The sadhus in saffron with their gamchas (cotton towel) are out on the streets before the break of the dawn, silently walking to the Saryu for a holy dip – an age-old daily routine. Many then visit the Nageshwarnath temple, believed to have been built by Ram’s son Kush, or Hanuman Garhi. Rarely do they walk to the heavily barricaded makeshift Ram temple.

Now, after the consecration ceremony on January 22, many plan to start their day with prayers at the Ram Temple. The last time the city was buzzing this way was in the 1980s, the decade that changed the course of the 150-year-old dispute.

The saga began on March 6, 1983, when at its Muzaffarnagar convention, the Hindu Jagran Manch passed a resolution for the liberation of Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya, Krishna Janmabhoomi in Mathura and the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi.

In 1984, 500 Hindu saints gathered at Delhi’s Vigyan Bhawan and endorsed the demand. Dharmacharyas decided to lead the movement, pressing for a shilanyas or groundbreaking. The BJP, formed in 1980, was still nascent. Only in 1989 would it formally adopt the emotive issue as part of its charter.

Sadhus started countrywide yatras, demanding the unlocking of the disputed shrine. Minorities were alarmed. In 1986, a Faizabad court judge unlocked the gates. The Babri Masjid Action Committee was formed.

As pressure built, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi succumbed and sent then home minister Buta Singh for an early morning dialogue with Vishwa Hindu Parishad leaders. The VHP signed an agreement with the UP government to abide by the directives of the high court and “…not change the nature of the property in question.”

As a result, the shilanyas was held outside the disputed site on November 10, 1989. A seven-cubic-feet large pit was prepared to lay the symbolic foundation of the singhdwar — the main entrance of the sanctorum. On August 30, 1990, the karyashala (workshop) was set up, and stone consignments started coming in from Rajasthan.

After the shilanyas, the public was unstoppable. I remember meeting a very old couple carrying some broken bricks and mud on their heads. ‘We don’t mind dying after performing kar sewa for the temple,” they said to me. In the general elections held in 1989, the BJP grew from two seats to 85, and supported the National Front government led by Vishwanath Pratap Singh.

In Uttar Pradesh, Mulayam Singh Yadav became the chief minister. The dispute raged. The BJP’s national leader, LK Advani, started the Somnath-Ayodhya yatra, and was arrested by then Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav. Mulayam felt betrayed as he had decided to take on the BJP with a firm hand. And then the 1990 firing on the kar sevaks happened.

In the 1991 Lok Sabha and UP elections , the BJP won 120 seats and 221 respectively . The Congress’s PV Narsimha Rao became PM and Kalyan Singh took over as UP chief minister .

Soon after its formation in 1991, the Kalyan Singh government acquired land opposite the disputed shrine through a notification, ostensibly to promote tourism and provide amenities to the pilgrims. The acquisition was challenged in the court, which disallowed the transfer of land or construction of a permanent structure. The government continued to demolish various temples and buildings — Sankat Mochan, Sakshi Gopal Mandir, Falahari Baba, and Sumitra Bhawan among them — to level the ground near the plot. In early 1992, the government gave 42 acres of land to the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, the trust overseeing the movement then, on a 99-year lease for an annual rent of ₹1 per year, for the construction of Ram Katha Park. The trust also bought some land.

Kalyan Singh also assured the courts and the National Integration Council that status quo would be maintained and the disputed structure, protected. Calls for handing over the undisputed land to the Nyas grew louder.

In December 1992, kar sevaks assembled on this land. Mobs demolished the Babri Masjid. They also built a makeshift temple, installed Ram’s idol there, before dispersing from Ayodhya. The Centre, thereafter, acquired 67.703 acres of land, including the plot belonging to the trust.

Heavy iron barricades were built and forces deployed for the security of the makeshift temple. For some time the issue remained shelved. But after the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government took over in 1999, the demand to hand over land to the trust intensified. A symbolic bhoomi puja was held in 2002 by Digamber Akhara Mahant Ramchand Paramhans who dodged the police and reached the site with a brick.

The Supreme Court’s 2019 order finally ended the dispute. The construction of the temple also brought true VHP stalwart Ashok Singhal’s words from decades ago :“Yes, Ram temple will turn into a reality; it may not happen in our lifetime, but it will”