How Somnath was a natural starting point for Yatra for Ayodhya Temple, writes L K Advani

The Somnath Temple was a ‘natural’ starting point for the 1990 Rath Yatra to mobilise public support for a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya, veteran BJP leader L K Advani has said in a forthcoming article in the Rashtradharma magazine.

Drawing a parallel, Advani writes that just like Ayodhya, Somnath too had seen foreign invasions.

“When in the mid-1980s, the Ayodhya issue rose to the centre stage of national politics, I was reminded of the time political stalwarts like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Rajendra Prasad and K M Munshi had, against all odds, effectively steered the reconstruction of another landmark temple in independent India — the Somnath Temple at Prabhas Patan on the coast of Saurashtra in Gujarat,” Advani writes.

“Somnath was both a witness to, and a target of, multiple foreign invasions during the medieval period. And reconstructing the Somnath temple was a proud testimony of India’s determination to erase the history of bigoted alien attacks and regain its lost cultural treasure,” he adds.

Going on to talk about the Ram Temple, Advani says that in 1528, Babar, who founded the Mughal empire, had ordered his commander Mir Baqi to erect a mosque at Ayodhya to make the spot a “place for descent of angels’ — hence the name Babri Masjid”.

“It is widely believed, and later even confirmed by compelling archeological evidence, that there was a pre-existing temple at Ayodhya, which was demolished for establishing the mosque. So in many ways, the Ayodhya movement was the continuation of the spirit of Somnath,” Advani says. “When the BJP decided in 1990 that I, as its president, should lead the Shri Ram Rath Yatra to mobilise people’s support for the Ayodhya movement, it took no time for me to choose Somnath as the starting