Last Wednesday in Hyderabad felt like the day before a forecasted blizzard in Pennsylvania. More than one friend advised me and Ilana to go to the grocery store that night and stay off the streets the following day. Shops would close early, and school were planning half-days, despite being in the midst of quarterly exams.

The caution and closures weren’t because the weather was bringing us a freak snowstorm. Rather, Indian political winds were carrying the latest verdict in the decades-long court dispute over a religious site in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Hindu and Muslim groups both stake historical claims to the site, and the general population’s wariness about reactions to the decision are understandable. A mosque that had stood on the site since the 16th century. These groups identify the site as the birthplace of the Lord Ram and maintain that the mosque was built after a Muslim ruler destroyed a Hindu temple there. A Hindu mob destroyed the mosque in 1992 riots broke out across India. 2,000 people died. Another 50 people died in 2002 when a train carrying Hindu activists from Ayodhya was set on fire, “allegedly by a Muslim mob.” (BBC)

At the time of the verdict’s release Thursday, Ilana and I watched #Ayodhya reach number one on Twitter trending and also monitored live feeds from Indian news sites. The court’s website of course crashed and though our web viewing didn’t provide us with clear answers about the decision, the constant Twitter updates provided an interesting cultural window, as Tweeters declared their passion for one side or the other, joked about alternative resolutions, and made claims about the meaning of the decision for India as a growing nation.

By Friday the result was clear: the judges decided on a 3-way split of the site. Two thirds to Hindus, one third to Muslims. Riots didn’t happen, proving the violence meteorologists thankfully wrong. What I still want to learn, which probably can’t be written in 140 characters or less, is more about the political context and undercurrents of not only the court decision but the tensions that surround it. As so many examples around the world can tell us, conflicts that are touted as “religious strife” typically have deeper political and economic issues at their heart…