After independence, the town of Ayodhya has emerged as a place which caused the growth of immense hatred between sections of Hindus and Muslims. Babri Masjid-Ram Janmbhoomi dispute at Ayodhya has played significant role in creating an environment of violence and mistrust between the two largest religious communities of India. But in 1857, it was the same Ayodhya where Maulvis and Mahants and common Hindu-Muslims stood united in rebelling against the British rule and kissed the hangman’s noose together. Maulana Ameer Ali was a famous Maulvi of Ayodhya and when Ayodhya’s well-known Hanuman Garhi’s (Hanuman Temple) priest Baba Ramcharan Das took lead in organizing the armed resistance to the British rule, Maulana also joined the revolutionary army. In one battle with the British and their stooges, both of them were captured and hanged together on a tamarind tree at the KuberTeela in Ayodhya.
Baba Ramcharan Das and Maulana Ameer Ali were no exception in Ayodhya. This region also produced two more great friends, belonging to different religions who made life hell for the British sponsored armies. Acchhan Khan and Shambhu Prasad Shukla were two such friends who lead the army of Raja Devibaksh Singh in the district of Faizabad. Both of them were able to defeat the Firangee army in many battles, inflicting heavy losses on them. It was due to the treachery again that they were captured. In order to desist anyone from such companionships between Hindus and Muslims both these friends were publicly inflicted prolonged torture and their heads were cruelly filed off.
It is not difficult to understand that why the same Ayodhya where blood of both Hindus and Muslims flowed for liberating the motherland in 1857 later became a permanent source of friction between the two communities. The joint heritage of Ayodhya needed to be erased and only then the British Indian Empire could survive. It was meticulously done by the British rulers and the heritage of communal unity at Ayodhya was turned upside down.
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