Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that is intended to cause the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories. It’s the most apt word to describe the coverage and opinions carried by Western media of the historic consecration of a mandir dedicated to Shri Rama in the city of Ayodhya after over 200 years of Hindus and Sikhs seeking restoration of a holy site that was destroyed and occupied by Mughal invaders 500 years ago.
Commentators dismiss the culmination of this centuries-long struggle, portray it as nothing more than a political ploy by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to convert secular India into a Hindu nation, or, at worst, depict it as an act of revenge and intimidation against the Muslim minority. But it is none of that.
The site in Ayodhya is one of seven sites considered most sacred by Hindus and is widely believed to be the traditional birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya. Among the seven, two additional sites, Varanasi (also called Kashi) and Mathura considered the abode of Shiva and the birthplace of Shri Krishna respectively, are also places where mosques were built after the desecration of existing Hindu temples. None of these three cities are of any religious significance to Muslims, other than Mughal despots specifically razing temples and building mosques as monuments of domination. Both Varanasi and Mathura have pending lawsuits where Hindus are seeking return of these sacred sites.
It wasn’t until November 2019 that India’s Supreme Court finally brought to close a chapter in the centuries-old dispute in Ayodhya. In an over 1000 page decision that included the evidentiary findings of the Archeological Survey of India, the court unanimously agreed that the Babri Masjid had been built on top of another building that “was not Islamic”. The court leaned on textual evidence as well — both sacred texts dating back to as far as 6th Century CE and European travelogs from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries which referred to the site as the place Hindus venerated as the birthplace of Rama. (The court also held that the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992, which occurred when a peaceful rally grew violent, was done illegally — a separate point from the archeology).
The court-ordered excavation that revealed much of the archaeological evidence had representatives of both sides of the dispute present. And while the religious identities of archeologists should be irrelevant when serving in their professional capacity, one the lead archeologists, K. K. Mohammed, who has been the most vocal about the existence of a Hindu temple predating the mosque, is Muslim.
What the excavations revealed was evidence that the site has been in continuous use as a sacred site by Hindus and adherents of other Dharma traditions since the second millennia BCE. Yet, in an effort to disavow the mandir, many activist scholars and their partners in media have now shifted their argument from “there was never a Hindu mandir” to “whatever it was, was actually a “Vishnu” temple.” Do they not realize that the bottom line is still that some house of worship other than an Islamic one was razed in order to occupy that particular place? Forget the fact that Shri Rama is considered an avatar of Vishnu. Archeologists also highlighted that the Babri mosque had no foundations of its own and was built directly on top of the Hindu temple that preceded it. In fact, there is some speculation that this lack of solid foundation was partly to blame for the ease in which the mosque was pulled down in 1992.
It is outright erasure and gaslighting, when outlets like CNN, New York Times, BBC, Time Magazine and others carry headlines and stories about Hindus building a temple on land where previously a mosque stood, without making a single mention that the site has been considered amongst the most sacred by Hindus for millennia, that there were remains of a Hindu structure below the surface of the mosque, or the documented fact that even the Mughal’s own written records literally state that particular mosques were built atop and with the ruins of desecrated Hindu mandirs. Such structures from the same chapter in Indian history were not built because of some special religious connection Muslims of the time had to these particular sites. They were built there because they were sacred to Hindus. It makes complete sense then that prior to the 1940s, the Babri Masjid was referred to as the Masjid-i-Janmasthan (Mosque of the Birthplace).
At the end of the day, legacy media is unlikely to stop its gaslighting. But doing so does a serious disservice to the average American who should understand their Hindu friends and neighbors, rather than fear them. Moreover, erasing history and demonizing adherents of the third largest religion is not going to achieve whatever political aims these media houses have because at the end of the day, the Supreme Court of India came to a remarkably fair and equitable judgment in which Hindus and Muslims got land to build houses of worship.
Where most indigenous and non-Abrahamic civilizations have simply vanished due to monotheistic hegemony and violence, Hinduism has not only survived but thrived. As such, seeking restorative justice to re-establish a Hindu temple that had been destroyed and occupied is not a sign of Hindu supremacy, but of Hindu resilience. Today, millions of Hindus across the globe are celebrating the consecration of the Rama mandir in Ayodhya not to get back at Babur or Aurangzeb or today’s Indian Muslims, but because Shri Rama has always been in our hearts, but we needed to bring Him back home.