The Ram Mandir movement is the only Hindu movement of retaliation which got succeeded in its ultimate destiny and all the other Hindu movement of resistance against Islamic Invaders were met with the defeat and eventually it was the mughals who had the last laugh at the end of every battle. I would say thank less to the political leaders, political parties than to the intrepid souls who without any hesitation laid their life and sacrificed themselves for the fulfillment of their dream of reestablishing temple of Ram at his sacred birth place.

This vivid account of the struggle for Ram mandir would mesmerize your heart and soul from the bottom and would make such a deep profound imprint on your mind that you would be able to analyse the history in right perspective and would make you weep so much that you would be shaken to the core and would wring your emotions.

The Temple of Shri Ram was Known to be first built by Son of Shri Ram, King Kush who laid the foundation of the Temple at the birth site of Shri Ram, with passage of time and passing of so many centuries, the temple got weakened and therefore King Vikramaditya initiated the repairing of the temple in 57 B.C. For many centuries the temple of Lord Ram in Ayodhya was considered as the sacred place in the Hindu Society and till now their faith belief in Lord Ram remained the same, with the advent of medieval era and the invasion of islamic invaders who came to India to islamize India by doing jihad and wipe out all the other culture and due to this the temple of Ram was under siege as many times Islamic invaders sought to include the Ayodhya in their empire but all their attempts were foiled by the Hindu Kings who were wholeheartedly committed to protect the sacred birth place.

In the year 1528, Mir Banki who was the commander in Chief of the Babur’s army decimated the temple by using the artillery and killed 1.74 lakh Hindus,made mosque at the birth site and gave it the name Babri mosque. This agitated the Hindu Kings so much that they kept aside their all differences and forged a coalition army for the liberation of Birth place of Ram and military expedition were carried out against the mughal army but they eventually faced a very crushing defeat and got martyrdom in the battle. Not only the Hindu kings and men but Women were also at the forefront of this armed battle for birth place which was evident from the fact that Wife of King Ranvijay Singh when saw her husband losing the battle also joined the battlefield along with 3000 other women and for a long time engaged in guierlla warfare with mighty Mughal forces, then she and swami Maheshwaranand who made the army of saints led a joint attack on the mighty mughal army but were so much outnumbered by them that they too attained martyrdom and the control of birth place of Shri Ram still remained in the hands of mughals. About 10 more battles were fought during the reign of Humayun and sher shah Suri from 1530 to 1556.

During the Rule of mughal emperor Akbar, 20 fierce battles were fought between Hindus and mughal forces over the the reins of Ram Mandir, this time Hindus gave very strong contest to mughals though every time outcome of the battle was always in favor of Mughals but Mughals were so much irritated with this everyday War that now they sought to end this confrontation forever, then on the insistence of Birbal and King Surajmal he made a platform on which temple of ram was constructed of 3 ft height, this was a cynical step by shrewd Akbar since he didn’t shifted babri mosque from the birthplace and envisioned that this would end the day to day conflict and also to avoid the wrath of Hindus. This can’t be called as a conciliatory effort from the mughals since it asked Hindus to compromise with them by having a mosque on birthplace and just a 3 ft temple for Hindus. This outrageous accord was an insult to all devotees of ram who sacrificed for the restoration of temple and by doing this mughal thought that war would not happen and also control of the site would also last with us. Earlier this accord stopped the war for few decades but soon Hindus realized that this was nothing but betrayal from them by mughals but no war occurred till rule of shahjahan.

Then came the spell of mughal ruler Aurangzeb, who destroyed the temples of so many cities which Hindus considered sacred and auspicious. He was known for his brutality towards the Hindus and assassinated many Sikh gurus,their followers for their refusal of the acceptance of Islam. This broke out a war between Hindu kings and mughals due to intensification of antagonism when Aurangzeb broke platform of 3 ft ram temple created during akbar rule, about 30 battles were fought from 1658 to 1707 in the leadership of Hindu Saint Vaishnav Das and it was believed that Shri guru Gobind Singh also instructed the nihang sadhus to help them in the liberation war for birth place of Lord Ram. The military campaigns gave strong resistance to mughal forces but it was mughals who always had the upper hand during the battle due to lack of artillery, manpower and other assets used in the war among Hindus.

When the Mughal empire collapsed due to the rise in the military power of Marathas, Sikhs, Rajputs in India again, the control of birth place fell into the hands of nawab of Awadh, the nawab Nasiruddin Haider fought 3 wars with Hindus for the conflict of birthplace, all this battle were met with severe failure and when sadhus saw army of Hindus crumbling in the battlefield they too joined it and fought valiantly and tasted the victory but that was not permanent since royal army of nawab came after few days and killed all of them and again the control remained in the nawab hands.

During the rule of nawab Wajid Ali, Hindus again attacked mughal forces to recapture birth place and this war was fought for 2 days and night and ultimately Hindus won the battle with so many of them attaining martyrdom and reins of birth place was now with them.This was the most fierce battle fought ever in the history of Hindu Muslim conflict and made the 3 ft high temple of ram on the platform at birth site. Soon the royal army arrived again and mass killing of Hindus occurred and birth place was captured by them. But nawabs were too fed up with bloodbath due to these battles over birth site and therefore he allowed both Hindus and Muslims to do worship at the birth site but this didn’t stopped the battle as determined Hindus wanted the restoration of temple and any other proposal was unacceptable to them.

The rule of Britishers came in India but the clashes between Hindus and Muslims over birth place of ram never ended and in 1885 Hindu saint Raghubir Das filed the whole matter in the Faizabad court and urged the court to make temple at the birth site of Shri Ram but the Britishers did the fencing of the whole site to avoid any confrontation in 1859 and allowed to Muslim to worship in inner part of site and Hindus in the outer part of it. This was the series of violent battles fought by Hindus for liberation of birth place and it was until British rule the stream of blood wasn’t ceasing at all. We all know what happened after this and then after long fight in the court Hindus have got their claims validated by Supreme court of India and on 5 AUGUST 2020 the stepping stone for the construction of Ram mandir was laid, a moment for which Hindus awaited for 492 years.

All these 76 battles were fought by Hindus though never able to change the status of birth site permanently but it paved the way for the forthcoming generation to inspire them so firmly that they built military campaign against oppressors who had captured ruthlessly the birth site of Lord Ram, wave after wave Hindus went in the battlefield to recapture birth place and be among those blessed who would be able to witness construction of temple at birth place and the only thing they had during the battle was a sense of motivation that spiritual forces of god are with us and one day we would capture it.

This compelling, coherent and starkly honest narrative of these events also tells the brutal realities of war and sacrifice made by Hindu warriors who gallantly fought it for the preservation of their faith and also helps us feel as if stepping in the history passing through phases of turmoil is both gripping and thought provoking and taking the extraordinary task of liberating the birth place from formidable enemies like Mughal, Nawabs no matter how bad the eventualities they had to face. This series of battle fought by Hindus also builds courage, faith and how to give fight to foreign invaders to protect your culture, tradition and motherland. As a Hindu you must feel a sense of pride for the warriors fought for birth place who didn’t had anything in their hand but gave tough fight to Islamic invaders to kept alive the struggle for birth place for the past 5 centuries. Finally the journey ended on the note of enlightenment with start of making of temple at birth place on 5 August and tells us to firmly adhere to the belief that no compromise can be done on principle, faith and ideals even when we face the times of difficulties. The soul of all the warriors would have now got an ever lasting peace and would have been contented with their dreams now achieved with fullest. The moment of delight for those who have love for Hindu religion and India deeply entrenched in their heart and hope that now blessings of Lord ram would shower peace and prosperity to the Hindus and eradication of evil forces would occur and new era of glory would be going to start with Lord ram at his birth place,shores of the River Sarayu in Ayodhya would witness no more bloodshed but would see the pinnacle of Hindus and glad tiding for this is the restoration of ram mandir in Ayodhya.

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.