This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The sixteenth century Babri Masjid mosque at Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, was torn down by hand on 6 December 1992, when a crowd of karsevaks, volunteer activists mobilized by the Vishva Hindu Parishad and allied Hindu nationalist organizations, gathered for a rally that swelled to some 150,000 people, overran police lines and demolished the mosque over several hours. The action rested on the disputed claim that the mosque stood on the birthplace of the god Rama. The demolition set off a wave of communal rioting across Indian cities in the weeks that followed, the single worst of which struck Bombay, a separate episode this atlas records on its own entity.
The Liberhan Commission of Inquiry, appointed ten days after the demolition, submitted its report to Parliament in June 2009 after forty eight extensions, naming political and organizational leaders it held responsible; a separate criminal trial acquitted all remaining accused in 2020. India's Supreme Court settled the underlying land title dispute in the accused's favor in November 2019, and a Ram temple was consecrated on the site in January 2024. The demolition and its riots are widely read by historians as a turning point in postindependence Indian communal relations.