Temple domes and mosque turrets, majestically reaching up to the heavens, have historically defined and defied skylines in Indian urban and rural scapes.
But down below, the ground on which these structures are rooted, has also been the turf of tussle between its two biggest religious communities. A tussle that is being played out on the streets, elections, minds and our courts.
The 1990s decade was dominated by the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid row, over the issue of a mosque constructed over a piece of land where Lord Rama is believed to have been born.
Now, the Gyanvapi mosque row has added another chapter to the country’s history of disputes over religious structures and the spaces they occupy. The two instances, Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid row, and the Gyanvapi-Shringar Gauri temple conflict, in a way serve as bookends to the culture of such conflicts, even as more such disputes have landed at the doors of the judiciary.
This photofeature is stitched together with photographs and paintings pulled from the past and the present to convey a sense of background to the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi temple conflict and the Gyanvapi-Shringar Gauri temple dispute.
One of the photos here dates back to the mid-1800s and is painted by Commander Robert Elliot. Others provide a visual context to the Babri Masjid, before and after its demolition by mobs in 1992.
(This appeared in the print edition as "The Future of Our Pasts")
