Ram Mandir: What Anand Patwardhan Saw in Ayodhya During Making of 'Ram Ke Naam'

Reporter: Meghnad Bose Cameraperson: Sanjoy Deb
Camera assistant: Gautam Sharma Video editor: Ashish Maccune

Anand Patwardhan’s award-winning documentary ‘Ram Ke Naam’ – which extensively documented the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in October 1990 – was released in September 1992, less than three months before the disputed structure in Ayodhya was demolished by a mob on 6 December.

Today, nearly 32 years after it was first released, the documentary's relevance has hardly diminished.

As the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony takes place on 22 January 2024, The Quint revisits this 2019 interview with Patwardhan on the lessons to remember from Ayodhya.

Speaking to The Quint, he said, “In a sense, I think that we are still suffering the consequences of that act even today, because the divide between Hindus and Muslims has never really been healed after that point.”

Here are some excerpts from the interview:

Injecting Polarisation

"My experience in Ayodhya was from two years before the demolition – October 1990. At that time, what I found was that in village after village, in Ayodhya itself, and in the neighbouring twin city of Faizabad, there was very little communal discord. I talked to Hindus and Muslims. They said:

'We’ve been living here as neighbours all through. There’s absolutely no discrimination between us in these local areas. It’s the outsiders who are coming now, mainly the karsevaks who are bringing trouble.'

The communal frenzy is not grassroots, it is being imposed from outside."

Rumours & Misinformation

"When the riots began in Mumbai, to whip up the hysteria, a lot of rumours were floating. I remember, on the Worli Sea Face, people stayed up all night along the coast because there was a rumour that the Arabs were going to attack us to support the Muslims and there was going to be an invasion from the sea."

"All this rumour-mongering contributed to the frenzy reaching the heights that it did."

Hate By News Media

"There were publications actively inciting violence. For instance, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ had a bold headline, saying, ‘Let Bombay Burn’, which politically obviously paid dividends.

As far as I can remember, TV news was extremely controlled. There were no images shown on TV of what was going on.

However, though media coverage was bad in those days, it was not even half as bad as it is today. There is a cause for concern that a biased media will fan the flames. I hope they don’t do it.

I hope they realise that they are playing with people’s lives, and are therefore restrained in their reporting. Restrained, not by not telling the truth. The truth needs to be told in a way that does not aggravate the situation even further."

Complicit Politicians, Negligent Police

"Even though Mulayam Singh had said that ‘not even a bird would be able to enter Ayodhya’, we found that karsevaks had arrived in the middle of the night, from all over the country.

It was hundreds of thousands of people, and then I saw and filmed, that the police were arresting people, putting them in buses and then a few yards away, they were releasing them.

They would get out of the buses and come back and join the protest again. Sections of the police were in connivance with the protesters.

In fact, one of the slogans that the VHP and others gave was, 'Hindu Hindu bhai bhai, beech mein wardhi kaha se aayi?'"