Hindu nationalists in northern India scaled a mosque in order to plant the Hindu saffron flag. In central India, they carried out a similar action, raising the banner of Lord Ram on top of a Christian church. They set fire to a Muslim fruit vendor's store in the south. Outside the financial hub of Mumbai, they also put pressure on the local police to destroy Muslim-owned companies. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dedication of a temple in Ayodhya, which was viewed in some quarters as a symbol of Hindu vengeance against India's centuries-long oppression by Muslims, fears of religious tensions escalating have been raised throughout India in the wake of a wave of attacks by victorious Hindu nationalist mobs against minorities, primarily Muslims, in the past week.
As opposed to the post-independence politicians who viewed India more as a secular, multicultural democracy, Modi's party has advocated for an overtly Hindu vision of the nation's identity. The attacks occurred in at least six Indian states, ranging from northern Uttar Pradesh to southern Telangana. They all followed a nearly identical pattern: as the men on motorcycles and jeeps drove through Muslim neighborhoods, they chanted "Jai Shri Ram," or victory to Lord Ram, and waved Hindu nationalist saffron flags.
In every instance, the violence happened either right before or right after the religious ritual on Monday that Modi himself oversaw. A fervent supporter of Hindu nationalism, the prime minister praised people for "untangling a historical knot" and creating a "brighter future" in an inspiring speech from the temple grounds. Built on top of a destroyed Hindu temple in the 16th century, according to Hindu nationalists, the Babri mosque, which stands at the location of the 71-acre temple complex, served as a symbol of Muslim dominance over the predominantly Hindu subcontinent during its brief existence.
The attacks by mobs over the past four days have drawn unpleasant comparisons to December 1992, when a Hindu mob demanding the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya destroyed the Babri mosque, igniting widespread religious riots that claimed the lives of over 2,000 people, the most of whom were Muslims. After months of unrest that mainly affected Mumbai, Muslim mafia leader Dawood Ibrahim carried out retaliatory attacks that resulted in hundreds of deaths in early 1993.
