities watched. In the aftermath of
peace, many more are bystanders, who may this attack, interreligious rioting engulfed several
build up cultural violence, cultural peace, or Indian cities, and by the end of the violence, over one
even both.
thousand people, most of them Muslim, were dead.2 In
As always, when thinking about religion and some cities, like Mumbai, indiscriminate shooting of
conflict, maintain a focus on how religion is
internally diverse, always evolving and
peaceful Muslims by police was reported.3
changing, and always embedded in specific
cultures. The destruction of the Babri Masjid and subsequent
massacres were not random, but the culmination of a
The Religious Literacy Project is directed by long campaign of directed Hindu anger towards their
Diane L. Moore and all content is constructed Muslim neighbors. Many Hindus trace the conflict
under her editorial direction.
back to 1528, when they claim that Mughal emperor
Babur ordered a mosque built overtop a temple to Rama, which had been built on the precise
place of the god’s birth. The facts of this story are disputed; rumors of the historic temple were
spread by British colonizers who intended to “divide and conquer” the people of Ayodhya. In
fact, while Hindus and Muslims used to worship at the site together, British authorities literally
divided them in 1859, using a fence to separate Hindus from Muslims.4 For some, by
independence in 1947, divisions between the communities had grown from distrust to rage.

1 World Religion Database, ed. Todd M. Johnson and Brian A. Grim (Boston: Brill, 2015).
2 Krishna Pokharel & Paul Beckett, “Ayodhya: the Battle for India’s Soul,” Wall Street Journal, Dec. 10, 2012. http://on.wsj.com/2w1KOej
3 Stanley J. Tambiah, Leveling Crowds: Ethnonationalist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia, (Berkeley: UC Press, 1996), 254.
4 Sushil Srivastava, “How the British Saw the Issue,” in Anatomy of a Confrontation: The Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhumi Issue, ed.

Sarvepalli Gopal (Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1991), 45-49; Vasudha Narayanan, “The Strains of Hindu-Muslim Relations: Babri Masjid,
Music, and Other Areas Where the Traditions Cleave,” in Hinduism and Secularism, ed. Arvind Sharma, (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 162.
In 1949, this anger led a group of Hindu nationalists—conservative Hindus who favor a solely
Hindu India—to break into the mosque and place a small idol of Rama inside. They claimed it
was a miracle the next morning, and a large crowd of amazed Hindus gathered, much to the
offense of many local Muslims, who authorities did not allow into their own mosque. Soon,
fearing further unrest, the government permanently closed the mosque, only allowing Hindu
priests to enter in order to take care of the idol. Most local sadhus—Hindu holy men—
supported the new idol. However, some sadhus, such as Rama devotee Akshaya Brahmachari
were angered, saying that Hindus had spread “communal poison” in Ayodhya that day.5

Soon, three legal cases were filed, each side claiming they were the true owners of the site: one
from local Hindus, one from Muslims, and one from the god Rama himself. In Indian law, Hindu
deities are recognized as “juristic persons,” and a god’s “friend” can file lawsuits on their behalf.
Retired Hindu judge Deoki Nandan Agarwal did just that, claiming Rama as true owner.6 Hindu
politicians also stepped into the debate, especially members of India’s Hindu nationalist party:
the BJP. From the 1980s onward, BJP politicians advocated building a Hindu temple on the site.
In 1984, the head of the BJP, L. K. Advani organized a traditional ritual procession in a chariot
from Somnath temple to Ayodhya, symbolizing their commitment to constructing the temple.
Clearly intending to link the BJP to Rama, the symbols and decorations used by the procession
drew heavily from an extremely popular retelling of the Ramayana which was airing on state
television at the time.7 The party’s focus on Ayodhya paid off. In 1984, the BJP had two seats in
the federal legislature. Five years later, they had 85. By 1991, a year before the mosque’s
destruction and subsequent killings, Ayodhya had become the biggest political issue in India.8

In 2002 violence erupted again when the BJP organized tens of thousands of Hindu nationalists
to march to Ayodhya to build the foundation of a Rama temple. After the event, a train carrying
Hindus returning from Ayodhya was bombed; the attack was blamed on Muslims, causing more
rioting, centered around the BJP-controlled state of Gujarat. Nearly 2,000 people were killed,
mostly Muslims.9 Many accused the BJP of allowing the violence. However, BJP promises to
build the Rama temple continued to bear political fruit; Gujarat’s BJP leader in 2002, Narendra
Modi, was elected Prime Minister of India in 2014. Still, many Hindus have been horrified by
the violence, and other Hindus—particularly in south India— do not see it as a major issue.10

After decades of litigation, in 2010 the Allahabad High Court ruled that all three claimants
deserved to split the site at Ayodhya into three parts of equal area, though the Hindus received
the section where the mosque had stood, and had the right to build a temple. In a judgement
based in Hindu theology, not secular law, judges stated that Rama had been born at the site
900,000 years ago. The decision was quickly appealed to the Supreme Court. In late 2017, the
Supreme Court gave officials ten weeks to gather and translate the 90,000 pages of evidence
written in eight languages that have been submitted over three generations of court battles
over Ayodhya.11 They will then begin hearings on this contentious and historic site.

5 Pokharel and Beckett, “Ayodhya: the Battle for India’s Soul,”

6 Ibid.
7 Arvind Rajagopal, Politics after Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Public in India, (New York: Cambridge UP, 2001),

15, 193.
8 Tambiah, Leveling Crowds, 247.
9 Pokharel and Beckett, “Ayodhya: the Battle for India’s Soul,” ; “Timeline: Ayodhya holy site crisis,” BBC News, Dec. 6, 2012.

http://bbc.in/1KJ8Qcu
10 Pokharel and Beckett, “Ayodhya: the Battle for India’s Soul,”; Narayanan, “The Strains of Hindu-Muslim…,” 167-8.
11 Harish V. Nair, “Lord Ram Makes His Case before India’s Supreme Court…” The Daily Mail, Aug. 11, 2017. http://dailym.ai/2uTToqe
 Hinduism Case Study – Violence & Peace 2018

Additional Resources
Primary Sources:
• Artistic depictions of violence from the Ramayana from different historical periods
and cultures (1750/1850): http://bit.ly/2w48aiz ; (1801/1899):
http://bit.ly/2uE76OF ; (1980): http://bit.ly/2wGQwiJ
• “Sita Sings the Blues” an artistic retelling of the Ramayana by Jewish-American
cartoonist Nina Paley (2008): http://bit.ly/1IvTuZN

Secondary Sources:
• Clear timeline on political, religious, and violent events at Ayodhya:
http://bbc.in/1KJ8Qcu
• WSJ reporting on the conflict at Ayodhya (2012): http://on.wsj.com/2wSj2gw
• India’s NDTV documenting the close connections between Hindu behavior in
Ayodhya and Indian electoral politics (2015): http://bit.ly/2wVkNd8

Discussion Questions
• How does the violence at Ayodhya show how Hinduism changes over time?
• In what ways do Hindu reactions to the situation at Ayodhya show how Hinduism is
internally diverse?
• Who has significant power in India and who does not? How does this affect the
situation at Ayodhya?
• Look at the artwork in the primary sources depicting scenes from the Ramayana.
Many religions have violence in their
scriptures. How might literary and
artistic depictions of violence like
those above impact movements for
violence in the real world? How
might they impact movements for
peace?
• Watch NDTV’s reporting on
connections between new building
work being done near the Ayodhya
site and electoral politics.
Contemplating questions of violence
and peace, how are Hindu religious The city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, India in 2013.
beliefs situated within an Indian By Ramnath Bhat. Flicker Creative Commons:
http://bit.ly/2uT9O2b
political context, and vice versa?