This Monday (22.01.2024), the Prime Minister of India inaugurated a grand temple — the Ram Mandir — in the north Indian city of Ayodhya. The temple stands exactly at the site of the destroyed Babri Masjid — a 400 year old heritage site and place of worship. The mosque was brought down by an armed mob of thousands of Hindu nationalists in broad daylight, on December 6, 1992. The destruction led to decades of large-scale inter-religious violence across India and other parts of South Asia.

The destruction of Babri Masjid was carried out under the pretext that the mosque stood on the exact same spot where the Hindu god Ram was born. Decades of Hindu nationalist propaganda culminated in a mass chariot rally (the “Ram rath yatra”) all across the country in 1990, leaving a trail of violence against Muslims in its wake.

The construction of the temple today, after decades of legal battles, is being framed as a decolonial victory — particularly when addressing younger upper-caste Hindus, and Hindus in the diaspora. What is being erased is the history of the violent Hindu nationalist frenzy that enabled this.

In order to keep this memory alive, and to spark a discussion, we will be hosting a screening of Ram Ke Naam (EN: In The Name Of God): a film that documents precisely this rallying of armed Hindu nationalist mobs, and the destruction of the mosque that followed.

The screening (Hindi with English subtitles) will be held at 19:00 on Saturday, Jan 27, in the Rosa-Luxembourg-Saal, Karl-Liebknecht-Haus, Kleine Alexanderstraße 28, 10178 Berlin.