On 6th December, 1992, Babri Masjid, situated in the Indian holy town of Ayodhya (considered to be the birthplace of Lord Ram) was razed to the ground. In what turned out to be an unprovoked act of violence, many Hindu groups celebrated the fall of Babri Masjid which later fuelled a lot of communal incidents in the country as hundreds of innocent people died. While the issue is yet to be resolved, not many people know the history behind the ancient structure.

Many believe the 16th century structure was named after Babur, who was the first Mughal emperor of India that laid the foundation for the Mughal dynasty. Many believe that Babur was an esteemed writer himself and 'Babur nama' (his autobiographical work) consists of many clues to his incredible hold on the Chagatai language, the spoken form of Andijan-Timurids. His autobiography consists of one of the most extensive details on how he started the Mughal dynasty which ruled for almost three-centuries in India.

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The works of Babur, written by himself, show Babur's love for young boys. Many believe that Babur was bisexual and by his own admission in Babur nama (as published in the abridged version of Dilip Hiro's Babur Nama), he was infatuated with Baburi, a teenage boy. He was so smitten by the young boy's charm that he even composed a couplet for him which goes something like this:

“Nor power to stay was mine, nor strength to part; I became what you made of me, oh thief of my heart.”

This history of Babri Masjid over the years was lost in translation as the original text was a mix of Persian and other ancient languages. While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) itself holds the Ram Mandir agenda close to its organisational ideals, this aspect has never been blown out of proportion. Many LGBT groups, however, enthusiastically use Babur's name in their argument against article 377.

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While the demolition of Babri Masjid remains a seminal event for Hindu-Muslim communities across the country, it's incredibly hard to resist the mystery behind naming the mosque as 'Babri'.