NEW DELHI: 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 honour, 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 said.

Lawyer and civil rights activist Prashant Bhushan said on social media the award showed that India’s civilian honours 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.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2025