India: The demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, has a past, distinct from the history of the dispute over it | Ajaz Ashraf

The demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, has a past, distinct from the history of the dispute over it. The two are often hitched together to justify a political project. Those who reduced the Babri Masjid to rubble 25 years ago claim that it was built in 1528 after destroying a Ram temple, which had once stood at the site of Lord Ram’s birth in Ayodhya, in present-day Uttar Pradesh. From this perspective, the demolition of the mosque becomes a valiant action undertaken to undo the wrong committed centuries ago.

It is by delinking the history of the dispute over the Babri Masjid from its demolition that we can grasp the consequences of the cataclysmic event India is commemorating today. The demolition comprised a chain of episodes calibrated to spawn the fervour for building a Ram temple at the spot where the Babri Masjid stood. This was impossible to achieve without pulling down the mosque. [. . .]
https://scroll.in/article/860283/how-advanis-rath-yatra-and-the-demolition-of-the-babri-masjid-led-to-the-discovery-of-another-india