NEW DELHI, India (RNS) — Mangala, a laboratory manager from Maharashtra, India, was 19 years old in December 1992, when she joined thousands of fellow Hindu zealots in chanting fiery slogans as they tore down the Babri Masjid, a 16th-century, three-domed mosque in Ayodhya, in northern India.
The crowd set upon the mosque with hammers, pickaxes and shovels before mounting barricades and swarming inside. Mangala, wearing a saffron scarf to indicate her Hindu allegiance, slammed her fist against a wall of the mosque and shouted, “My blood is boiling.”
Mangala felt proud, even “electrified” to be part of a “historic demolition” taking place on the ground considered by many Hindus as the birthplace of Rama, one of their faith’s most exalted deities. The Hindu nationalist crowd had consummated a six-year campaign already championed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, which now rules India, to demolish the mosque and replace it with a temple to Rama.
Thirty years later, Mangala, who calls herself a humanist, said, “I feel ashamed to say I was part of this. In a way I feel responsible for the damage and divisions across India that followed.”
The Babri Mosque’s demolition led to widespread rioting across India. More than 2,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims. India’s tradition of secular, tolerant politics was dealt a hard blow. The Hindu nationalist political movement, meanwhile, got a jump start.
“This was part of a strategy worked out by Hindu supremacists to gain political power,” said Mangala. “If you have to build a temple, why do you need to demolish a mosque for that?”
Looking back, Mangala said, “Thousands of us were hypnotized by the dream of a pure Hindu nation fueled by nationalist leaders. We believed Lord Ram would make our mission successful.”
The seeds of religious extremism were planted in Mangala as a young teenager, when she joined the Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the women’s wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a Hindu nationalist paramilitary voluntary organization and the ideological parent of BJP.
This story was originally published in religionnews.com . Read the full story here