Origins of Ram Janmabhoomi dispute in 19th century: How colonial records first formalised the temple-mosque contest

The first detailed written records start to appear during the first twenty years of the 19th century. Surveyors hired by the East India Company had the task of chronicling the key towns, monuments, and local customs. Their writings were the first official documents to recognise the multiple religious claims to the mosque site.

Buchanan's 1813-14 survey: The first mention of local belief

One of the most cited early sources is the survey conducted by Francis Buchanan between 1813 and 1814, during his tour of the Gorakhpur and Ayodhya region. Buchanan's notes, later compiled and published by Montgomery Martin, recorded a strong local Hindu belief that the central dome of the Babri Masjid marked the exact birthplace of Ram. He described how Hindu worship practices occurred in the immediate vicinity of the mosque, especially at a platform or chabutra located just outside the main structure.

Importantly, Buchanan did not refer to any contemporary Mughal or Sultanate records to confirm these traditions. His account was based on interviews with local priests, townspeople and officials, and he carefully separated belief from documented history. Yet his writing provided a template for later British administrators, who regularly repeated the association between the mosque site and Hindu traditions surrounding Ram Janmabhoomi.

Mid-19th century accounts: Carnegy and others

By the 1830s and 1840s, Ayodhya had fallen squarely within British administrative and bureaucratic purview. The town's religious geography continued to be documented by officials because of its importance to both communities. Writers such as Montgomery Martin and P. Carnegy, who served as a settlement officer in Faizabad, produced works that described the Babri Masjid standing on a raised platform and noted that both Hindus and Muslims venerated areas around the structure for different reasons.

Of particular importance is Carnegy’s 1870 Historical Sketch of Faizabad. He recorded that Hindu traditions associated the site with Ram’s birthplace and these traditions were well established among pilgrims. He further noted that Hindu worship took place on an outer platform, distinct from and outside the mosque interior. What Carnegy did not suggest was that a temple had been demolished in the 16th century; rather, he recorded local stories and practices that were current. His writings soon became a staple source for later historians and administrators during legal proceedings.

Clashes and the violence of 1855

While early 19th-century records tend to focus on coexistence, tensions eventually began to arise with the increase in the number of religious assemblies in Ayodhya. The first recorded violent incident took place in 1855, in which processions of Hindu ascetics clashed with local Muslims near the Hanumangarhi temple. The conflict did not centre on the Babri Masjid itself; however, it did reflect the fragility of communal relations in the region.

After the 1855 incident, religious sites in Ayodhya attracted more interest from British officials. Later correspondence reflected an increasingly sensitive administration, which expected conflict could arise at festivals and processions. The measures were not unique to Ayodhya; similar interventions took place throughout North India as part of broader colonial policy regarding communal tensions.

1859: The British build a dividing grille

The most significant administrative step occurred in 1859. Following renewed tensions, British authorities set up a physical barrier-a grille wall-at the site, dividing it into two distinct zones:

• An inner courtyard, containing the mosque structure, reserved for Muslim prayer

• An outer courtyard, including a platform associated with Ram Janmabhoomi worship, used by Hindus

This arrangement was supposed to stabilise the area and minimise the threat of violence. However, the new architectural division also produced some very unintended and long-term consequences: it codified separate spaces of worship and, for the first time, institutionalised a bureaucratic distinction between Hindu and Muslim claims to the site.

The 1859 intervention set a cornerstone for administrative and legal understanding of the site for the next nine decades. Future courts would refer to this spatial division again and again when determining de facto usages and rights.

Late-19th century legal petitions and administrative records

By the late 1800s, formal contestation had entered the legal and bureaucratic sphere. Petitions were filed in local courts concerning access, rights of worship and maintenance of the site. These were not yet the sweeping title suits of the 20th century, but they signalled that the dispute was no longer limited to the domain of local custom and oral tradition.

Revenue records of the time consistently described the Babri Masjid as a mosque, in the hands of the administration of a Mohammadan cleric, while recording the existence of several Hindu worship edifices within the outer courtyard. These records were to be examined in modern litigation to establish historic patterns of possession and control.

Administrators also recorded repeated complaints from both communities. Hindus demanded greater access or the right to construct additional structures, while Muslims demanded that the sanctity of the mosque interior be preserved. Even though British officers often dismissed disputes as minor, the cumulative documentation from this era created the archival foundation for later legal arguments.

The rise of print culture and public mobilisation

This was part of a broader trend across north India in the latter half of the 19th century: the rapid growth of vernacular newspapers, printing presses and public debate. As literacy spread and political consciousness rose, religious identity became a vehicle for expressing community concerns. Ayodhya, with its overlapping traditions, found itself increasingly represented in public writings.

Pamphlets, local histories, and religious tracts began circulating references to the Janmabhoomi site. Though many of these publications were devotional rather than political, they helped shift perceptions of the location from a localised sacred spot to a symbol with wider resonance among Hindu groups.

In similar vein, Muslim reform movements of the period underlined the protection of mosque sites as a matter of community dignity and freedom of religion. Although Ayodhya had not yet emerged as the cynosure it would be in the 20th century, the ground was nevertheless being prepared for wider mobilisation.

Late-19th century administrative caution

By the 1880s and 1890s, colonial officials treated Ayodhya's religious geography as a sensitive administrative matter. Correspondence from district officers reveals careful monitoring during major festivals, deployment of police near contested spots, and repeated reaffirmation of the 1859 spatial arrangement.

The British Raj had a broader policy interest in the avoidance of communal clashes, especially after the 1857 uprising and the need to maintain political stability. Therefore, the authorities preferred to maintain the status quo, even if that meant freezing a dispute without resolving underlying claims.

This cautious attitude did not change much until independence.

How 19th-century records shaped the modern dispute

Rather than sorting out the dispute, the developments of the 1800s—surveys, clashes, administrative obstacles and early petitions—produced a documentary archive of beliefs, practices and tensions on which the judicial bodies were later to rely. When the Allahabad High Court reviewed the history of the site in its judgment in 2010, and when the Supreme Court gave its final judgment in 2019, both courts turned extensively to these materials from the 19th century.

These records provided:

Where evidence showed that Hindus had long associated the site with Ram Janmabhoomi.

• Proof of Muslim possession and prayer inside the mosque

• Documentation of the administrative separation of worship spaces

• Indications that the conflict had existed in some form for over a century

While the 1992 demolition and subsequent political movements did change the scale of the dispute, the historical groundwork for the contest had been laid much earlier.

Conclusion

First appearing in recognisable form in the 19th century, the Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri Masjid dispute was not brought into being by modern politics. It was then that colonial administrators committed local traditions to paper, responded to communal clashes and formalised the physical division of the site. In so doing, these administrators crystallised competing claims which had existed for generations and embedded them within the machinery of colonial bureaucracy.

By the time India entered the 20th century, Ayodhya was no longer simply a pilgrimage town; it had become the site of a documented, legally recognised dispute—shaped in large measure by the records and decisions of the colonial state.