The Ramilila Maidan was originally a large pond before 1930. It was filled up in the early 1930s so that annual Ramlila, held in October, could be shifted here from the reti floodplains of Yamuna River behind the Red Fort, where Hindu soldiers of the Mughal army first started staging the Ramila in the 1800s. Geographically the ground falls between the Old Delhi and the New Delhi. The historic Turkman Gate of the Old city stands nearby, and the ground stretches between Aruna Asaf Ali Marg and Jawaharlal Nehru Road. It quickly became a popular site for political meetings, with Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and other top nationalist leaders addressing rallies here. A small pond is still there inside the Ramlila ground as a remembrance of its history.
Historical Events
In 1961, then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru held a public gathering welcoming Queen Elizabeth II during her state visit to India. On Republic Day, 1963 after India's defeat in Indo-China war, Lata Mangeshkar sang the patriotic song, "Aye Mere Watan Ke Logo" in the presence of Nehru. Two years later in 1965, at public gathering here, then prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave his slogan Jai Jawan Jai Kisan. Jayaprakash Narayan along with prominent Opposition leaders, addressed a mammoth rally with over a lakh people participating on 25 June 1975. This was the first protest in Ramlila Maidan, which was against Indira Gandhi's government. This was Jayaprakash Narayan last rally before he was arrested. Just after Emergency situation was removed in India, in February 1977, several anti-Congress leaders came on a common platform to form Janata Party. The Joint rally was held at Ramlila and was led by several opposition leaders Jagjivan Ram, Morarji Desai, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Charan Singh and Chandra Shekhar. Since Vajpayee had by then already acquired the reputation of a master orator, large crowds turned up to listen to him, as also the other speakers. The rally also a large number of Muslims had turned up to hear the Shahi Imam, Bukhari Senior, who had extended their backing to the Janata Party. The 2011 anti corruption demonstration of Anna Hazare and the 2013 as well as the 2015 oath ceremony of the Delhi chief ministerArvind Kejriwal also took place at the Ramlila Maidan.
The inauguration of Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad as the Grand Mufti of India took place on Sunday, 24 February 2019. The inauguration, which set a record attendance for any event held in Ramlila Maidan, marked the commencement of the term of Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad as Grand Mufti of India and President of the Islamic Community of India.
Recent Events
Ramlila Maidan was also venue for Swami Ramdev for his indefinite hunger strike on 4 June 2011 to bring back the black money stashed in tax havens abroad, which saw 65,000 odd supporters. However, the event came to highlight when Delhi Police on 6 June along with a large police force lobbed tear gas shells, burned the place and lathicharge the crowd at 1 am to evict them. 2011 again saw anti-corruption protests in the month of August; this time from the activist Anna Hazare. The month of November of the same year saw another gathering, this time mainly from the minorities under the banner Social Justice conference. The conference sought to build the nation on the ideals of social justice that the nation was lacking even after 6 decades of independence.
