Thousands of Indian Hindus rally to demand temple be built on disputed Ayodhya site
- In 1992, a militant Hindu mob tore down the centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya, triggering riots that killed about 2,000 people across India
- Most Hindus believe the warrior-god Ram was born in Ayodhya, and Hindu groups insist there was a temple there before a mosque was built in 1528
Thousands of Hindu monks and activists linked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party gathered in the Indian capital New Delhi on Sunday to urge the government to build a temple at the ruins of a 16th century mosque.
The calls for a new temple in the northern town of Ayodhya come ahead of an election that must be held by May 2019, when Modi will seek a second term.
Most analysts expect his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to fare far less well than it did in 2014, and critics often accuse the party of using communal issues to whip up support.
For the past three decades, the BJP and Hindu outfits associated with it have resurrected the Ayodhya controversy before elections, stoking tensions between Hindus and a Muslim minority who make up 14 per cent of India’s 1.3 billion people.
In 1992 a militant Hindu mob tore down the centuries-old mosque in Ayodhya, triggering riots that killed about 2,000 people across India in one of the worst outbreaks of communal violence since Partition in 1947.
Most Hindus believe the warrior-god Ram was born in Ayodhya, and Hindu groups insist that there was a temple there before a mosque was built by a Muslim ruler in 1528.
