Different Hindutva organisations such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad took positions endorsing the construction of a Ram temple at Ayodhya at different points of time in independent Indian history.

The BJP, which was formed in 1980, officially supported the project only in 1989. In its earlier avatar of the Jan Sangh (1951-77), the cause did not figure as part of its agenda.

The Hindu Mahasabha was the first organisation to take up the position just after Independence.

On August 14, 1949, just two years after Independence and months before the Ram Lalla idol was placed in the Babri Masjid, the United Provinces Hindu Mahasabha passed a resolution in favour of a Ram temple at Ayodhya.

Former BJP Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj’s just-released book Tryst With Ayodhya quotes the resolution: “The meeting endorsed the demand of the All-India Working Committee of the Hindu Mahasabha for the restoration of the temples of Shri Vishwanath ji at Kashi, Shri Ram Janma Bhumi at Ayodhya and Shri Krishna Mandir at Mathura, which were converted into mosques in the Mughal times and the remains of which are still there…The meeting reminds the government that the same policy in respect of these temples should be pursued as has been pursued by the Central government in the restoration and erection of the temple of Shri Somnath in Saurashtra.”

Subsequently, from October 20, 1949, a nine-day akhand path (continuous recitation) of the Tulsidas Ramcharitamanas in Ayodhya was conducted by a body called the All-India Ramayana Mahasabha. Gopal Singh Visharad, the president of the Ayodhya Hindu Mahasabha, was the joint secretary of the Ramayana Mahasabha.

Mahant Digvijayanath of Gorakhpur, a Hindu Mahasabha stalwart, local Congress MLA Baba Raghav Das, and Swami Karpatri of the Ram Rajya Parishad were on stage on the concluding day of the recitation, says former journalist Nilanjan Mukhopadhya in his book The Demolition And The Verdict.

On the intervening night of December 22 and 23, Abhiram Das, born as Abhinandan Mishra before he became an ascetic, is supposed to have placed the Ram Lalla idol in the Babri Masjid. Ayodhya’s District Magistrate K K K Nair and city magistrate Guru Dutt Singh refused to remove the idol despite pressure from Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

The following decades saw a lull, till the RSS and VHP took up the Ram temple movement in the 1980s.

On April 7 and 8, 1984, says Punj in his book, a meeting of the Dharma Sansad of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, an RSS-affiliate, was held at the Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi.

At this meeting, the organisation saw the announcement about launching a movement for the “liberation” of the Ram Janmabhoomi at Ayodhya, the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi at Mathura and the Vishwanath shrine at Varanasi.

Significantly, while stray voices in the Congress supported the agitation, the BJP was nowhere to be seen at this time. This was because Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was the party chief of the BJP at the time had steered it in the direction of what he called “Gandhian socialism”.

Former Organiser (an RSS-linked magazine) editor Seshadri Chari recalls Morapant Pingle as the first RSS leader who rallied to make Ram temple a national issue in the early 1980s.

Congress leader Gulzarilal Nanda supported the Dharma Sansad and former UP Congress minister Dau Dayal Khanna became the convenor of the Ram Janmabhoomi Mukti Yagna Samiti for the “liberation” of Ayodhya. Ashok Singhal of the VHP also became active in the Ram temple movement by this point.

Punj told The Indian Express, “I recall a meeting called by Bhaurao Deoras of the RSS at Jhandewalan just after the 1984 Lok Sabha elections. Murli Manohar Joshi, K S Sudarshan and I were present. I said that none would come to the BJP if it talked about Gandhian socialism. We had to turn towards Hindutva.”

However, it took the BJP another five years to commit itself to the Ram temple movement. The VHP was, however, active in the various Yatras organised in the mid-1980s.

The BJP finally decided to throw in its lot with the Ram temple movement – and bury Vajpayee’s thrust on Gandhian socialism for good – when the party under L K Advani passed the Palampur resolution of 1989. Old-timers remember it as a turning point for the party. Vajpayee is said to have sat quietly at this meeting and his friend Jaswant Singh stormed out in disapproval.

“A court of law… cannot adjudicate as to whether Babur did actually invade Ayodhya, destroy a temple and build a mosque in its place. Even when a court does pronounce on such a fact, it cannot suggest remedies to undo the vandalism of history,” the Palampur resolution of the party said.

It added, “The National Executive of the BJP regards the current debate on the Ram Janmabhoomi issue as one which has dramatically highlighted the callous unconcern which the Congress Party in particular, and the other political parties in general, betray towards the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the country – the Hindus.”

It went on to say that the “sentiments of the people must be respected” and that “the Ram Janmasthan handed over to the Hindus, if possible, through a negotiated settlement, or else, by legislation”.

“Litigation certainly is no answer,” it had said.

Saying that Indian secularism was not about an “irreligious state” and that it did “not mean rejection of history and cultural heritage of the country”, the Palampur resolution of the BJP added, “The BJP calls upon the Rajiv government to adopt the same positive approach in respect of Ayodhya that the Nehru government did with regard to Somnath.”

A year later, the then BJP president Advani undertook a Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya – an event that would change the course of Indian politics forever and make the BJP a contender for power.