Years Later, Destruction of a Mosque Still Echoes (India)
AYODHYA, India — To reach the most hotly disputed religious site in India, a pilgrim must negotiate a maze of caged paths, designed so that worshipers can approach it only single file, pockets emptied of everything but lint. Only the monkeys are not frisked by its thorough phalanx of security guards.
From 1528 until 1992, a squat, nondescript mosque sat on this spot. But 17 years ago this week, a mob of Hindu activists tore the building to pieces with little more than their bare hands. Their goal was to clear the ground for a grand temple to Ram on the patch of ground they claimed was his birthplace.
That frenzied act of destruction, and the political movements that flowed from it, presented the biggest challenge to India’s identity as a secular, multi-ethnic democracy since the country was created by the bloody partition of British India in 1947. Even today the site is so sensitive that even the smallest changes require the approval of India’s Supreme Court.
Last week the government finally made public the report of a commission investigating the tumultuous events that led to this strange tableau. The report is a behemoth of 1,029 pages that sum up 400 meetings over 17 years of inquiry, during which almost $2 million was spent calling about 100 witnesses. Its findings have thundered across the political stage, causing shoving matches in Parliament and shout-fests on cable television talk shows...
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From 1528 until 1992, a squat, nondescript mosque sat on this spot. But 17 years ago this week, a mob of Hindu activists tore the building to pieces with little more than their bare hands. Their goal was to clear the ground for a grand temple to Ram on the patch of ground they claimed was his birthplace.
That frenzied act of destruction, and the political movements that flowed from it, presented the biggest challenge to India’s identity as a secular, multi-ethnic democracy since the country was created by the bloody partition of British India in 1947. Even today the site is so sensitive that even the smallest changes require the approval of India’s Supreme Court.
Last week the government finally made public the report of a commission investigating the tumultuous events that led to this strange tableau. The report is a behemoth of 1,029 pages that sum up 400 meetings over 17 years of inquiry, during which almost $2 million was spent calling about 100 witnesses. Its findings have thundered across the political stage, causing shoving matches in Parliament and shout-fests on cable television talk shows...