India honors firebrand nun accused of inciting mosque demolition

Al Arabiya

27-01-2025

A firebrand nun accused of helping incite a mob that demolished a centuries-old mosque has been granted a top Indian government award, in a decision greeted with dismay by critics.
Sadhvi Ritambhara once faced criminal charges for facilitating the destruction of the medieval-era Babri Masjid in 1992, which sparked religious riots that killed 2,000 people.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a sprawling temple last year built on the ground where the mosque once stood, a reflection of the triumph of his assertive brand of Hindu-first politics.
His government announced on Sunday it had decided to award Ritambhara the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honor, for her 'contributions to social work.'
'It embodies the ideology and the views of the government and at the same time diminishes the value of the awards,' veteran journalist Hartosh Singh Bal told AFP.
Lawyer and civil rights activist Prashant Bhushan said on social media the award showed that India's civilian honors system had 'degenerated to a political farce under the Modi regime.'
The mosque's demolition was a cause celebre among Ritambhara and other Hindu activists, who claimed it was built on the birthplace of the deity Ram.
Her speeches denouncing the mosque were widely disseminated on cassette tape in the years before its destruction.
Ritambhara, 61, also cheered on a crowd of thousands of Hindu volunteers outside the structure on the day it was torn apart, brick by brick.
A commission investigating the Babri Masjid's demolition described her as among the people responsible for taking the country 'to the brink of communal discord.'
She was briefly jailed after the demolition but, after years of delay, she was acquitted of all charges by a special court in 2020.
The saffron-clad nun now runs a network of shelters for abandoned women and orphans.
Kanchan Gupta, an advisor to the Indian government, said in response to the award announcement that her charity work was 'at once inspirational and humbling.'
Ritambhara is also the founder of a women's Hindu group known as the Army of Durga, named after a fierce Hindu goddess renowned for fighting evil.
Women enlisted in the group are provided military-style combat training.
Modi's party has come to be the dominant force in Indian politics thanks to its muscular appeals to the country's Hindu majority, emboldening the faith's hardliners.
Calls for India to enshrine Hindu supremacy in law have rapidly grown louder since Modi took office in 2014, making its 210-million-odd Muslim minority increasingly anxious about their future.