The Pran Pratishtha ceremony of Ram Lalla at the Ram temple in Ayodhya marks a significant milestone in India’s cultural history and also draws the curtains on a long-drawn dispute that has sown sharp divisions in India’s post-Indipendent political landscape.
The inauguration of the Ram Temple, which will be thrown open to devotees from January 23, finds its roots in na struggle that is claimed to date back five centuries. While one side of the political divide believes that an ancient Ram Temple that stood at the site where the new Ram Temple stands today was demolished on the orders of Mughal emperor Babur and a mosque — that later came to be known as the Babri Masjid — was built in 1528-29 AD.
A contrasting school of thought claims that the existence of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in mere fiction and that the movement to build one in Ayodhya, believed to be the birth place of Lord Ram, was undertaken with an ulterior political motive. Regardless of which side of the divide you look at it from, the impact of the Ram Temple movement on India’s polity is significant and has left an indelible mark in India’s political journey.
This story was originally published in financialexpress.com. Read the full story here .