Our land had glorious past, before Muslim invaders invaded our land to brutalise our civilisation followed by British colonisers. The most excruciating and humiliating time was when Islamic invaders used to demolish our temples butchering priests and devotees who tried to protect it. It is said that the priest of Kashi Vishwanath Temple jumped into the well with Jyotirlinga to protect it from Aurangzeb in September 1669. Such brutality used to be inflicted to those who tried to protect temples. The same bloodied history had already been repeated when Mughal king Babur had destroyed temple of God Ram in 1528 to build Babri mosque. How tormenting it would have been to witness when magnificent Ram temple had been turned into Babri mosque using temple’s columns in construction of mosque! Every mosque which had been built after destroying temple is a wound on our civilisation. Our civilisation is full of such wounds inflicted by Islamic invaders.
It took 450 years, blood, sweat, tears, perseverance, unflinching struggle, supreme sacrifice of Hindu warriors and an unending legal battle to cure and cleanse one wound which barbaric Babur penetrated to India’s soul. August 5 is liberation day when Bharatvarsh would liberate itself from one humiliation on our civilisation.
It was perseverance of 134 years of legal battle. To reclaim the lost glory warriors fought at every front, be it in a court or on ground. Ayodhya title dispute was the longest legal battle, which had continued for 134 years in India’s history. In 1885 Mahanth Raghubar Das filed a suit (No. 61/280) that he was a Mahant and was located at the Chabutra in the outer courtyard, and he should be permitted to construct a temple there. The suit was dismissed. Since then, there has been suit after suit demanding right to pray and conduct Pooja in the inner courtyard. The dispute did not go to courts for many decades.
There were several Mahants, who brought the Ram Mandir movement at Center stage. One of them who played pivotal role was Mahant Digvijay Nath of Gorakshnath Math, grand Guru of UP CM Yogi Adityanath. Mahant Digvijay Nath had recited Ramcharitamanas continuously for days before two idols of God Ram and Sita appeared inside the Babri Masjid in the night of 22 December 1949. Miraculous appearance was claimed to be site of God Ram’s birthplace. The then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ordered the two idols to be removed but the local district magistrate KKK Nair refused to carry out the orders because he felt there would be communal violence. The gates were locked; the idols remained inside.
It was Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which spearheaded the Ram Janmabhoomi’ movement under the leadership of Lal Krishna Advani in 1980s. On 1 February 1986 a local court ordered that the locks be opened for Hindu worshippers. This order ignited ignorant Hindus from their slumber. Thereafter, BJP and the VHP left no stone unturned to mobilise people all over the country. Then, fifth suit had been filed by Ram Lalla Virajman Himself in 1989.
Who can forget how Saryu river turned red with blood when the then Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav ordered to open fire at the karsevaks comprising women and elderly people on 30 October 1990. Lal Krishna Advani’s Rath Yatra for Ram temple was to culminate on October 30, 1990 in Ayodhya. However, Advani could not enter Ayodhya as he had been arrested in Bihar by then Chief Minister Lalu Prasad government. But huge numbers of karsevaks had gathered in Ayodhya in support of Ram temple campaign (volunteers) in the Uttar Pradesh city. As karsevaks marched towards Babri Masjid, Mulayam Singh Yadav ordered police to open fire indiscriminately. And Saryu river turned red with bloods of Hindu warriors and their floating bodies. Mulayam Singh Yadav reminded of General Dyer, who commanded his troops armed with sophisticated rifles to open fire on a gathering of unarmed civilians including men, women and children, at the Jallianwalla Bagh on 13 April 1919 in Amritsar.
On 30 October 1990, dead bodies floating on Saryu river were incalculable. It was pain, blood, tears, anguish and dead bodies. Nevertheless, battle continued. Ultimately, the aggressive mobilisation resulted in the destruction of the masjid on December 6, 1992.
Meanwhile, in 1989 the Allahabad High Court has passed an order transferring all the 5 suits to itself and ordering a consolidated hearing before a Full Bench of three judges. When legal battle was on in the court with supreme sacrifice made at Saryu, more than 60 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks (volunteers) returning from Ayodhya, were burnt alive inside the Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway station in the morning of 27 February 2002. One can calculate up to what extent anti Hindu forces were inflicting wounds to hurt Sanatan Dharma.
However, Maryada Purushottam Ram continued to be under tent patiently waiting for justice from Indian judiciary after he himself had moved the lawsuit in 1989, seeking the title right on the ground that the land itself has the character of the deity and of a ‘juristic entity through next friend and former Allahabad High Court judge Deoki Nandan Agarwal. It was heart rending for a devotee to watch his God under tent until Supreme Court tendered judgment allowing the construction of a Ram temple on the same site in Ayodhya on 9 November 2019. And the idols of Ram Lalla were shifted from tent to a temporary temple near Manas Bhawan in Ram Janmabhoomi premises on early morning of 25 March by UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
5 August would mark the day when India liberated herself from wound on our civilisation inflicted by barbaric Babur. 5 August would also remind blood, sweat, tears, perseverance, unflinching struggle, supreme sacrifice of Hindu warriors with an unending legal battle.
