On August 5^th 2020 the aspirations and wishes of millions of Hindus will be fulfilled. The Ram Temple construction foundation ceremony is happening in Ayodhya right at Sri Ram Janmabhoomi Ayodhya with PM Narendra Modi at centre and Yogi Adityanath in UP.

Most of my observations in this article are from historic events and from the interview of the unsung hero Shri Champat Rai - VHP Vice president and general Secretary of Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Ksteerta

Before I elaborate on the other historic milestones we need to state that November 9^th 2019 is the most  historic day after December 6^th 1992   which decisively resolved the dispute in independent india  via supreme court of india , The bench under then CJI Ranjan Gogoi gave a unanimous verdict (All 5 judges DY Chandrachud, Sharad Arvind Bobde, S. Abdul Nazeer, Ashok Bhushan)  that all of the 2.77 acres of disputed land along with land acquired under the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act, 1993  belong to Ram Lalla and Hindus.  

Ensuring that Muslims are not left out they have given a verdict so that UP government will allocate 5 acres of land in the vicinity of Ayodhya to Sunni Waqf board. Another historic day was February 5^th 2020 when PM Narendra Modi announced on the floor of Loksabha that Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra trust will be established as per the directives of Apex court. The trust is now headed by nonagenarian Shri KA Parasaran who also spearheaded the arguments for shri Ram lalla virajman in SC, and the other members of the trust are mentioned below.

1.       Mahant Nritya Gopal Das Maharaj, President

2.       Swami Govind Dev Giriji Maharaj, Treasurer

3.       Shri Champat Rai, General Secretary

4.       Shri Nripendra Mishra, IAS

5.       Swami Vasudevanand Saraswatiji Maharaj, member

6.       Swami Vishwa Prasannathirthaji Maharaj, member

7.       Yugpurush Parmanand Giri Ji Maharaj, member

8.       Shri Vimlendra Mohan Pratap Mishra, member

9.       Dr Anil Mishra, Homoeopathic Doctor, member

10.   Kameshwar Chaupal, member

11.   Mahant Devendra Das Ji, member

12.   Shri Gyanesh Kumar, IAS, Additional Secretary of Home Ministry

13.   Shri Avnish Awasthi, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh Government

14.   Shri Anuj Jha, IAS; ex-officio trustee and Collector & DM Ayodhya

Members of Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust

This is the latest blueprint picture of Ram Manir in 2020. It will now be 161 feet instead of 141 and 3 floors instead of 2 floors. The Older plan was from year 1989.

The destruction of original temple was started in 1528 by Mir Baqi the commander in chief of the then Mughal king Babur and subsequently a mosque on the name of Babur called Babri Masjid was constructed. Before the 1940s, It was called Masjid-i Janmasthan ("mosque of the birthplace") including in official documents. There was an occasion during British rule where a Muslim fakir and Hindu sants reached consensus to construct a Ram temple but British who was ruling with divide and rule doctrine hanged them from a tree to create a nightmare for any effort in the direction of Hindu-Muslim unity.  

On 23^rd December 1949 Santh Abhiram Das with few other sadhus installed the idols of Ram Lalla under the main dome  of Babri Masjid which made sure that Hindus had moral sanctity to pray and the then PM of India Jawaharlal Nehru tried to scuttle it by ordering the district magistrate to remove them but Mahant Digvijay Nath warned Nehru that no one can touch Ram Lalla idol until he is alive and Nehru ‘s attempt failed.

A pujari or priest was allowed to go inside and offer prayers daily from 1949 to 1984 for half hour  in the morning and in evening . There was also a story about Somnath Temple which caused fissures between then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and 1^st President of India Dr Rajendra Prasad when Prasad went to inaugurate Somnath Temple of Bhagwan Shiva in Prabhas Patan near Junagadh in Saurastra region of Gujarat, Nehru tried his best to ridicule and stop him.

The Ramjanmabhoomi temple movement subsided for a while and Vishwa Hindu Parishad was formed for addressing issues related to Hindus in 1964. Things changed only on March 6^th 1983  when in Muzzafarnagar of UP, RSS organized a meeting for Hindus which was attended by Dau Dayal Khanna a Congress leader from Moradabad. Yes you heard it right Dau Dayal Khanna Congress leader who was once a MLA and was also a health minister of UP. He was very old by 1983 and was reluctant to speak and when organizers persisted him to speak again and no one had any idea what he may reveal  at last  he wrote a letter and read it out saying “dear Hindus at last time has come to liberate Ayodhya, Kashi and Mathura from memoires of foreign invaders” and the session ended and until then VHP was nowhere pursued or involved for the temple on  Ram Janmabhoomi.

Ashok Singhal then top member of VHP read the details about Daudiyal Khanna’s speech in newspaper and approached him and said this should not be left to people alone instead it should be vetted with sadhus and sants.  On 7^th April 1984 VHP had organized another meeting for sadhus and sants in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi and also invited Daudiyal Khanna and he repeated the same again and sadhus and sanths took it up as movement from then and VHP officially took it up . Then Paramahans Ramchandra Das a sadhu from Ayodhya , Sant Awaidyanath of Gorakpur math (Guru of the current UP CM Yogi Adityanath) , Dau Dayal Khanna , Ashok Singhal and around 20-25 sadhus met  in Ayodhya and formed “Dharmasthan Mukti Yagna Samithi”. Slowly a movement started to churn from Ayodhya and it has crossed the cities, states and the message was passed onto entire country.

The campaign heat was felt  even by then UP CM from Congress Veer Bahadur Singh when Mahant Awaidyanath said “if I break the lock on Babri structure residing on Ram Janmabhoomi under which law will you arrest me ?" which send shivers down the spine of Veer Bahadur and he took it upon himself and finally opened the locks via Faizabad District judge orders on 1st February 1986 . The news and the excitement that locks on Bhagwan Ram was removed has enthused the masses and a demand for exclusive Bhavya Divya Ram Mandir spread.

Then came the thoughts about nature of temple which prompted the campaign for Rs100 contribution from each individual and one brick from each house, colony or temple vicinity across India for Ram Mandir in Ayodhya  Then came a thought that in order to construct temple one need to remove the structure of Babri Masjid and at first there was a formal discussion with local Muslim parties to voluntarily remove the structure for the sake of Ram lalla  which failed.

It was from 1987-88 then BJP President Lal Krishna Advani who was mooting a resolution on Ram Mandir as core agenda of BJP  but there was resistance to Advani’s attempts until 1989. At Palampur BJP executive in 1989 Advani as president of BJP passed a resolution adopting a need for Ram Mandir in Ayodhya as a core political agenda of BJP, Finally a resolution was passed on Ram Mandir as core agenda of BJP without debate and vote until then only repeal of article 370 was core agenda and latter demand for uniform civil code was added.

Though Congress party in 1986 under then PM Rajiv Gandhi and UP CM Veer Bhadra Singh were first movers on Ram Mandir they never had will to take it to logical conclusion as they want to mitigate the damage done by their excess minority appeasement of undoing the Shah Bano divorce verdict of Supreme Court. BJP took an exponential leap electorally from 2 MP seats in 1984 to 85 MP seats in 1989 and Congress reduced its tally to half during same time. Then came VP ingh who walked out of Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet and started Janata Dal Party  who played a mischievous game of promising Mandir to BJP, promising Communists to rein in BJP’s political rise and promising to Muslims that Babri will be intact and became PM with help of diametrically opposite ideologies i.e. Communists and BJP.

LK Advani, Pramod Mahajan and Narendra Modi mooted an idea of Rath Yatra from Somnath in Gujarat (remember saga between Nehru and Rajendra Prasad) to Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya.on September 25^th 1990. However on October 23^rd then PM VP Singh had asked Bihar CM to halt and arrest LK Advani upon arriving in Bihar.

Despite LK Advani’s arrest on 30^th October 1990 the entire army of Karsevaks reached Babri site, Ayodhya and protested. VHP leader Ashok singhal reached on motorcycle 3 days before. This was taken as insult by then CM of UP Mulayam Singh Yadav. On 2^nd November Mulayam Singh Yadav ordered police to fire on Karsevaks. Jetha Rammali from Bikaner, Kothari (Ram and Sharad) brothers from Kolkata, Vasudev Gupta of Ayodhya, Rajendra Pandey son of a hand-loom worker were few among many who got martyred for Ram Lalla on that day. On 4^th April 1991 owing to pressure from all sadhus , sants, VHP and RSS held a meeting in boat club in New Delhi. Mulayam Singh had to resign as CM of UP. Prior to that on November 10^th 1990 VP Singh government also fell and was succeeded by Chandrashekar. Then followed assassination of Rajiv Gandhi who was contesting for 2nd term in 1991, Owing to the sympathy wave congress won again PV Narasimha Rao accidentally became PM (who was also unapologetic practicing Hindu PM from Congress after LB shastri)  and Kalyan Singh was UP CM. 

On December 6^th 1992  Babri Masjid was demolished by Karsevaks when politicians LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi , Uma Bharati and Sadvi Ritambara were in Ayodhya. There was lot of pressure on Kalyan singh to rein in Karsevaks or repeat what Mulayam did in November 1990 but until today he was unapologetic and proud that even if Babri structure fell not even a single Karsevak should be shot by police.

      Kothari brothers (Ram and Sharad) 

On the legal front, before 1984 there were three cases in lower courts since independence of India pertaining to Ram Janmabhoomi site. First case was in 1950 when some youth under the name of Gopal Singh Visharath from Ayodhya filed a case to pray Ram Lalla murthi in 1949. Lower court ordered in favor of Gopal Singh and people went on to pray for Ram Lalla and offered money and then arose a need for receiver of money offered by devotees to maintain records and manage money.

The receiver existed until 1959 when on 17^th December 1959 Vairagi Ramanand‘s Akhada called Nirmohi Akhada objected and wanted to remove the receiver and hand over the management to them. In December 1961 Sunni Muslims also filed another case saying that this was a Masjid and Hindus should remove deities and it should be officially announced as a Mosque. All the three mentioned cases went on until 1984.

In 1984 when VHP studied the case and was assisted by Buta Singh then Home Minister who in turn advised the name of Lal Narayan Sinha from Patna who was once an Attorney General under Indira Gandhi to thoroughly study the case. He along with VHP’s Allahabad HC advocates, Devkinanda Agarwal, Virendra Kumar Singh Choudary and few others drafted a new petition which was not filed on any property but indeed on the name of deity Ram Lalla. Subsequently all the cases from lower courts were also joined and moved to Allahabad HC by the time the Babri structure had been demolished and inorder to protect the land PV Narasimha Rao government acquired 67 acres of non-disputed land and passed the Acquisition of Certain Area at Ayodhya Act, 1993.

Muslim parties did not like it and challenged that in Supreme Court which in turn prompted then President of India  Shri Shankar Dayal Sharma to request Supreme Court that considering the sensitivity of the issue involving sentiments of  Hindus and Muslims, SC should decisively rule whether there was a temple prior to 1528 or a barren land on which Babri Masjid was constructed. Muslim parties’ petition and President of India’s appeal got merged and 5 benches judges under then CJI Venkata Chalaiah gave judgment on October 1994.

While the case was under SC’s purview Supreme Court also questioned the government of India via Attorney General Dipankar Gupta about what it thinks about president’s question on facts about land of Ramjanmabhoomi prior to 1528, the government then said if it is proved that temple existed prior to 1528 then government will go in favor of Hindus if not it will oblige Muslim parties. SC also inquired AG Dipankar Gupta what will government of India do if SC wants Babri to be reinstalled on disputed land ?

Here comes the twist PV Narasimha Rao government said it has announced what all it can already and if SC wants to rebuild Babri Mosque again it may not follow. This prompted SC to return the President’s question unanswered respectfully and also agreed on government’s acquisition of 67 acres. Now that acquisition of 67 acres is valid all the remaining or residual petitions pertaining to land, Mosque in SC was annulled and SC asked Allahabad HC to review petition from beginning. Then it all started in Allahabad HC from 1995 and it went on for 15 years while the  bench changed 13 times as many judges got retired and new benches were formed and on 14^th change in bench the judgement got delivered in 2010.

In midst of these 15 years in 2003 there was a question from HC whether one can prove the existence of temple? Which prompted for soil testing and latter excavations by ASI under the Prime Minister ship of Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee who was first PM from BJP. Experts were ordered for soil testing and excavations. While Hindu groups objected that deity should not be touched or removed which ASI obliged. There was a team of observers, labors and ASI teams which compromised of significant number of Muslims in each field and even photos, video recordings, ID cards for personnel and excavation timing logs happened under the monitoring of Allahabad HC during excavations.  Finally the excavation report gave a finding that there indeed existed Ram Mandir artifacts (Thanks to KK Muhammed for playing a vital role and abiding his duty) over the large area prior to year 1528. On 30^th September 2010,Sudhir Agarwal, DB Sharma and SU Khan of Allahabad HC bench accepted Ram Lalla’s case and rejected Sunni Waqf Board and Nirmohi Akhada’s case yet gave a bizarre judgement of splitting the disputed land among three parties Ram Lalla, Nirmoha Akhada and Sunni Waqf Board which actually was not demanded by any disputing parties.

In 2011 it went into SC domain again however it was Congress government under Manmohan Singh which was in power in India and defacto ruled by Sonia Gandhi, who even filed an affidavit that Bhagwan Ram was a mythical character and not real in other Ram Sethu case. They started all filibustering tactics in Parliament and did not cooperate with SC and the case kept on pending then came 2014 when Narendra Damodar Das Modi was sworn in as PM for first time . Then again there was fresh movement in SC in 2016 started by Subramanian Swamy (who filed on the basis of Right to Pray) and in March 2017, Yogi Adityanath became CM of UP who escalated the task to convert thousands of manuscripts from Sanskrit, Gurumukhi, Hindi, Devanagri, Persian and Urdu to English which directly helped in fast tracking in SC . The SC bench of then CJI Deepak Misra could not hear day to day and meanwhile Congress and its ecosystem played mischievous impeachment attempts and character assassination of Deepak Misra by conniving with 4 SC sitting judges who on motive held an unprecedented press conference of revolt on roster list and assigned cases in SC .

Then came 2019 when another five bench under then CJI Ranjan Gogoi was formed. They appointed mediation team (out of court arbitration if possible) on March 8^th 2019 comprising of former Judge FM Khalifullah, Art of living head Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and legal mediator Sriram Panchu.  While Congress and its legal head and man of all seasons in SC  Mr Kapil Sibal kept on pressing in media and in Parliament that the judgement should be postponed after 2019 Loksabha Elections as they feared that incumbent Modi government may take advantage of any judgement in favor of Hindus. They even tried to meet then CJI Ranjan Gogoi and used lobbies to pursue him. Finally Loksabha Elections happened and Narendra Modi won again with much bigger majority for BJP alone.

On July 18^th   2019 SC appointed mediation committee after 4 and half months involving seven sittings with disputing parties submitted its report and on August 2^nd 2019 then CJI Ranjan Gogoi announced that mediation failed and they started hearing the case day to day basis subsequently. The day to day hearing went on for 40 days and here are some interesting facts, the lead advocate for Ram Lalla Shri KA Parsaran a nonagenarian who started arguing was offered a choice of taking a seat  in court room considering his age but he said “I have argued for many strange clients throughout my career by standing and how can I sit and argue for my Bhagwan Ram now”. He argued two to two and half hours in the morning and again in afternoon for two hrs after lunch. He stood and argued for 16 hrs totally in first round alone and even visited court every single day for 40 days for hearing arguments of all the remaining advocates.

CS Vaidyanathan was another advocate who removed the shoes and argued for Ram Lalla as a mark of devotion and respect. Similarly, another advocate Narasimha who quoted Skanda Purana verse when a judge asked what’s the benefit or purpose of praying in Ram Janmabhoomi.  As per Skanda Purana  one attains salvation by visiting birth place of Bhagwan Ram so does another advocate of Ram Lalla Shri Ranjit Kumar argued vociferously with devotion, when one judge questioned relation between birthplace of Parasaran and Bhagwan Ram, Parasaran said my village  Srirangam in Tamil Nadu  is 40 kms away from the place where Bhagwan Ram traveled while on his way to Lanka in pursuit of Sita. A well-read man Parasaran also regularly practices Parayan of Valmiki Ramayana. Finally the judgement came unanimously in favor of Ram Lalla and Hindus and SC dismissed petitions of Sunni Waqf Board and Nirmoha Akhada .

SC in 1994 under Venkata Chelaiah said (Kamal Farooqui vs State of India) that once the final judgement is delivered the land should be delivered to a new trust. Abiding that judgement Narendra Modi government came up with Shri RamJanmabhoomi Teerth Kseetra Trust. On 25^th March UP CM Yogi moved the Ram Lalla from make shift temporary tent to pre-fabricated bullet proof glass to facilitate the leveling and construction of temple with in Ram Janmabhoomi premises where it will be there until final temple is ready.

Ram Lalla, Laxman, Sita and Hanuman deities currently in bullet proof temporary structure at Ramjanmabhoomi 

Epilogue- While the obstructions for Ram Mandir were cleared one should never forget the treacherous roles played by Leftist historians like Irfan Habib and Romila Thapar who brain washed generations of people and academia by lying that Ram Mandir never existed at Ayodhya on disputed site.

Even during leveling of temple premises after the judgement lots of artifacts related to temple came up.  It’s the same gang along with a pliant media, congress and other so called secular parties who had succeeded in procrastinating the judgement after 2019 Loksabha Elections.