Ramlila Maidan also Ramlila Ground is a playground located in New Delhi

New Delhi

New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. It is used for religious festival

Religious festival

A religious festival is a time of special importance marked by adherents to that religion. Religious festivals are commonly celebrated on recurring cycles in a calendar year or lunar calendar...

s, major political rallies and meetings, and entertainment

Entertainment

Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreation...

 events. It is located near New Delhi Railway Station

New Delhi Railway Station

The New Delhi Railway Station , station code NDLS, situated between Ajmeri Gate and Paharganj is the main railway station in Delhi. New Delhi railway station is the second busiest and one of the largest in India. It handles over 300 trains each day with 16 platforms and about 360,000 passengers...

 and Delhi Gate

Delhi Gate (Delhi)

Delhi Gate is the southern gate of one of the many gates of the historic walled city of Delhi, or Shahjahanabad. The gate links the New Delhi city with the old walled city of Delhi...

.

History

The Ramilila Maidan was originally a large pond before 1930. It was filled up in the early 1930s so that annual Ramlila could be shifted here from the flood plains behind Red Fort. It quickly became a popular site for political meetings, with Gandhiji, 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

Jayaprakash Narayan

Jayaprakash Narayan

Jayaprakash Narayan , widely known as JP Narayan, Jayaprakash, or Loknayak, was an Indian independence activist and political leader, remembered especially for leading the opposition to Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and for giving a call for peaceful Total Revolution...

 along with prominent Opposition leaders, addressed a mammoth rally with over a lakh people participating on June 25, 1975. This was the first protest in Ramlila Maidan, which was against Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi

Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...

'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(opposition) leaders came on a common platform of to form Janata Party

Janata Party

The Janata Party was an amalgam of Indian political parties opposed to the state of emergency imposed by the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her Indian National Congress...

. The Joint rally was held at Ramlila and was lead by several opposition leaders Jagjivan Ram

Jagjivan Ram

Babu Jagjivan Ram , known popularly as Babuji, was a freedom fighter and a social reformer hailing from the scheduled castes of Bihar in India. He was from the Chamar caste and was a leader for his community...

, Morarji Desai

Morarji Desai

Morarji Ranchhodji Desai was an Indian independence activist and the fourth Prime Minister of India from 1977–79. He was the first Indian Prime Minister who did not belong to the Indian National Congress...

, Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Atal Bihari Vajpayee is an Indian statesman who served as the tenth Prime Minister of India three times – first for a brief term of 13 days in 1996, and then for two terms from 1998 to 2004. After his first brief period as Prime Minister in 1996, Vajpayee headed a coalition government from...

, Charan Singh and Chandra Shekhar

Chandra Shekhar

Chandra Shekhar Singh was the eighth Prime Minister of India.-Early years:He was born on 1 July 1927 to a Rajput farming family in Ibrahimpatti - Ballia in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Chandra Shekhar Singh did his Master of Arts at Allahabad University. He was known as a firebrand in student politics...

. 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

Shahi imam

The Shahi Imam is the Imam of New Delhi's Jama Masjid. He is the de facto Sheikh-ul-Islam of the Muslims of India....

, Bukhari Senior, who had extended their backing to the Janata Party.

Ramlila Maidan was also venue for Swami Ramdev

Swami Ramdev

Swami Ramdev is popularly known as Baba Ramdev. This young monk has attained immence popularity in a very short span of time. His yog-camps are attended by a large number of people in India and abroad...

 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 (IST) to evict them.

See also

• Ramlila Maidan protests - Protests in June 2011 at Ramlila maidan.
• 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement
  2011 Indian anti-corruption movement
  The 2011 Indian anti-corruption movement is a series of ongoing demonstrations and protests across India intended to establish strong legislation and enforcement against endemic political corruption...
  
  - Protests in August 2011 at Ramlila maidan.