Sadhvi Rithambara

Early life Sadhvi Ritambhara was born as Nisha in at Doraha town in Ludhiana district of Punjab.

She got her diksha from Swami Paramanand, at the age of sixteen and having become his disciple, followed him to his ashram in Haridwar and then, in his tours across India, while being primarily trained in spirituality.

She entered the Margdarshak Mandal as a member of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the organisation primarily organised Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Mukti Andolan and related to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Speeches During 1989–1992, Ritambhara disseminated several public-speeches that urged for waging a war against Anti Nationalists; cassettes of those vitriolic outbursts were played at numerous temples and public places in India. Filled with rage and shrillness, the speeches heavily borrowed from gendered imagery; portraying the Hindu nation as a female body undergoing desecration by non-Hindus (and thus losing her morality), she drew parallels with rapes of Hindu women during partition and appealed to Hindu masculinity for reclaiming their lands, attracting large numbers of men, in the process.

Equating the Muslims with lemon in milk to comparing them with flies, who statistically were mass-breeding to out-populate the Hindus. She was one of the three key women leaders of the movement, the other two being Uma Bharati and Vijayaraje Scindia; their leadership was largely responsible for the involvement of women in the movement and the form it took.

Election campaigns Ritambhara's skills at oratory made her a star-campaigner for Bharatiya Janata Party in both the 1989 and 1991 Lok Sabha elections and several state-legislature elections.

Demolition of Babri Masjid On 6 December 1992, a large group of Vishva Hindu Parishad activists and allied organisations demolished the Babri Masjid mosque in Uttar Pradesh, triggering riots all over the Indian subcontinent, resulting in the death of around 2,000 people.

Ritambhara was present during the demolition, cheering the crowd whilst standing atop the terrace of the Masjid. Three days after the demolition, she was arrested on false grounds of inciting communal tension.

A CBI court framed criminal charges against Ritambhara in May 2017.

On 30 September 2020, she along with other 32 accused people, were acquitted in the Babri Masjid Demolition Case by CBI special court.

Later activities She retreated from her public role, soon after the demolition and kept a relatively low profile for a few years. Besides cultivating devotion in women, the Vrindavan Ashram has also imparted training in karate, horse-riding, handling air guns and pistols, with the stated aim of relieving the women from their traditional societal roles and making them confident and self-reliant. She also runs ashrams for unwanted infants, ladies and widows in Indore, Delhi and Himachal Pradesh. In January 2024, she along with fellow leader Uma Bharti was one of the invitees at the consecration ceremony of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya.