Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened a Hindu temple built on the ruins of a mosque in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya yesterday.
The temple is dedicated to the Hindu Lord Rama and is the fulfillment of the long-standing demands of millions of Hindus who worship this deity. Modi’s party and other Hindu nationalist groups have decided, at the request of the faithful, to build a temple that they present as central to the vision of the return of Hindu pride.
Modi, dressed in traditional attire, presided over the opening ceremony accompanied by religious chants by Hindu priests inside the shrine, where a 1.3-metre-tall stone sculpture of Lord Rama was installed last week.
A Hindu priest blew a conch shell to mark the opening of the temple, and Modi placed a lotus flower at the feet of a stone sculpture of Lord Rama holding a golden bow and arrow. Almost 7.500 people, including entrepreneurs, politicians, and movie stars, attended the ritual, which could also be watched on a huge screen set up in front of the temple, while soldiers dropped flower petals from the air from a helicopter.
The temple, located at one of India’s most vexed religious sites, is expected to boost Modi’s chances of returning to power by drawing on the religious sentiments of Hindus, who make up 80 percent of India’s population of 1.4 billion.
Officials say the temple, a three-story structure made of pink sandstone, will be open to the public after the ceremony and expect 100.000 devotees to visit daily. Builders are still working to complete the 46 complex gates and intricate wall carvings.
The temple has been a 35-year-long promise of Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), but for years it has been considered a contentious issue, as its location is claimed by both Hindus and minority Muslims. This is why protests broke out across the country in 1992, in which 2.000 people died, mostly Muslims, after the Hindus destroyed a mosque from the 16th century.
Photo ©️ EPA-EFE/INDIA PRESS INFORMATION BUREAU
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