Omissions of archeological evidence, selective historical framing, subtly biased language, key issues across most leading English-language sources
Model of Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir
In late December 2023 and in January 2024, in the weeks prior to the inauguration of the new Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, officially the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, and against the backdrop of Indian election campaigning officially beginning in a few months but in practice already started unofficially, there was an understandable increase in news coverage of this historic event.
Observing the growing flow of reporting, one thing in particular struck me, having myself written about the Ram Mandir as part of work with the Hindu American Foundation. In the articles that I was seeing there was little mention of the history of the site prior to the construction of what became known as the Babri Masjid, what happened there in the centuries between that construction and the demolition that occurred in 1992, or the archeology done at the site. One of the goals of that archeology, done by order of Indian courts, was to determine if assertions that the Babri Masjid was in fact built over the remains of a destroyed Hindu temple were backed by evidence, as well as to establish more broadly what the site had been used for prior to the early 16th century. This archeology ultimately suggested that there had been a Hindu temple underneath Babri Masjid and that there had been a history of dharmic spiritual use of the site going back millennia.
If the news media is part of the court of public opinion, surely all the evidence ought to be presented so that the public can make a fully informed assessment. Beginning any story of the new Ram Mandir site with the Babri Masjid pre-existing upon it and presenting Hindu attitudes towards it primarily as religious beliefs when there is archeology that can shed light on these traditional assertions hides critical information from news readers and viewers.
I firmly believe that reasonable people can come to differing conclusions based on a given set of facts. We all weigh factors differently, come to a situation with differing priorities and values and perspectives. That belief itself is a value judgment, one not universally held, contrasted by the also-held belief that a set of facts lead to one correct conclusion that excludes others.
The point of this paper is not to convince readers of the correctness of any conclusion. (Though I acknowledge at the outset that I have my own views on this issue that likely can’t be entirely excluded in my analysis, given the subjective methodology, outlined below — as will be my own assessment of the full set of facts as we know them.)
Rather, the point is to assess: To what extent was such history and archeology omitted from coverage? Furthermore, was history presented done so accurately and was the reporting seemingly favoring one perspective or another?
METHODOLOGY
In making this assessment, I examined the top 50 Google search results for “Ram Mandir Ayodhya” published between December 1, 2023 and February 3, 2024. Results were limited to English publications, with no geographical limitation. This search was selected under the assumptions that Google is the largest search engine in the world and that an average reader without prior knowledge of any of the issues surrounding the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, or its history, is unlikely to read beyond two pages of search results (i.e. 50 articles). The timeframe was selected as it was six weeks before the inauguration of the temple on January 22, 2024, as well as continuing for roughly two weeks afterwards. While there may be a small number of articles focusing on the temple opening that fall slightly outside those ranges, or mention it tangentially, the bulk of coverage falls within those dates.
The search was conducted from Los Angeles, California, using the latest version of Safari, using a Macbook Air, running the latest version of MacOS available at that time. Searches conducted elsewhere geographically, using different browsers, might yield slightly different results.
Articles were categorized as to tone on a scale from 1-5, with 1 being Negative, 2 Somewhat Negative, 3 Neutral, 4 Somewhat Positive, and 5 Positive.
The categorization was based on the language used to describe the events surrounding the opening of the Ram Mandir, the history of the site, and the reaction to it. Such characterization was done subjectively, making judgements based on my 15+ years as a media professional working as a writer, journalist, commentator, and editor. With such experience it is generally easy to assess intent behind competing word choices, or, at least, which alternate phrasings could be used in any part of an article to express the same intent. Furthermore, this categorization was done through the perspective of a hypothetical reader who would have no prior knowledge of the situation, and how the wording would be commonly understood. If a reader is coming to this situation for the first time, how is an article likely to be taken?
For example, to describe the construction of the Ram Mandir as ‘controversial’ is a neutral description. There are strongly polarized perceptions of the history of the site and the construction of a new mandir on it. It is fair to say there is controversy surrounding it. Whether it should be controversial or not is beside the point. However, to describe it as ‘divisive’ is making a judgment about the nature of the controversy. Proponents of building the new temple say it is a unifying moment for Hindus and rectifying past wrongs. Many opponents strongly believe otherwise, that whatever unification of Hindus is happening is coming at the expense of Indian Muslims and dividing the greater community of India. Using the word ‘divisive’ to describe the situation by a journalist is taking the position of the opposition as the correct one.
Likewise, to describe the BJP and Prime Minister Modi as being ‘Hindu nationalist’ is a neutral description. Both would likely agree with this characterization of their political ideology, Hindutva. However, to describe Modi as ‘authoritarian’ or a ‘strongman’ is a judgment — one counterfactual based on the general held definition of both terms. To describe the BJP as being motivated by a ‘supremacist’ ideology of Hindutva is a judgment, one that runs counter to both the statements of current BJP officials and the statements of the earliest proponents of Hindutva. Using the word ‘fascist’ is similarly making a judgment here, as both the BJP and Modi would loudly dispute such a description, and does not align with most common definitions of fascism, considering the robust democracy in India.
Articles were additionally categorized, with yes/no answers, as to whether they did or did not do the following:
- Mention any history of the site on which the new Ram Mandir is being built prior to the construction of the Babri Masjid.
- Present a reasonably full and accurate history of the site.
- Mention that the Archeological Survey of India conducted an investigation of the site.
- Mention that the Indian courts, as part of permitting the construction of a new temple on the site on which the Babri Masjid once stood (from the early 16th century until its destruction in 1992), ordered that land be granted nearby for the construction of a modern mosque.
Once an initial review of the top 50 articles was done, those outlets which produced the most biased coverage, both positive and negative, were given a wider review. For this review, the search function on the website for each of these was used, with the same query (“Ram Mandir Ayodhya”) and the same time period (Dec 1, 2023 through Feb 3, 2024), to compile all the coverage from each outlet. This list was then reviewed with the same methodology and questions as the initial review of the top 50 search results. This was done to determine if the top search results were indicative of the full coverage of this issue from each outlet.
POTENTIAL LIMITATIONS
There are a few potential limitations of this methodology, including:
A full survey of all the articles published by all of the outlets returned by search results was not conducted. While an assessment of the full output of those media outlets during the Dec. 1, 2023 to Feb. 3, 2024 time period which produced the most biased coverage, either positive of negative was conducted, doing the same for all of the outlets in the top 50 search results would provide a more complete picture of the potential bias or lack thereof.
Focusing on the top 50 search results alone does not take into account which articles social media platforms served to users. Given that social media platforms are a primary way many people learn about news, the hypothetical average person may or may not be viewing the articles in the top 50 search results. This does not factor into the tone of the articles themselves or the information relayed in them. However, it does mean that this analysis does not necessarily indicate the influence of the articles in the top 50 search results has on shaping public opinion on this issue.
The use of a subjective analysis of one person introduces a good deal of variability into the results. Though I have made every effort to make a dispassionate assessment of tone and language, reading each as if I were an assigning editor receiving work from an author, my assessment is nevertheless that of one person. Presenting the full list of articles surveyed to a statistically meaningful group of readers and then interviewing them afterwards as to how they understood each article would provide a more detailed picture of how the articles are being received by the public.
EXAMPLES OF BIASED TONE IN NEWS COVERAGE
There are several ways in which one of these articles, presented as unbiased news, can subtly present a partisan view of a topic: Wrongly stating the self-described goals of an individual or organization; presenting author’s analysis as a sort of settled consensus fact, when a different assessment could be made; omitting historical facts or otherwise setting the historical parameters in such a way that leads towards a particular conclusion, when if these parameters were set differently or a more full set of facts were presented a different conclusion might also be reached.
In the news articles reviewed, subtly negative phrasing was not uncommon; subtly positive phrasing was uncommon to the point of being effectively absent..
The following are three examples of writing that are clearly but subtly negatively biased in presentation.
“Mr. Modi, now the country’s prime minister, inaugurated the Ram temple in Ayodhya on Monday — the crowning achievement of a national movement aimed at establishing Hindu supremacy in India by rallying the country’s Hindu majority across castes and tribes.” — The New York Times, January 22, 2024
Why is this negative? The national movement being referred to here is Hindutva, which defines the word Hindu not in contemporary religious terms but in cultural terms proponents of Hindutva believe encompasses, essentially, anyone who lives in India and also honors the nation as a cultural homeland. It does center the dharmic traditions faiths, but also explicitly includes members of those faiths originating outside of India. It is simply false to describe Hindutva as being a Hindu supremacist ideology or movement. It is also false to describe the goals of the BJP, the party of Prime Minister Modi, as being rooted in Hindu supremacy or attempting to establish Hindu supremacy. A more fair phrasing might be “…the crowning achievement of a national movement aimed, it believes, at addressing the concerns of the nation’s Hindu majority, long perceived as being sidelined under previous governments, and uniting the nation across castes, tribes, and religions.” One can certainly debate the effectiveness of the BJP in doing this, but such a description is accurate and neutral in terms of what they say they want to do.
“It also cements his legacy as one of the country’s most consequential leaders — in particular, one who is helping to transform India from a secular democracy into an avowedly Hindu nation.” — Time, January 22, 2024
Why is this negative? The part of this passage after the em-dash is a piece of analysis presented as a fact in an article not labeled as opinion, analysis, or commentary — a fact that is highly debatable, particularly in that no one in the BJP has seriously proposed ending secular democracy in India. It also muddles the scene in that given the huge demographic majority of Hindus in India, the nation is already avowedly Hindu, even as the state of India has been avowedly secular since its creation in independence in 1947.
“For Hindus, the site marks the birthplace of Lord Ram […] But the site is also revered by India’s Muslims for having once housed the 16th century Babri Masjid, a monument of faith for Indian Muslims that stood on the site for centuries before it was razed by a Hindu nationalist mob in 1992.” — Time, January 18, 2024
Why is this negative? This paragraph, by the same author as the previous example, in a different article, shows the sort of selective telling of history, the selective framing of the conversation. The history of the site of Babri Masjid and the new Ram Mandir is readily available. As we’ll get to in this paper, a number of very detailed and accurate historical timelines of the site have been published. The history is not obscure. A writer failing to mention the full history of the site is a conscious choice, a choice to discount history as a factor worth discussing. It is true that the Babri Masjid “stood on the site for centuries before it was razed by a Hindu nationalist mob in 1992.” However, what is not said is that the Babri Masjid was built, according to the traditional Hindu account now validated by archeological research, over the ruins of a temple destroyed by Muslims to construct the mosque. The “monument of faith” for Muslims, archeology indicates, was built directly over a monument of faith for Hindus, and one with a longer legacy of veneration.
CATEGORIZATION OF ARTICLES
The sources of the top 50 search results are as follows: Al Jazeera 6 articles; CNN 6; Economic Times, NDTV, Reuters 4; Times of India 3; BBC, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Live Mint, New York Times, Time 2; AP, Financial Express, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Hindu Business Line, The Independent, Mens XP, The Quint, VOA 1.
Looking at the top 25 results alone, the sources are: CNN 6; Reuters 4; BBC, New York Times, Time 2; AP, Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Indian Express, Times of India, VOA 1.
As for types of articles, both the top 50 and top 25 had the same percentages: 80% News, 12% History / Timelines, and 8% Opinion or Commentary.
Looking at the country of origin of sources, the top 25 skew to sources outside of India: USA 68%, Qatar 12%, UK 12%, with India itself at 8%. For the top 50 as a whole, Indian reporting rises significantly as a percentage of results: India 44%, USA 34%, Qatar 12%, UK 10%.
Looking at the tone of reporting, of the top 25 results: 12% was Negative, 24% was Somewhat Negative, 52% was Neutral, 12% Somewhat Positive, 2% Positive. The top 50 results introduced much more neutral reporting, with 8% Negative, 14% Somewhat Negative, 68% Neutral, 6% Somewhat Positive, 4% Positive.
Looking at tone by country, for the top 25 results: US coverage was 47% Negative and Somewhat Negative, 41% Neutral, 12% Somewhat Positive and Positive; Qatar was 34% Negative and Somewhat Negative, 66% Neutral; UK was 100% Neutral; India was 50% Neutral, 50% Somewhat Positive and Positive. Looking at tone by country, for the top 50 results: US coverage was 47% Negative and Somewhat Negative, 41% Neutral; Qatar was 34% Negative and Somewhat Negative, 66% Neutral; UK was 20% Negative and Somewhat Negative; India was 86% Neutral, 14% Somewhat Positive and Positive.
Looking at specific sources for tone, for the top 50 results, going down based on number of articles produced: Al Jazeera’s coverage (6 articles) was 34% Negative and Somewhat Negative, 66% Neutral; CNN (6) was 50% Negative and Somewhat Negative, 50% Neutral; Economic Times (4) was 100% Neutral; NDTV (4) 100% Neutral; Reuters (4) 75% Neutral, 25% Somewhat Positive and Positive; Times of India (3) 67% Neutral, 33% Somewhat Positive and Positive; BBC (2) 100% Neutral; Hindustan Times (2) 100% Neutral; Indian Express (2) 100% Somewhat Positive and Positive; Live Mint (2) 100% Neutral; New York Times (2) 100% Negative and Somewhat Negative; The Hindu (2) 100% Neutral; Time (2) 100% Negative and Somewhat Negative; AP (1) 100% Somewhat Positive and Positive; Financial Express (1) 100% Neutral; Financial Times (1) 100% Neutral; Foreign Policy (1) 100% Neutral; MensXP (1) 100% Neutral; The Guardian (1) 100% Negative and Somewhat Negative; The Hindu Business Line (1) 100% Neutral; The Independent (1) 100% Neutral; The Quint (1) 100% Neutral; VOA (1) 100% Negative and Somewhat Negative.
As for the topics coverage in each article, identified as critical to a full understanding of the the context and recent history of the issue, 56% did not mention any history of the site prior to the construction of the Babri Masjid; 88% did not present readers with a reasonably full history of the site; 90% failed to mention that the Archeological Survey of India has investigated the site all, let alone what the results of their work revealed; and, 58% did not mention that a land grant was made for the construction of mosque to replace the Babri Masjid.
A DEEPER LOOK AT THE MOST SLANTED SOURCES
After examining the top 50 search results, the full coverage of the sources with the most slanted negative coverage were looked at, so as to get a sense of whether the articles rising to the top of search were indicative of the tone of a publication’s coverage more broadly or were somehow outliers. As no publication which produced more than a single article in the top 50 results skewed towards positive coverage, this angle of analysis was not pursued.
Of those publications slanting negative: Al Jazeera produced 12 pieces in total; CNN published 11; Time 4; The Guardian 3; New York Times 3.
Time’s coverage slanted the most fully Negative of any publication, with 3 of the 4 articles they published being entirely Negative in tone and the remaining article Neutral. Half the articles they produced were Negative opinion pieces.
New York Times published 2 articles that were Somewhat Negative in tone, with 1 article being Neutral.
The Guardian stands out as being 100% Negative or Somewhat Negative in their coverage. They also stand out as being the only publication in the world, whose articles rose to the top 50 search results, which took at official editorial position on the subject — a negative one.
CNN produced a significant amount of articles about the opening of the Ram Mandir, and though half of its top searching coverage slanted Negative or Somewhat Negative, looking at the totality of its output revealed that the majority was in fact Neutral, with all of its coverage outside the top results being Neutral in tone.
Al Jazeera, which produced the highest number of articles, deserves a deeper examination.
Of the 12 articles published by Al Jazeera, two-thirds were Negative or Somewhat Negative in tone, with the remaining one-third being Neutral. All of Al Jazeera’s coverage outside of the top results was Negative or Somewhat Negative in tone.
As you get closer, spontaneous cries of “Har har Mahadev!” and “Jai Sri Ram!” break out, prompted seemingly only by being at mela.
On the topics, Al Jazeera overwhelming omitted mention what I believe to be key factors in presenting a full contextual and factual picture of the history of the Ayodhya site. 75% of articles mentioned nothing of the history of the site prior to the construction of Babri Masjid; 83% percent did not present a full history of the site, omitting many crucial details of what happened on the site from the construction of Babri Masjid till today; 92% failed to mention that the Archeological Survey of India investigated the site to try to understand what existed on the site prior to the construction of Babri Masjid; 67% failed to mention that the Supreme Court of India, in ruling that construction could proceed for the new Ram Mandir also ordered a significant amount of land be granted for the construction of a mosque, in compensation for the mob destruction of Babri Masjid.
These results show to me that from an editorial perspective — either through direct input of editors on this topic or indirectly through the writers hired to cover India more broadly — Al Jazeera has taken an editorial stance against the opening of the new Ram Mandir without explicitly stating so. At least The Guardian had the courage to state its opposition openly.
DISCUSSION
As a writer, or storyteller regardless of medium, where you choose to start a story chronologically can deeply change perception of the characters, how their motivations and actions come across. Backstory and context matter deeply and can transform how the actions are viewed by your audience. Narrowing the window of time through which a large story is told is sometimes necessary due to the constraints of a particular format. Chosen carefully, a narrow window can highlight moments in that bigger story that are representative of the whole, even when omitting details. A small window can provide an informative representative glimpse of a larger landscape, if pointed in the right direction. Placed poorly, however, and that narrow window doesn’t at all indicate accurate contours of the scene it looks out on.
In covering the opening of the new Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, many of the publications producing articles in the top 50 search results chose a narrow window for their audiences that omitted, what are to my mind, critical historical details. Had these details been included a much different picture would be created, one that more accurately contextualizes the events that have taken place over the past century and a half broadly, and specifically in the past few decades since Babri Masjid was torn down by a mob.
Of the top 50 search results slightly more than half (54%) presented the history with Babri Masjid simply existing. The only places that the history of the site prior to Babri Masjid were presented, by and large, were in timeline articles listing key dates in the story. In the rest of the articles, there was no mention that anyone even claimed that this mosque might have been built over a Hindu temple. Or that it was originally named, roughly in English, the Mosque of the Birthplace (referring to being built on the traditional birthplace of Lord Ram). It is as though there was simply nothing there at all prior to the construction of Babri Masjid. Maybe it just sprouted from the soil without any human intervention? This holds true for articles with both positive and negative tone, it is worth mentioning. It is nevertheless a failing of journalism and storytelling more broadly, regardless of the quality of the article as a whole. It is erasure of important history for anyone trying to place the current debate into an accurate historical position.
Such a failure might be able to be overlooked had a detailed accounting of events on the site after construction of Babri Masjid been presented. The starting point of the story might be too recent, in terms of historical context, but at least the events of the past several centuries would tell a detailed and multi-sided story — the attempts to re-establish dharmic worship at the site, the court cases during British rule attempting to adjudicate who had right to worship, the fact that Babri Masjid had be closed for use for decades, the movement to acknowledge that Babri Masjid was built over a destroyed temple and reclaim it (the same one that eventually erupted into mob violence), and then the court cases to settle the matter, including an order for archeological investigations to determine what if any historical basis there is to claims that the site supported a temple prior to Babri Masjid and that it had been used for dharmic worship since time immemorial. But the fact is that 88% of articles in the top search results, positive and negative alike, omitted many key historical details. Again, the only that didn’t were dedicated timelines about the site, and the four that presented a detailed history were from Indian sources.
The fact that 90% of articles in the top results made not a single mention of the work of the Archeological Survey of India is the biggest insight into how this story was presented by reporters. That no one takes notice of the fact that an archeological investigation showed that there was a temple under Babri Masjid, possibly destroyed for its construction, is astounding. This is a crucial fact to include in making a full assessment of the site historically. Knowing the results of this archeological work significantly balances the narrative and contextualizes the movement to establish a new Ram Mandir. It takes the motivations of those people wanting a new temple from being rooted solely in traditional religious belief that the site is the birthplace of Lord Ram, without concrete historical evidence to support this, to a belief that is supported by archeology showing that some sort of dharmic worship happened at the site — even if the historicity of Lord Ram being born there is beyond the scope of archeology. It may not justify mob destruction of Babri Masjid, but to me it strongly qualifies the condemnation of such violence. If such violence is a response to previous violence of a very similar nature done centuries before, that is surely a different thing than instigating violence for the first time. If there was a temple on the site, destroyed to build the mosque, then the events of 1992 were a reclamation of a site of worship, destroyed in the 16th century — reclamation through extrajudicial violence, which is widely condemned in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, but nevertheless reclamation. If there was not a temple prior to Babri, then it is the erroneous beliefs of Hindus leading to the destruction of a Muslim place of worship. Those are entirely different stories. In the first instance the building of the new temple is restoration of something that was destroyed centuries ago. In the second instance the building of the new temple is based on erroneous belief and victimizing the Muslim community based on erroneous belief.
The failure of 58% of articles in the top 50 search results to mention that the Indian courts ordered land be given for the construction of a new mosque to replace Babri Masjid, in compensation of its destruction, considering that the same courts condemned the violence that led to that, is similarly a critical omission. Not including this facet of the history makes it seem as the entire apparatus of the Indian government — executive, parliament, judiciary alike — is backing in an unqualified manner the construction of the new Ram Mandir. That isn’t the case. The order that land be granted for the construction of a new mosque and at the same acknowledging that the destruction of Babri Masjid through mob violence was wrong, is a highly qualified permission and takes on the events of the past three decades. It is an attempt to balance the needs and desires of two communities with a highly contentious history when it comes to this site in Ayodhya. It attempts to make amends for historical wrongs by providing a solution that hopefully will lessen the chances of those wrongs continuing into the future. That interpretation — and I acknowledge there could be others regarding the court’s motivations and actions — could nevertheless only be made by readers if they were presented with the fact that such a decision had been made in the first place.
CONCLUSION
Going into this analysis, based on those articles I had initial seen, I suspected that many publications were covering the opening of the new Ram Mandir with the 1992 destruction of Babri Masjid as the starting point, as well as viewing presenting the temple inauguration through a lens of Hindu nationalism asserting itself at the expense of India’s Muslims. More systematic articles published that rose to the top of search results bore out that initial instinct as correct, and then some.
That there was editorial direction in leading news outlets to portray the new Ram Mandir as a profoundly negative event, intended to victimize the Indian Muslim community, is obvious in the coverage from Al Jazeera and Time in particular. The Guardian, as their own editorial states and coverage indicated, was similarly against the temple and hostile towards the current Government of India and Hindu nationalism.
Somewhat surprising were two things:
1) The BBC, which has historically been perceived by many people in the Hindu advocacy space as showing bias or sensationalism in its coverage of India and Hinduism, was objectively neutral in tone in all its coverage on this particular issue. It was no better than other publications in including a more full historical accounting of the site, but it was nevertheless neutral and accurate in those top searching articles.
2) That the coverage of Indian news media was so universally neutral in tone. Given that the temple opening and all the events that have led to it over the centuries have genuinely been contentious, to the point of violence some three decades ago, I had expected much more partisanship in coverage, both positive and negative, of the temple opening. Rather, apart from one very positive opinion piece, those articles from India sources that were top searching were paragons of straight factual reporting. That this contrasts so strongly with the vitriol against the temple opening published in some of the Western media, and directed at Western audiences, is remarkable.
