More than three decades after a mob of militant Hindu radicals razed a mosque to the ground in the Indian town of Ayodhya, the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has inaugurated the new Hindu temple that will stand in its place.
For some, the inauguration marks a hugely significant religious moment. Many Hindus believe Ayodhya to be the birthplace of the popular deity Lord Ram and the building of the temple, after over a century of disputes, has been heralded as Ram returning to his rightful place, and India freeing itself from the chains of past religious occupation.
Modi himself called it the fulfilment of “the dream that many have cherished for years”. At the Prana Pratishtha, Monday’s rituals to consecrate the temple and give offerings and blessings to the idol of the young Lord Ram placed in the inner sanctum, Modi took on a starring role, having spent the past 11 days observing a special purification ritual to prepare.
The consecration of the Ram temple became a national event, with 8,000 official guests including politicians, diplomats, Bollywood stars and holy figures, while hundreds of thousands of pilgrims flocked to Ayodhya from across the country to show their devotion to the new temple and Lord Ram. The town also underwent a $3bn government-funded transformation and was garlanded with flowers, saffron flags, images of Ram and billboards of Modi.
Arjun Kumar, 22, a driver, had spent the past 20 days on a pilgrimage walking the 466 miles (750km) from Delhi to Ayodhya. “I consider it as the most important journey of my life,” he said. “Many of my friends were afraid to take this journey but we are followers of Lord Ram and Narendra Modi, no one can stop us. I think every Hindu should walk up to here to send a message that this country belongs to us and no one can stop us.”
After the ceremony, devotees flocked to be close to Ram Mandir. Bharat Patel, 52, a herbal medicine seller from Gujarat, said: “On reaching here and looking at the temple, I collapsed and cried. I can say we felt heaven here. This is a proud moment for Hindus of the entire world.”
Others boycotted the ceremony, accusing Modi of orchestrating the event for political gain before elections in the spring, where he will seek a third term in power.
The demolition of the mosque in 1992 paved the way for Hindu nationalism to become the dominant political force it is today, and the pledge to build a Ram Temple in Ayodhya has been at the core of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party’s (BJP) political agenda to establish Hindu supremacy in India.
The temple will not be complete until next year, prompting some Hindu holy figures to object to it being inaugurated early. Alongside Modi, the few others to take part in Monday’s temple consecration ceremony were Yogi Adityanath, the hardline Hindu monk and BJP chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and Mohan Bagwat, the head of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the rightwing Hindu paramilitary organisation that birthed the BJP.
Kapil Komireddi, the author of Malevolent Republic: A Short History of New India, said the close alignment between the prime minister and the Ram temple was indicative of the threat posed by the BJP to India as a secular republic whose constitution enshrines all religions as equal.
“This is a purely political spectacle, the culmination of a 40-year political project – one that has been achieved through great violence,” said Komireddi. “It is the coronation of Hinduism as India’s state religion and the crowning moment for the cult of personality erected around Modi. I see this as a very sad moment for India.”
Disputes over the holy site in Ayodhya date back over a century. A mosque, Babri Masjid, had been built there in 1528 by the Mughal emperor Babur, one of the Muslim leaders who ruled India for almost 500 years, but Hindus later began to push for the right to worship at what they believed was the birthplace of Lord Ram.
Muslims continued to worship at Babri Masjid until 1949, when the issue was taken up by a small hardline Hindu group, who alleged that a temple had previously stood at the site and pledged to “liberate” the land and rebuild it. After an idol of Ram was placed in the mosque, allegedly by a Hindu priest, its gates were locked.
The campaign among rightwing Hindu groups to reclaim Ayodhya and build a temple began to build momentum again in the 1980s. By 1990, the leaders of the BJP – back then an emerging political party – threw their weight behind the movement, leading marches to Ayodhya.
In December 1992, as a mob marched into Ayodhya and began to tear down the mosque using sledgehammers, axes and iron rods, bringing it to the ground within hours, several senior BJP figures were present.
In November 2019, the supreme court declared the destruction illegal but awarded the land title to the Hindu side. No one has been convicted for the demolition or the violence in Ayodhya that followed it, which killed 17 Muslims in the town and set off riots across the country that left more than 2,000 people dead.
For Shri Mahant Dharamdas Akhil, 75, a Hindu priest and student of the priest who allegedly placed the Ram idol in the mosque in 1949, the inauguration of the temple on Monday was a culmination of a cause he had dedicated his life to and “one of the most important days in India’s history”.
He was among those who took part in the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992, which he described as a “just cause”, and was also a petitioner in the supreme court case. “It was not only us who brought down that structure, there was divine intervention from God,” he said. “This temple of Ram will now become one of the most important places in Hinduism in all of the world.”
Yet for the Muslims of Ayodhya, many of whom lost relatives or had their homes destroyed in 1992 amid the violence that broke out around the mosque demolition, Monday’s ceremony only brought up old trauma and fear.
Abdul Wahid Qureshi, 44, a shopkeeper, recalled that day in 1992, when the rightwing Hindu mob went on a rampage through his locality, killing any Muslims in their path. Among those who died was his neighbour, a frail elderly man who was burned alive in his home. Qureshi survived the violence only because a Hindu living close by gave them shelter.
“I can never forget those gory scenes,” he said. “They burned down everything which had any resemblance of Muslims. That day changed everything for us as Muslims in Ayodhya. We returned after a couple of weeks and my father managed to build a new house. But since then, the sense of security is gone.”
Qureshi said many Muslims were fearful that as hundreds of thousands of outsiders would continue to flock into Ayodhya, they would once again become a target. Half the Muslim households were deserted as the temple festivities took place. “All this takes me back to 1992,” he said. “I am afraid, like all other Muslims here, what will happen to us after the dignitaries are gone and security is lifted.”
Anwari Begum, whose husband was dismembered and killed by the mob in 1992, said she had never received justice for his death. “But I have made peace with it in the larger good,” she said. “If construction of the temple will bring peace here, I will stop asking for justice in the killing of my husband.”
