Karnataka Endowment (Muzrai) Minister Ramalinga Reddy has issued directives for Muzrai temples across the state to perform Maha Mangalarati (special poojas) on January 22, honouring the idol installation ceremony at the Ayodhya Ram temple scheduled to be held on the same day. The ceremony is slated to take place between 12.29 pm and 1.32 pm. “I have instructed that special pooja be conducted in all Muzrai temples of the state on January 22, when the idol of Lord Rama will be installed in Ayodhya Ram Mandir,” the minister said on Saturday, January 6.
The Ram Mandir is being built on the site of the Babri Masjid that was destroyed by kar sevaks belonging to Hindu majoritarian outfits on December 6, 1992. The demolition, which happened as a result of a concerted Ram Janmabhoomi movement, resulted in communal riots over months, which led to over 2,000 deaths. The Babri Masjid has been a contested site since 1885 as religious leaders and Hindutva outfits considered it Ram Janambhoomi or the birthplace of Lord Ram in Ayodhya.
A legal fight ensued in 1950 when Gopal Visharad Sharma approached Faizabad district court for the right to worship idols of Ram Lalla, which were placed there in 1949. On September 30, 2010, the High Court, in a 2:1 majority, ruled a three-way division of the disputed area between the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.
Nine years later, in 2019, the Supreme Court granted the entire 2.77 acres of disputed land to deity Ram Lalla and directed the Uttar Pradesh government to allot five acres of land to Muslims for building a mosque. Though the Supreme Court referred to the mosque's demolition as "an egregious violation of the rule of law," the verdict was criticised for accepting the logic of "faith over fact" and granting legal possession of land to those responsible for the demolition.