Thirty-two years later, a large Hindu temple is taking shape on the hilltop where the mosque once stood – a different hall of worship rising in a much different India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday presided over a religious ceremony to dedicate the new $300 million temple to Lord Ram on the site of the destroyed mosque, marking not just a personal political victory but a triumph of his Hindu nationalist ideology over multicultural secularism. The vision espoused by India's founding fathers.
With a towering 160-foot dome and 71-acre grounds, the lavish temple project built on the disputed hill believed by many Hindus to be the birthplace of the god Lord Ram has been anticipated by weeks of extensive on-the-ground coverage. Pro-government television channels and in impassioned speeches by Bharatiya Janata Party politicians, who described her as a symbol of a new India proudly steeped in Hinduism, the faith of 80 percent of the population.
Intersections in New Delhi are covered with the saffron flag of Lord Ram. Schoolchildren participated in organized prayers to God. Shops selling meat, frowned upon in modern Hinduism, have been closed in some states. Government offices and hospitals were ordered to close for half a day on Monday morning to witness the consecration ceremony of 'Pran Pratishtha' – the infusion of soul into the temple body – which Modi personally supervised.
Raghavan Jagannathan, a right-wing commentator, said the temple's dedication represented a moment of triumph in which Hindus in India could proudly assert their identity after centuries of Muslim and British rule and decades of “self-hatred” under India's secular leaders after independence.
After India's independence, “Hindus got a brief end to secularism, where minorities could celebrate their religious identity, but the Hindu majority had to suppress their religious identity,” says Jagannathan, author of “Dharmic Nation,” a book about India's religious national character. “That's why you see widespread celebration now. This temple is a coming out party for Hindus who say: Finally I can be a Hindu without fear.”
But others say the state-supported religious celebrations show how much India under Modi has deviated from the vision of those who fought for freedom like Mohandas Gandhi, a champion of minority rights who often defended the safety of his Muslim fellow citizens when they fought for freedom. Riots broke out between Hindus and Muslims.
In recent days, Modi has prepared for the inauguration by praying at more than a dozen Hindu holy sites, wrapping himself in pure white robes and, according to his press office, sleeping on the floor and drinking only coconut water in accordance with the rules governing the inauguration. Hindu rituals.
The temple dedication and blanket media coverage are widely expected to give Modi a boost ahead of national elections expected in April, in which he is highly likely to win a third term. Several opposition parties said they would boycott Monday's event, and some prominent Hindu theologians known as Shankaracharya rebuked the prime minister for politicizing religion — and dedicating a yet-to-be-finished temple in violation of Hindu traditions.
But Modi, who has become India's most powerful and popular leader in decades by relying in part on his credentials as a devout Hindu nationalist, said he was backed by a higher power.
“God made me a representative of the people of India during the ceremony,” Modi told the country in a video this month that has garnered 4.2 million views on social media. “I ask for blessings from all of you.”
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, Modi's biographer, said Monday's event would mark “an era in which the prime minister will be the high priest of Hinduism, blurring all lines between religion and politics on the one hand, and between religion and the Indian state on the other.”
“We are on our way to becoming a de facto theocracy, with Hinduism becoming the official religion,” Mukhopadhyay added. “It will be very difficult for the country and its religious minorities to return to what they were experiencing before 2014.”
In some ways, the story of the controversial Ram Temple traces the rise of the Hindu nationalist movement, its most prominent political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party, and their efforts to transform India into a theocracy.
Jagannathan said that the BJP, as a fringe political party in the 1980s, gained national momentum by making the temple a major issue that boosted Hindu votes. Many Hindu nationalists have claimed that a Hindu temple existed on the site long before it was demolished by Muslim invaders in the 16th century to make way for a mosque built in the name of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire.
After BJP leaders raised awareness of the project during a 1990 nationwide rally partly organized by Modi – a youth party worker at the time – crowds on December 6, 1992, demolished the Babri Mosque, drawing international condemnation and apologies from party leaders. Bharatiya Janata Party. who expressed remorse.
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP leader who later became prime minister, said he felt “remorse, suffering and pain” and was considering resigning from the party's leadership. Lal Krishna Advani, the hardline BJP president who led marches across the country demanding the construction of a Ram temple, described the mosque's demolition as “the saddest day of my life” in his later memoirs.
But this sense of remorse faded in the following decades as the BJP's Hindu-first politics came to dominate Indian politics. In 2019, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that a Hindu temple could be built on top of the hill. Modi, who was resoundingly re-elected that year after an intense Hindu nationalist campaign, laid the foundation stone at the construction site in 2020 as work began.
The success of the Ram Temple project has given new impetus to Hindu nationalists, who say other mosques across the country should be demolished and replaced with temples to settle historical grievances. In recent weeks, Hindu activists in Uttar Pradesh, the state that includes Ayodhya, have renewed their calls to check whether the Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi and the Shahi Idgah Mosque in Mathura were built over older Hindu temples destroyed by Muslim invaders.
Other leaders of India's right wing have set their sights further. This week, Mohan Yadav, the BJP's chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, said the Ram Temple project gave hope to those who believe in reviving the Indian civilization that stretched from modern Pakistan to Bangladesh, a revanchist idea known as “Akhand Bharat.” Greater India.
“It is God's will that the construction of Lord Ram temple will definitely be a big step towards Akhand Bharat,” Yadav said on Saturday. “If not today, then tomorrow”
