Babri mosque demolition remains 'watershed moment' after 25 years

New Delhi, India - On this day exactly 25 years ago, thousands of Hindu nationalist mobs tore down a medieval mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya, in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP).

The demolition of the 16th-century Babri mosque, which was constructed under the kingship of the first Mughal Emperor Babar, triggered religious riots in parts of India that continued for months. More than 1,000 people were brutally killed, in the worst religious riots since India's independence in 1947.

The tearing down of the mosque and the jubilation of the mobs created a permanent fissure in India's social and secular fabric and instilled fear among India's Muslim minority.

It paved the way for the rise of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – the party behind the Ram temple movement.

Senior journalist Vidya Subrahmaniam has covered Hindu-Muslim relations for years, and she says December 6, 1992 was not less than a "watershed moment".

Hindu supremacist groups such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) - the ideological parent of the ruling BJP - and Vishva Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) want to build a temple on the site of the mosque. Many Hindus believe the mosque stood on the birthplace of the god Ram.

Left-aligned groups in the country are marking the anniversary as "Black Day." Protesters in New Delhi said the destruction of the mosque "remains the severest of attacks on the secular, democratic foundations of the modern republic".

On Tuesday, the Indian Supreme Court adjourned the hearing in the long-delayed case to February 8 next year. Earlier, a former chief justice proposed out-of-court settlement between the two sides.

The legal dispute over the site of the Babri mosque, built in 1528, has been running for more than 60 years.