Built on the site of a razed mosque, the Ram Temple represents the culmination of the century-long rule of the Hindu right.
The inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, the small northern Indian town that Hindus believe, by faith, to be the birthplace of Lord Ram, a Hindu deity, is a milestone in India’s republican history and a show.
This is a vital milestone as the prime minister of a theoretically secular republic, Narendra Modi, the master of ceremonies of this event. In little more than 30 years, India’s political elegance has gone from condemning the demolition of the mosque, in which the half-built temple once stood, to now rising as an act of sectarian vandalism, to celebrating it as the first act of reconstruction. Foundation of a republic that had hitherto been uprooted. The idol of the boy Ram installed in a temple erected on the site of a razed mosque will be the icon of this new Hindu nation.
This is a sideshow because the motion to build a Hindu temple in Ayodhya was never an end in itself; it was a means to an end, the public declaration of Hindu supremacy over India’s devout minorities, i. e. , Muslims. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s crusade for the Ram temple was a lever used to destroy the institutional safeguards of India’s nominally secular democracy.
In this, the BJP has succeeded. Its role in the destruction of Babri Masjid made it, at the end of the 20th century, the pan-Indian party of Hindu grievances. The killing of Ram temple activists during an exercise in 2002 (31 Muslim men were convicted of setting fire to the exercise) and the ensuing pogrom of Muslims gave Modi, then Gujarat’s leading minister, a chance to identify himself as the hammer. His political personality was influenced by the sacred symbolism of the temple and the profane satisfaction of making his position public to minorities.
It is this rapprochement that was celebrated today at the exhibition in Ayodhya. The names of the main visitors at the idol-laying ritual, published in full-page advertisements in newspapers, were a hint of the political theater the public can expect. list of the leading figures of the Hindu nationalist right: Prime Minister Modi Mohan Bhagwat, Rashtriya leader Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Yogi Adityanath, the militant Hindu monk who is prime minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP). to succeed Modi, and Anandiben Patel, governor of the BJP of the UP.
They are the only 4 public figures who provide the functionality of the consecration ritual in the sanctuary. Modi was at the forefront; Apparently, he was just one of the yajamanas, the buyers of the ritual at whose call the ritual was performed, however, for the camera, he was the one. Interestingly, the only user who was able to share the frame with Modi for up to the ritual was Bhagwat. This was fitting, because for his organization, the RSS, this moment of Hindu triumphalism has been brewing for nearly a century. Founded in 1925 to forge a Hindu nation, the RSS is the parent organization of Modi and the BJP. Bhagwat was there in his role as a Hindu political family man.
The idol that was consecrated was just 51 inches tall, deliberately smaller than an adult male because the Ram of this temple is a child. The symbolism of Modi’s part in the ritual was obvious: he was the Hindu regent who ruled on behalf of this beatific infant. And since the child will never grow up, Modi’s regency will endure.
Outside the sanctum, the campus of the half-built temple was crowded with an invited audience made up of religious ascetics, members of hardline Hindu organisations such as the Bajrang Dal and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, early adopters of the temple cause and celebrities from the worlds of business and cinema. The billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani and his family were there, as were film stars such as Amitabh Bachchan, Rajinikanth, Chiranjeevi, Madhuri Dixit, Hema Malini, Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Ayushmann Khurrana and Vicky Kaushal. One breathless television anchor gushed about Ayodhya becoming “celeb central”. Whether they knew it or not, these celebrities were there in a dual capacity, or, to put it in terms they would understand, in a double role: as devotees of Ram and as extras for Modi.
The rows of chairs full of celebrities, the loud music on the PA system, the helicopters scattering petals in the sky. . . all this was incompletely reminiscent of India’s Republic Day parade, without, of course, the parade. The temple built served as a reminder to the audience that Bhagwat and Modi’s Hindu Rashtra (Hindu country) is a work in progress and that others will follow. But in the end, this painting that celebrated the resurgence of a new Ram-centered country was vital not to the citizens present, but to those who were deliberately absent: all Indians who were not political Hindus.
In this season of Donald Trump, it is worth remembering that the ethno-nationalism embodied through the Ayodhya temple is the work of an erratic and populist tycoon; It is a centuries-old political project, supported by millions of activist cadres. The India (or Bharat) envisioned by Modi and Bhagwat is more like Netanyahu’s Israel, albeit on a subcontinental scale; both like the majority and as intolerant.