The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, inaugurated this January 22 a large temple to the god Ram, in a place where Hindu tradition believes he was born. A historic event for the predominant religion in the most populous nation in the world, considered by Modi as the beginning of “a new era” in his country. But this is the latest chapter in a 500-year religious conflict between Muslims and Hindus, since the temple was built on the site where a mosque stood more than 30 years ago that was demolished by Hindu fanatics. The controversial inauguration of the shrine is seen as an unofficial start to Modi's campaign for re-election this year.
For many, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to rub salt in a 500-year-old religious wound partly for electoral reasons.
“January 22, 2024 is not just a date on the calendar, but it heralds the advent of a new era”said Modi as he inaugurated a Hindu temple with great fanfare in the state of Uttar Pradesh, in northern India, this Monday, January 22.
But it is not just any temple, since it is the Ram Mandir, which Hindu nationalists have been demanding for decades, much to the dismay of the Muslim minority in this region.
In fact, the Ram Mandir was built in the city of Ayodhya, precisely where the Babri mosque was located. The story of the destruction of this Muslim place of worship and the construction of the Hindu temple represents a synthesis of the religious tensions that run through India. and illustrates how Narendra Modi and his party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), benefit.
Birthplace of King Rama
Tensions grow in an election year. The inauguration of the temple by the premier is considered “the cornerstone of his campaign” for the legislative elections from April to May, says Sumantra Bose, an Indian political scientist.
The construction of the Ram Mandir temple had been awaited since 1990 by Hindu nationalists, who form the electoral base of the BJP. At that time, and since 1529, it was the Babri mosque that was located in Ayodhya, but it was in the sights of the most fervent supporters of the BJP movement.
Hindu fundamentalists claim the mosque was built on the birthplace of King Rama, one of the central figures of Hinduism. “It represents the wise and benevolent king par excellence,” says Sumantra Bose.
“It is very important, especially in Uttar Pradesh and in part of the Hindi belt (which includes nine states in northern and central India, where Hindi is the official language),” adds Amalendu Misra, a political scientist at Lancaster University, who has written about the battle for the construction of the Ram Mandir temple.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist paramilitary group of which the BJP is a political branch, has made the recovery of this place “a central element of its mobilization effort,” says Bose. A campaign that culminated on December 6, 1992 with the destruction of the mosque, attacked by a crowd of Hindu fanatics, fueled by RSS propaganda.
A turning point in the history of Muslim-Hindu relations in India
Sectarian violence then broke out, killing around 2,000 people, mostly Muslims.. For some historians, this episode “represents a turning point in the history of relations between Muslims and Hindus in India”, as Amalendu Misra wrote, in 'The Conversation'.
A politically relevant temple
The BJP, for its part, benefited greatly from the destruction of the mosque. The party, until then almost non-existent on the Indian electoral map, achieved an impressive advance during the general elections of the 1990s, going from two elected representatives in 1984 to more than 160 in 1996.
But there was still no temple for the glory of Rama. It would take more than twenty years for the Indian Justice to resolve the conflict between Muslims and Hindus in favor of the latter.
“The Supreme Court gave a great gift to Narendra Modi in 2019,” underlines Bose, who noted that the destruction of the mosque was illegal. However, Hindus were granted the right to build a temple there.
Then begins what Amalendu Misra calls a “national cause”, promoted by the Government, which has created a fund for the construction of the temple “financed largely by the Indian diaspora”, this expert emphasizes.
#WATCH | Ayodhya: Prime Minister Narendra Modi says, “This is a temple of national consciousness in the form of Ram. Ram is the faith of India, Ram is the foundation of India. Ram is the idea of India, Ram is the law of India. ..Ram is the prestige of India, Ram is the glory of… pic.twitter.com/kOUeC0h71F
— ANI (@ANI) January 22, 2024
All of Narendra Modi's talent will have been “taking the reins of the project and posing as its chief architect when he is not,” says Misra.
“The Indian Prime Minister has launched an entire propaganda machine around this inauguration to turn it into a kind of great moment of national gathering “with its usual sense of spectacle and staging,” Bose emphasizes.
The main objective is to win the hearts of the voters of the state of Uttar Pradesh. It is a crucial region for the next elections. “It sends more than 80 elected officials to Parliament, which means that almost 15% of the MPs come from Uttar Pradesh,” highlights Bose.
Narendra Modi's BJP hopes to obtain more than 60 seats in this state, a feat on which it is betting around the construction of the new temple, experts highlight.
Second Hindu Republic?
The emphasis placed on this inauguration is also due to the fact that the prime minister does not have much else to sell to the citizens. “In terms of narrative to mobilize his voters, he can hardly count on the economy, which has not improved much, while on the anti-poverty policy front there have been some flagship measures, but the general standard of living has not has undergone great changes,” says Amalendu Misra.
That is why he also needed to inaugurate the temple as soon as possible, completing construction until 2027 was too late to help the premier in his aspirations for re-election in this year's general elections.
This sumptuous ceremony – some regions have even declared January 22 a holiday, such as the state of Goa – “It also has a political meaning that goes beyond the simple electoral framework.”
It is no coincidence that Narendra Modi wants to associate himself with a mythical king like Rama, since “he seeks to distill the message that he would be a kind of 21st century version of this good and just leader,” analyzes Bose.
Furthermore, the country is also fast approaching celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of India, which dates back to January 25, 1950. The inauguration of the Ram Mandir temple “should allow Modi to give shape to the idea of which established a second nationalist and Hindu republic,” estimates Bose.
The temple is seen by some nationalist leaders as a religious center on a par with the Vatican, for Catholics, and Mecca, for Muslims, considering it “a symbol of Hindutva”, an idea that posits that Hindus are the true Hindus. Indians, and which has served as a basis to justify that other religious minorities do not belong to the nation.
Muslims, the big losers
It is also a “trap for the opposition,” reported the Qatari news channel 'Al Jazeera'. The Congress Party, the main opposition force, was very discreet at this inauguration, simply refusing to attend.
“There is no way for them to criticize this ceremony too much, otherwise they will be accused of anti-Hindu sentiment and being a party that only cares about the interests of Muslims,” explains Bose.
The latter are also the big losers in this matter. The Supreme Court granted them land on the outskirts of the city of Ayodhya in 2019. But “it is a place near a small town that no one has heard of,” indicates the Indian political scientist. Furthermore, the Muslims of India have not yet managed to raise the funds to start the construction of the new mosque.
It remains to be seen whether all this staging “will have the desired effect for Narendra Modi,” Misra wonders. In fact, the vast majority of Hindus in 2024 no longer have much in common with the generation of the 1990s, she points out.
“The demand for the construction of a new temple for Rama was partly a way for Hindus to express their feelings that the interests of their rulers did not take the community into account,” underlines the political scientist at Lancaster University.
10 years after Narendra Modi came to power, it is evident that this is no longer the case. There are always radical Hindus, “but for most young people the inauguration of a new temple is not of great importance,” concludes Misra.
This article was adapted from its original French version
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