By David Asta Alares
New Delhi, Dec 29 (EFE).- A Hindu temple in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, newly built on the remains of a Muslim mosque, is taking center stage in Indian politics ahead of its controversial inauguration on Jan. 22.
Workers are putting the finishing touches to the temple dedicated to the Hindu god Ram at a site revered by Hindus as the deity’s birthplace.
They are also giving a facelift to the pilgrimage city of Ayodhya, which was dilapidated when the Supreme Court permitted the temple’s construction in 2019.
Indian Prime Minister and Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi is scheduled to travel to Ayodhya on Saturday to inaugurate a set of infrastructure projects valued at over 1.2 billion euros. The projects include a new airport and a renovated train station, featuring architecture inspired by the temple.
The construction of the temple is hailed as a triumph for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which spearheaded unrest in the 1990s that culminated in the destruction of the Babri mosque by Hindu extremists.
The Babri mosque, built in the 16th century by the Mughal emperor Babar, was demolished in 1992, triggering deadly violence between Hindu and Muslim communities that killed around 2,000 people.
“Modi is seen as the person who will finally deliver the temple and he is the one who did the bhoomi puja or laid the foundation ceremony with very formalized and structured Hindu rituals,” Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an analyst and author of a book on the controversial temple, tells EFE.
The BJP has already incorporated the temple’s construction into its electoral campaign for the 2024 general elections, to be held between April and May.
The party said on X (formerly twitter), “Ram ji will bestow wisdom, and Modi will return” as prime minister for the third consecutive term, having come to power in 2014.
However, critics warn that the triumphant inauguration of the Ram temple where a prominent Muslim mosque used to stand could lead to another wave of unrest.
“I think we are going to have a long period of turbulence because one by one the Muslims are going to feel disempowered because their mosques will be targeted in a large number of cities and towns in the country,” Mukhopadhyay says.
The trend is already evident in the ongoing legal disputes over the Gyanvapi mosque in the ancient city of Benares and another in Mathura. In both cases, Hindu extremists claim the mosques were built on the sites of destroyed temples.
The distribution of invitations for the temple’s inauguration on Jan. 22 has brought the issue to the forefront of Indian politics in recent days.
Few opposition parties have expressed interest in participating in the inauguration, which they view as a promotional event for the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological father of Modi’s party.
“It is most unfortunate that the BJP and RSS have converted a religious ceremony into a state-sponsored event directly involving the Prime Minister, the UP Chief Minister, and other government functionaries,” the Communist Party of India (I) said in a statement.
I is one of the few parties that has clearly said it will not take part in the ceremony. In a country where 80% of the 1.4 billion population is Hindu, few parties dare to offend sentiments on an issue as popular as the construction of the Ram temple.
The Indian National Congress (INC), the main opposition party, has remained silent, with its senior divided on whether they will attend.
INC’s senior member and parliamentarian, Shashi Tharoor, said that he would miss the ceremony, urging the ruling BJP not to use the temple inauguration as “a stage for political theater.”
“I would love to visit the Ram temple one day, but not during a grand political extravaganza like the inauguration and not before the elections, so that no political statement is read into my going,” Tharoor said in a statement.
However, other have suggested that high-ranking INC will attend the inauguration. EFE
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