The Hindu Ram temple, a symbol of Modi’s electoral power in India

Before entering the Ram temple, in the city of Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh), it is mandatory to take off your shoes, get rid of cell phones, backpacks, cameras and any electronic device and merge with the colorful river of people that ascends towards the entrance. At midday it is around 40ºC and the ground, under the scorching sun, cuts like blades on the bare soles of the feet. After passing through the security arches, you get the first image of the complex, built on a sandy stone of pink tones. The newly arrived parishioners raise their arms and exclaim: “Glory to the god Ram!” Next, two gold lacquered doors, with the relief of elephants, give access to the inner chamber, which houses the statue of one of the deities that arouses the greatest devotion in India. “Glory to Ram!” the visitors shout again before the idol. Dozens of people gather to admire it. Hindus believe that this is the exact point of his birth. The figure is black, has been decorated with jewels and flower crowns, and has an inscrutable face.

The temple, recently inaugurated and still under construction, has its roots deep in a spiral of bloody religious conflicts. The construction of the new Hindu sanctuary began in 2020, after a controversial decision by the Supreme Court. The high court allowed the Ram temple to be erected on the site of the ancient 16th century Babri Masjid mosque, which was demolished in 1992 by a mob of Hindu radicals. Its destruction sparked an outbreak of communal violence that left some 2,000 dead across the country, most of them Muslims.

In January this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the consecration of the venue at an event attended by 7,000 guests, including Bollywood celebrities, prominent athletes, business tycoons and spiritual leaders. The opposition criticized the Government for breaking with the secularism required by the constitution and fanning the dangerous hornet’s nest of sectarian division for electoral purposes. The elections were just around the corner and the recovery of the Ram temple has been one of the great battles of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The inauguration almost served as the starting signal for the largest and longest electoral process on the planet.

The voting rounds, to which 970 million people were called, started on April 19 and concluded this Saturday. At the end of the day (mainland Spain time) the exit polls were released giving Modi’s allies more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament ((exceeding 350 out of 543 seats). The opposition, which has questioned the polls, would move between 125 and 182 seats. “Indian citizens have voted in record numbers to re-elect the Government,” President Modi celebrated on social networks. The results will not be known until Tuesday.

For many of its voters, the inauguration of the temple has been decisive. Inside, politics and religion seem to merge. When you ask visitors who they expect to win the election, they don’t hesitate. “Narendra Modi,” one replies, pointing towards the shrine. “This place belongs to the Hindus,” add Jyoti Gupta, 30, and her husband, Rahul, 35. “All Indians are happy.” They have come to the temple to celebrate Jyoti’s birthday. They voted a few days ago: for Modi. And they confess their gratitude to the BJP for having promoted the recovery. “No one else could have done it.”

In the background, you can hear the incessant noise of construction. Two huge cranes dominate the scene. The walls are covered with scaffolding. There are workers in yellow helmets everywhere. “We were not happy with an Islamic temple here,” says one of them. Another says that visitors often try to touch their feet. “They think we are blessed.” Master craftsmen are seen tirelessly carving the reliefs on the columns: geometric shapes, floral motifs, the gods Ram, Shiva and Hanuman on the stone brought from the province of Rajasthan.

The temple, which receives between 100,000 and 150,000 visitors daily, has boosted religious tourism in a city of 2.5 million inhabitants. The streets next to the place of worship are abuzz where the saffron tone of Hinduism predominates; the Ram stamp sellers, the demon traffic of motorcycles and rickshaw, the monkeys that climb the ledges. Among the alleys you can also see stark poverty, children bathing with water from the pumps and dogs drinking from putrid puddles. But the development linked to tourism is obvious. There are hotels that smell like fresh paint, the train station and the new airport have just been inaugurated. Already on the flight from Delhi you can feel the air of religious festivity. “Glory to Ram!” passengers shout as they take off and land. According to one of the travelers, Dr. Vishal Mishra, 44: “Rama is the symbol of Bharat,” he says, using the place name for India promoted by Hindu nationalists. He is a BJP voter.

The ruling party’s promotion of the Hindu agenda has not been peaceful. During Modi’s decade in power, human rights organizations have denounced increasing harassment of minorities in a country where 80% of the population is Hindu, and Muslims, who number 172 million people, are 14.2 %. “Government officials, political leaders and supporters of the BJP – the ruling political party at the federal level – advocated hate and violence against religious minorities, particularly Muslims, with impunity, leading to an increase in hate crimes.” ”Amnesty International reiterates in its report on 2023. The setbacks in the rule of law have been one of the points on which the electoral strategy of the opposition, led by the Congress Party, has gravitated. Its leaders have accused the BJP of seeking a sufficient majority to remove the word “secular” from the Constitution – something the party has denied.

The clashes around the temple date back to 1949, when a group of Hindu believers placed sculptures of their faith inside the mosque. The authorities decreed the closure of the Islamic temple and since then, Muslims have never been allowed to enter. The Hindus, on the other hand, have been allowed to enter to feed their god: they believed that he had been hungry for centuries. Santosh Ji Maharaj, 53, one of the priests at the Ram temple, began feeding him in 1992, when he was appointed to the post, as he remembers sitting on the bed in his house. That same year the demolition took place, which he experienced as a direct witness: he tells how he was in charge of rescuing his sculptures of faith before they could be damaged. His story suggests that this was an organized event led by members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an extremist organization linked to the BJP. “They came with the intention of demolishing the mosque or dying,” he says.

After the demolition, both communities filed numerous lawsuits for possession of the place. In 2019, the Supreme Court entrusted the site exclusively to Hindus and ordered the State to grant an alternative location in Ayodhya to the Muslim community. The mosque is being built these days 35 kilometers away, so far away that many Muslims do not want to know anything about it.

“The Hindus of Bharat cannot express their happiness in words,” says the priest. He calls the Ram temple issue “the most important” for his religious community. “If something belongs to your father and they take it from you, when you get it back, you are happy.” Hence its relevance for many voters: the BJP is the party that has contributed the most to “accelerating” the Supreme Court’s decision, he assures. When asked about complaints from human rights organizations about how the message of hate from Hindu politicians and religious people has increased violence in recent years, he responds that Hindus have suffered even more in the past. “Now that the BJP has come to power, Muslims gangsters “They have been put under control, and it may appear that they are the victims.” Santosh Ji Maharaj believes that where there is a Muslim majority it “creates problems for Hindus”. He adds that in the Koran it is written that followers of other religions must be killed or tried to convert them. When questioned about the accuracy of the quote, he begins to talk about disputes between branches of Islam, and calls from spiritual leaders to kill infidels. Hinduism, he adds, is in the process of opening up, trying to seek happiness and harmony.

The room in which he receives is also an example of how religion and politics embrace each other: on the walls there are photographs hanging with an Indian president, a minister president, a minister vice president and a governor of the State; all of them from the BJP. And he assures that Modi was the right person to lead the consecration. “The prime minister is also a kind of priest. “He performs yoga, the prayers he does are Hindu,” says the religious. After 500 years, he has resolved what he considers the greatest struggle of his faith. “If he is not the right person to give the speech, then who?” He likens Modi to “a king” of India.

Iqbal Ansari, 55, a Muslim citizen who litigated for years to defend the right to keep the Babri Masjid mosque on its original site, says they lost the case “on the basis of faith.” There was no choice but to abide by the verdict, he adds. “We gave up in order to maintain the peace and diversity of the country.” He also remembers the acts of violence of 1992; In Ayodhya, 12 people of the Islamic faith that he knew were murdered, he claims, and numerous houses in this community were attacked and burned.

His obsession, he adds, has been to prevent the violent spiral from repeating itself. “Our religion teaches us to be patient.” He agreed to go as a guest to the consecration ceremony. Many criticized the gesture. Ansari believes there was no other option for the sake of social harmony. He often speaks cryptically. He knows that his words can be misinterpreted and tense the situation. He has his legs crossed on the bed at the entrance to his house, located in the neighborhood next to the temple. Behind him, hanging on the wall, is a British Library photograph of the mosque around 1900, with the three rounded domes that no longer exist.

Mohammed Irfan-Ansari, a 45-year-old Muslim tailor, whose house, located next to the temple, was looted in 1992, blames the BJP government for destroying “the harmony and diversity” they used to have. “The situation today is much worse than before,” he adds, before running towards a small mosque in the neighborhood.

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