 |
| On Jan. 22, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a three-story monument made of marble, sandstone, and teak that features 44 gates and 392 intricately-carved pillars. |
Nearly four years after the Supreme Court paved the way for
the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, thousands of devotees will finally
get a glimpse of the newly-built Nagara-style temple on the day during the
grand consecration ceremony in the holy town.
An idol of Ram Lalla (5-year-old deity) will be installed in
the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra
Modi and other dignitaries during a sacred ceremony, guided by saints and
seers. The public will be able to seek darshan of the deity after the morning
of January 27.
But the structure, built on a vast 70-acre plot, may be the
least remarkable part of the new Ayodhya temple. Its controversial inauguration
atop the ruins of a 16th-century mosque marks the culmination of a three-decade
promise made by Modi, his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and other Hindu
nationalist groups—and serves as the biggest political testament yet to Hindu
supremacy over Indian Muslims.
Ayodhya is a town in northern India that, for centuries, was
home to the Babri Masjid. The mosque was built in 1527 by a general associated
with the Mughal Emperor Babur and was a rare surviving example of the
architecture of the early Mughal Empire, which ruled parts of India from the
16th to 19th centuries. Muslims, India’s largest religious minority, worshipped
in the mosque for more than 300 years without issue.
In the 1850s, when India was largely under British colonial
rule, the first signs of trouble arose as the Babri Masjid emerged as a key
site of Hindu nationalist attempts to rectify perceived historical wrongs by
Muslims, an idea inherited from British colonialists. Hindus claimed that Lord
Ram, a major god and mythological hero, had been born at the very spot on which
the mosque stood.
Competing claims of Ram’s birthplace were once attached to
many sites in Ayodhya, but the Babri Masjid drew particular fervor because it
was a mosque. Some imagined further historical wrongs associated with the Babri
Masjid, including claiming that the mosque was built after Babur’s general
destroyed a Hindu temple at that location.
None of these claims stand up to historical scrutiny. But in
the 1980s, Hindu nationalist groups began tapping into these claims to argue
that the mosque needed to be destroyed to clear the way for a new Hindu temple,
declaring Mandir wahi banayenge (“The temple will be built right there!”).
After years of agitation, their efforts resulted in an
explosion of Islamophobic violence on Dec. 6, 1992, when a Hindu mob numbering
at least 75,000 descended on Ayodhya and dismantled the Babri Masjid,
brick-by-brick. The mob’s anti-Muslim iconoclasm extended to people, and many
Muslims in Ayodhya fled the city that day, fearing for their lives.
In the days that followed, communal riots that rocked
various Indian cities claimed about 2,000 lives, most of them Muslim. A
subsequent report commissioned by the Indian government found dozens of
people—many of whom are now BJP political leaders—responsible for orchestrating
and encouraging the attacks.
Still, the event will be marked by conspicuous absences.
Leaders of the opposition Congress party will skip the festivities, in protest
over what they rightly see as a consecration that is more a political ploy than
a religious ceremony.
Even some Hindu leaders agree, arguing that the Ayodhya
temple cannot be consecrated since it remains incomplete, and therefore
violates Hindu scriptures. They also object to the participation of divisive
political figures like Modi.
Yet the Indian Prime Minister is pressing ahead with
inaugurating an incomplete temple—even at the price of alienating Hindu
religious leaders—because of India’s May 2024 general election in which the BJP
hopes to secure another national victory. If history is any guide, this tactic
of harnessing majoritarian sentiment for political gain may well succeed.
The Ayodhya temple’s inauguration portends dark times ahead
not just for India’s Muslims but also many Hindus who remain committed to
pluralism and tolerance. Hindu supremacists have long sought to reduce the
broad-based Hindu religious tradition to their hateful political ideology. The
Ayodhya temple is a sizeable step toward that goal.
Muslims are second-class citizens in Modi’s India, regularly
subjected to human rights violations. Freedom House now classifies India—once
heralded as the world’s largest democracy—only “partly free” on account of the
“rise in persecution affecting the Muslim population.” And there are signs that
the Ayodhya temple may only mark a new era of the Hindu supremacist war on
mosques.
There are numerous cases in Indian courts seeking to demolish more of them in favor of building Hindu temples in Varanasi, Mathura, and other cities. Such demolitions may unleash more violence on India’s beleaguered Muslim minority, and further cement the feeling that the country is for Hindus, and Hindus alone.
