Regarding the version that 64.* and 128.* keep reverting to, here are my issues with it:

1. As far as I know, the clear identification of the structure beneath the Babri ruins has not been confirmed as a Hindu temple, and certainly not as a Rama Janmabhoomi temple. While I believe, and you might believe, that this structure was in fact a Rama Janmabhoomi temple destroyed by Babar, while definititive evidence is lacking it remains an allegation, and we must state it as such. Of course, you might know more than I about the matter - could you provide sources demonstrating that the structure is, in fact, a Rama janmabhoomi temple?
2. Regarding the appearance of idols, they did not "mysteriously appear", they were placed there by activists. I don't know why we should avoid saying this. Also, it certainly wasn't disused - there were Muslim prayer services being conducted there at the time, and quibbling by Koenraad Elst et al. about what qualifies it as a fully-functional mosque does not mitigate this fact.
3. I'd like to equivocate more on the actual destruction... I don't think there's definitive proof that it was pre-planned. However, the version presented, where you ascribe motives to the crowd (i.e., "anger at ... pandering to the Muslim vote bank") are wholly indefensible.
4. In general your presentation is highly partisan. If you wish to make the article -less- partisan, please do so - your changes are egregiously pro-Sangh and not appropriate. E.g., the last statement "These findings were promptly rejected by the Communists and other political parties which depend on the Muslim vote bank." is certainly clearly partisan.

Please let me know what you think of these points... I hope we can work together to make this a better article. Graft 18:58, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

First of all, my view is not pro-Sangh or anti-Sangh or pro-Muslim or anything of that sort. I am interested in posting things in a scientific manner. On the points you made and some more new points:

1) The structure beneath the Babri ruins HAS been confirmed as a Hindu temple. Like it or not, it has happened. The excavations were overseen by all parties involved and once the confirmation happened, the same political parties which were eagerly supporting the excavations suddenly condemned the excavations.

2) "mysteriously appear" includes being placed there by activist/activists. Obviously, it had to be placed there. "mysteriously appear" means it was placed there. By whom we do not know. "mysteriously appear" also captures the fact that the discovery of placement came as a surprise.

Notice your biases here - going by your argument, we should add the word 'allegedly' before "placed by activists." Your points against Hindus are all assertions while the points which are grievances by Hindus are made as 'allegations.'

3) The mosque was disused. In fact, there was no one on the Muslim side who could claim ownership in a court of law. The only arguments made in court that it was not disused was a claim by a politician that he once saw one person praying there many years ago while going on a walk. Clearly, you do not understand the politics in India.

4) "However, the version presented, where you ascribe motives to the crowd (i.e., "anger at ... pandering to the Muslim vote bank") are wholly indefensible."

You point is well taken. I will delete it. I should not have added that part, but the crowd did go out of control and was angry at the police for barricading them. It was a motley crowd and you cannot say they were VHP activists.

5) "These findings were promptly rejected by the Communists and other political parties which depend on the Muslim vote bank." is certainly clearly partisan.

Come on, this is a fact. RSS itself originated as a reaction to pandering of Muslims (check out separate electorates for Muslims during British times.)

I am not sure how familiar you are with the politics of India, but BJP rode to power on these issues - scrapping of special status for the only Muslim majority state in India and treating all states as equal, scrapping of Shariat laws for Muslims (in particular, Muslim women are persecuted by Mullahs ruling in disputes, Shah Bano case was the flashpoint), Muslim educational institutions receiving subsidies while Hindus in India are banned from running educational institutions, all revenues from Hindu temples being appropriated by the Government which then subsidise Madrasas and of course the issue at Ayodhya.

6) Of the above, everyone of them is a legitimate issue except Ayodhya. I explain Ayodhya below in point number 7. Anyone with common sense will see that political parties indulge in unequal treatment only for getting votes. Anyone familiar with India will know that Muslims voting en-masse on the orders of the Mullah in the mosque is a reality and that is why Muslims were appeased.

7) Ayodhya was not a legitimate issue because it should not be legislated by politicians. It should be treated purely as a legal dispute and evidence should be seen in a scientific manner. Politicians should have kept off completely. However, no political party in India thought on these lines. I don't blame them for it. They are not highly educated people to figure out that it was a legal issue to begin with.

8) The part about LK Advani pleading in city after city that Hindus and Muslims should jointly shift the structure brick by brick and he will get the Hindus to fund for it is a fact.

You should stop stringing together allegations and writing up an article. That is the hallmark of a poor journalist. That is an indirect way of sneaking in POVs. Please don't be biased. It is bad enough that India has been devastated repeatedly by all the known forms of unlibertarian groups - Christianity, Islam, Marxism, Socialists, Colonialists and indirectly by Pax Americana advocates who supported Osama bin Laden and Mujahideen.

OTOH, it has been unique in not seeing any anti-semitism and has welcomed people of all religions into its fold. When Parsis were persecuted, they came to India. When Jews were persecuted, they came to India and settled down. Syrian Christians found a home in India and when Tibetans were beaten out by Communists, they came to India too.

Choosing Communist sources and giving them prominence is unacceptable. Please desist from it.

9) I suggest you do proper research and you will see that the first recorded flareup was in the 19th century, and so was the first case filed in court. The British judge actually ruled that a temple had been destroyed but he felt helpless and could not restore it as it would upset the public order.

10) Your point on posting references is well taken. I'll do that too in addition to deleting the reference to the reason for anger by the crowd as pandering to Muslim votes. I read your comment after posting it. That is why you don't find it already in place.

I forgot to add one point. Notice the way you describe Rama as a mythical figure. That was an assertion. Would you make the same assertion regarding Jesus, Mohammed flying on a horse etc? I don't see you making such corrections there in an assertive tone. Clearly that shows your prejudices.

Observing Hindus around the world, I see that they do not strap themselves with explosives and blast themselves in public places, do not hijack planes and slam them into buildings and do not wage religious wars. I can only conclude that the allegations against Hindus being the most evil people on earth is fiction.

Okay, I thank you for engaging me, and having done so I'm far more willing to tolerate your alterations. Some points:

I have two main sources of information on Ayodhya: one is the books and literature of the Sangh and Hindutva crowd, and the other is the Internet and Indian newspapers. Both of these have their biases, and not residing in India I must admit I have a hard time distilling out the truth. So please forgive me if I attribute something that you feel is clearly untrue, because it's probably simply a mistake or ignorance on my part.

As to actual points: "mysteriously appeared" I dislike because it plays into the stories that this was a God-ordained event or some sort of miracle. I've read that there was a police report confirming the identity of the man who placed the idols, and Anand Patwardhan in one of his (admittedly biased) documentaries interviews a man who claims to be the placer (i forget if he had the same name)... at any rate, I'd at least like to include "probably placed by Hindu activists" or, as you say, "allegedly placed".

I found an article on the latest excavations in Organiser, which I find fairly compelling, but I'd be interested in reading objections to it just to know what they were.

Regarding use of the mosque, I've read arguments saying that it was disused, but I think these arguments mostly hinge on what "disused" means. I've only really read one side of this argument, but on the other side, there's testimony that namaaz was conducted until 1949 and an imam responsible for the site until the placing of the statue. Not sure about how reliable either is.

Regarding the Communist/pandering - I really don't know whether Muslims vote on the word of mullahs or if that's just a myth, not really having any way to verify that, but in any event I think the juxtaposition is there just to discredit the communists, et al, which I think should be avoided.

Regarding Advani - I'd like to be careful about describing him. He's a politician and a slippery one, and he certainly says a lot of things in public, but there are just as many reports of things he did and said not-so-publicly that belie his noble intentions, and I can certainly believe it. I don't think we should be drawing him as some guy who was just trying to do the right thing by everyone... his motives were most definitely cynical.

As to non-article-related stuff... I don't agree that Ayodhya is a legal issue - first of all, who are the parties? And secondly, it's about a historical site, and a major, significant one (obviously) - the government has to take a hand.

Also, I describe Rama as a mythical figure because he's a mythical figure, like Oddysseus or Moses. His importance is more in his symbolic meaning and actions than in his historical context, which is dubious at best.

Anyway, thanks again for responding to my points. Graft 06:58, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree about the mythical figure part. My theory about all of these figures is that there must have been someone somewhere with some small following and the followers built up fiction about these figures. My point is the unequal treatment of various religions - Christianity and Judaism is usually treated as history while assertions about the "mythical" nature of other religions is made. I have heard the term "Hindu mythology" but never "Christian mythology."

BTW, Organiser is a mouthpiece of RSS and Anand Patwardhan is a known Communist sympathiser. However, the piece about the evidence at Ayodhya must have been a good one because the facts are on their side.

Unfortunately, India's media as well as academics were controlled by the Communists until the 1990s when the stranglehold on the academia was broken. That is why everything is very contentious in India - Aryan Invasion Theory was made up by Max Mueller, a missionary who fitted it into the claim that Biblical creation occured around 3987 BCE, treatment of all events as class struggles (Hindu vs Muslim fits into this), hiding of Muslim atrocities - travel across North India and not a single temple which is undamaged is older than 150 years though the civilization is 1000s of years old while South India which escaped Islamic rule has very old temples in all their splendour, branding Hindus as evil - evidence shows the contrary, indians are peaceful people who welcomed people of other religions over the ages while they themselves never fought back when they were evicted by Idi Amin, by the dictators in Burma and even puny Fiji.

To let you know where I'm coming from, I am an agnost and a libertarian. I've created a new id - LibertarianAnarchist for convenience. I am still learning the format to make an entry. So pardon me if you find anything incomplete. I'll post the references you suggested.

That is a whole heap of hippy gibberish. Indians most certainly did stike back, and first at times. I'm not ecven going to get into this. You appear to have been tainted by BJP VHP propaganda.

OneGuy, are you being deliberately obtuse? The previous paragraph contains text that clearly states that the Archaeological Survey of India found evidence of a temple structure. It's inappropriate for you to insert a paragraph that says "no evidence has been found", in direct contradiction of the previous paragraph. Edit it so it is in line with the above text, fine, but the way it's written is absurd. Graft 19:18, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No, you are being obtuse. You implied in the article that only Muslims dispute the finding of this Archaeological Survey. That's not the case. The ASI report was published in 2003. This quote from a non-Muslim historian is dated at May 2004, so clearly "Muslim groups" are not the only ones who dispute the claim. And here is another review of ASI report by Dr Sushil Shrivastava, a Professor at Allahabad University, the author of the book The Disputed Mosque: A Historical Inquiry[1]. Clearly some experts think ASI report doesn't show evidence of Temple structure OneGuy 00:50, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have no objection to you altering that sentence about "only Muslims"; I have no attachment to it, it's obviously inaccurate. But do so in a manner that isn't wholly at odds with the flow of the article. Having flatly contradictory sentences in subsequent paragraphs is just silly. Graft 07:44, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The edits done on 15 and 16 January deleted prior information and added POV material. We are all trying to be NPOV on wikipedia, so let's have a fair representation of both sides. This demands some effort and good will from both sides.

Furthermore, there are some severe inaccuracies. For example, there is the following instance: "Richard M Eaton, an American historian of medieval India, in his Essays on Islam and Indian History documents desecration of all Hindu temples between 1192 and 1760. The total adds up to 80."

This is ridiculous. First of all, Eaton in his controversial book does not claim that this list is exhaustive. And, if we look at the list of eighty cases, there is for example this instance: “1094: Benares, Ghurid army”. This doesn't mean the Ghurid Army destroyed just one temple, because if we take the time to look at the sources he used, we read the Ghurid royal army “destroyed nearly one thousand temples, and raised mosques on their foundations”. So this "eigthty" neeeds some zeros added.

Here are some links, for reference:

• The Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir
• Ayodhya
• The Ayodhya Debate
• article on Ayodhya
• Ayodhya and the Research on the Temple of Lord Rama
• FACTS ABOUT THE AYODHYA DISPUTE

--Kdlb 21:13, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

None of the edits by Lalit Shastri quotes Richard M Eaton, so I don't know why you bring him into this discussion. Regarding a Personal Point of View, why do you bring that up here - Instead of using hackneyed cliques kindly give specific examples where we have violated our strict neutrality or shut up.

The edits made, represent a brief and factual account of the events at Ayhodya when the Mosque was destroyed the sources quoted are Time magazine journalists Jefferson Penberthy and Anita Pratap - These journalists are quoted by name as they are considered credible witnesses by the High Court of Allahabad where they gave evidence against LK Advani who faces crimnal charges.

Many other witnesses were present and amongst the journalists there. The BBC crew filmed the destruction and part of the narrative is from the BBC news team. We are grateful to Syed Naqi Editor of India's leading newspaper the Tribune for also describing the events. A personal friend of Lilit Shastri, Rahul Bajpai of Reuters was also assigned to cover Ahyodya and the mosque since 1990. The narrative is taken from these sources and you can contact them to confirm.

Also quoted on the myth of a Hindu temple being there are Professor Gopal head of Social Sciences & history at the Jawharlal Nehru University and son of Dr Radhakrisnan President of India, & Romilla Thapar Historian of Ancient India also from the JUNU. Romilla Thapar is advisor to the Govt of India on Ancient Indian history and is amongst a panel which overseas the content of textbooks in Indian Schools.

We have also taken the point of view of the VHP, RSS and the BJP all complicit destroying the Temple and have described the behavior of their leaders Uma Bharati and LK Advani who encouraged the mob from a podium constructed by the VHP so that their leadershp could witness the destruction.

However if there are those who disagree it goes without saying you can bring your points to this discussion but remember there are highly intelligent academics who lurk watching these pages - So please do not bring rubbish - But pearls of wisdom and knowledge are always welcome by almost everybody

Also It must be remembered this is not a Hindu - Muslim thing - We at Wikipedia are more enlightened than that - Racism, Bigotry, Obscurantism, ignorance and superstition are to be shunned by all men of wisdom

We do not care if it was a mosque or Temple although the historians who have any credibility Internationally say that there was no Temple.

We do care about the people slaughtered by the actions of those in India who try and spread communal strife, It is worth remembering during the rule of the RSS and its political wing the BJP twice more people died of communal violence in India then those that died in the Twin Towers.

User:81.1.123.238

This article you have written is clearly written to advance a specific point of view; that is, that the BJP, VHP, etc., are violent thugs, historical evidence is not on their side, and so on. The article avoids mentioning facts that contradict this thesis - for example, it neglects to mention the use of police violence by the UK government in defending the site. It neglects to mention (even dismissively) evidence contradicting the idea that there was no temple beneath the mosque (e.g. the Archaeological Survey of India findings). It uses phrases like "murderous gangs" to describe kar sevaks, which is highly POV. Etc., etc.

Gentlemen, you MUST acknowledge your own point of view. It is obvious you are writing this because you wish to present a certain picture of events, and that is NOT the purpose of Wikipedia. If you would like to create a neutral, balanced article, then we have a starting point from which to work. Your version of the article is not that. No matter how sympathetic I or other editors may be to the substance of what you wish to say, the manner in which you have constructed this article is terribly inappropriate for Wikipedia. Graft 20:52, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As this is the Talk page, let me express my opinion about the destruction of the mosque and the associated politics. I remember watching the BBC and other sources on the day of the demolition. I think it is extremely regrettable that major places of worship in India can be demolished by mob action, with a complacent, even complicit government. I was happily surprised that matters did not deteriorate to full anarchy when the BJP took power, the first non-secular government since independance. Without secular government in India, I fear the nation is doomed to a bloodbath of communal violence. I believe the BJP and it's allies instigated and exploited the entire disgraceful affair, but then backed off a radical Hindu agenda after achieving political ascendancy, because it knew that result of not backing off would be civil war. Now, regarding the history of the site: Although not proven beyond all doubt, I think it is possible that Babur demolished a Temple and then built the Mosque on top of it. It was in fact unusual for Muslim conquerers to leave untouched any non-Abrahamic temple or related institution, which they considered idolatrous and blasphemous, especially in the early years of the Mogul conquest. This, if true, in no way justifies the destruction, which was a cultural catastrophe for all Indians regardless of their background, as many prominent secular Hindus have pointed out. Furthermore, this is an article about the Mosque itself. I don't think we should get too bogged down with the politics and the controversy surrounding the origins of the site. That is why I added pictures and started the section dealing with architecture and style, and was very pleased to see it expanded. A brief description of opposing points of view, along with a narrative of relevant Indian judicial proceedings and the current status quo, ought to be a sufficient and neutral companion to the more central content that actually deals with the building itself. --A. S. A. 11:15, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

Hello AladdinSE, Thanks for your good edits. Personally, until recently I didn't know very much about this debate, and I am still rather an outsider to this topic, that's why I won't contribute much to the article itself.

I think, the whole topic could have been solved more peacefully, if both parties had talked together, but unfortunately the whole thing was exploited by politicians on both sides.

As a sidenote, not all Muslims seem to adher to the views of the two "rivaling Masjid Committees", for example: Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said: "It is the duty of every nationalist Indian to protect the birthplace of Lord Rama to save India's honour, prestige and cultural heritage.... Anti-national and communal activities of Muslim fundamentalists are a blot on the entire community... It is the duty of all nationalist Muslims to expose such designs and accept the truth." Ahmed Zakaria is quoted by Farzana Versey as saying : "There is absolutely no question of our identity being submerged. The Babri Masjid committee does not represent all Muslims. How can two or three people decide ?"

Some of the problems in the article are: 1) Political debate. Still biased. Should also show the efforts that were made to solve the whole thing peacefully, and how this was undone by politicians. 2) Archaeological evidence. This is still biased and incomplete. 3) Literary evidence. The literary evidence should be discussed and/or criticised 4) The article has a lenghty discussion with pictures of the destruction of the mosque, but doesn't discuss the destruction of this and other temples by Babar and others. According to some sources, there were two destructions of this temple, one in the 12-13 century (the temple was after rebuilt) and one by Babar.

I think the article still needs some editing before it can be called npov, and believe someone will remove it from the npov disputes after this is done. A look at the viewpoints from both sides will confirm that the article still isn't npov. Regards, --Kdlb 09:50, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Kdlb, I think your Eaton book edit was necessary and well placed. As far as the further discussion of alleged destruction of temples by Babur and others, that you want included, naturally there is going to be no where near as much material, much less pictures, as is available for the Babri destruction. We're talking 1992 versus the 16th century. Also, that the archeological evidence is incomplete and disputed is clearly noted in the article. Further discussion of literary evidence would be fine, if more contributors would site such work. When I did that last exhaustive edit, I deliberately left the Disputed Neutrality tag, because I believed that there was still bias and emotionalism evident, and was hoping new contributors with a fresh outlook would help remedy that. Perhaps I will revisit the article later. I have become too involved with all these extensive rewrites, and I need to regain an outside perspective.--A. S. A. 12:06, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)

I think we need to put a hold on more pictures, the article cannot hold any more, al least not gracefully. I removed the recent addition of the mobs at the gate, since kar sevaks are shown in abundance already. I have reverted a number of Levy's edits because they added an emotional POV taint to the article, and belabored existing points. Others I agreed with, and simply reorganized them to better incorporate the new information with the flow of the article.--A. S. A. 18:30, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

I see that anonymous user 81.1.118.31 had profound objections to my last revision, but has since withdrawn his/her Talk comments, I was only able to read them via History tracking. I'll tell you what I told Levy. I am not here to champion a cause, I am here to help create a proper encyclopedic article, free from emotional POV baggage. I have already clearly stated for the record that I believe the demolition was a disgrace. That does not mean I will allow the article to be a monotonous breast-beating Muslim-dominated propaganda bulletin. And I'll have you know I was the first contributor to introduce a picture of the Mosque, and the first to introduce a section on architecture and style [see history], so I am not only an editor of other people's submissions. Furthermore, you harm your cause by being so blatantly repetitious and one-sided. The general public reading the heavily POV versions of this article will more likely than not give small credence to Muslim viewpoints when they are so relentlessly thrust in their faces without proper recourse to other viewpoints. Balance and brevity should be our guiding principles.--A. S. A. 21:23, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Pictures of this mosque should not be resized a large part of the article is on the architecture of the mosque The present pictures support and complement the article. I have recverted them back to their original size. I also wish to point out 5that Kaal feels uncomfortable with these pictures as I can see no other reason why he should try to make them so tiny.

• It is really unfair on your part to talk about what i feel like, bcos you will never be able to tell unless you know me in person, and i am fairly sure you dont. About the pictures i only resized them as the article looks really ugly and is difficult to read. If anyone wants to look at the picture indetail they can always click on it to see the full image. I have been doing image resizing for a number of articles just to make them easy to read and for no other reason. Its always good to have images on one side of the article as this makes it look good and easy to follow. kaal 04:49, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Picture resolutions can be reduced and made into thumbnails in the main articles for the purpose of organizational optimization. Those pictures really were too big. Don't forget that readers can easily click on the thumbnails to see the full size. What's more, please assume good faith regarding fellow editors. The attack against Kaal was unecessary. Also, please sign your posts in the talk page, so other editors can properly track and respond to posts, thanks. --A. S. A. 07:18, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia's Picture Tutorial for guidelines on picture layout and format.--A. S. A. 03:05, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

I made some expansions to the article and some reorganizations. I moved all matter relevant to the archaeology of the temple to the Ram Janmabhoomi article, because it discusses the existence or non-existence of the temple. Most of the history of the mosque after 1528 (or after 1194) is now in the Babri Mosque article. The Ayodhya article itself should of course only discuss the city, not the debate. I also expanded the archaeology and literature and other sections. In fact, a lot of important information was missing in the article and may still be missing. Hopefully other editors (like User:AladdinSE who has been one of the best editors to this article, as far as I can see) take a look at it and write something from their perspective. --Kyuss 14:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)