MILLIONS tuned in across India to watch the opening of a vast Hindu temple on Monday, in a ceremony considered to be the crowning moment for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist ambitions months before he seeks to win a rare third term in elections.
The inauguration of the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir – a temple devoted to Lord Ram – in northern India’s Ayodhya is more than 30 years in the making and is expected to give a major boost to Modi’s election campaign.
The Ram Mandir is the realization of Modi’s dream to create what he has called a “new India,” which many consider to be the transformation of the country into a distinctly Hindu nation.
For Modi’s detractors, the temple’s inauguration is the conclusion of a decades-long campaign to pull India away from the secular roots upon which the country was founded following independence.
“Today our Lord Ram has come. After centuries of waiting, our Ram has arrived. After centuries of unprecedented patience, countless sacrifices, renunciations, and penances, our Lord Ram has arrived,” Modi said in a speech to a 7,000-strong crowd that included movie stars, top cricket players and tycoons, from the newly-constructed temple bedecked with colorful flowers.
“Ram is not a dispute, Ram is the solution,” he added.
Monday’s ceremony fulfils a long-standing promise to voters by Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government that propelled them to power in 2014.
For years, Modi and his political allies vowed to build a temple on the site of a 16th century mosque that was destroyed by violent Hindu hardliners in a deadly 1992 attack that turbo-charged the country’s Hindu nationalist movement.
The mosque’s demolition, spurred on by the BJP and other right-wing groups, catapulted the party into mainstream politics, winning a general election four years later.
Modi did not directly mention the Babri Masjid in his speech, nor the country’s Muslims, many of whom feel pain and sadness at the events that have unfolded in Ayodhya. He did speak of moving forward and “the beginning of a new time cycle.”
“From today, from this sacred time, we have to lay the foundation for the next 1,000 years. By moving ahead of building the temple, now we all take the oath of building a national, capable, successful, beautiful, and divine India,” Modi said.
Inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple Monday, Modi presided over the Pran Pratishtha, or consecration ceremony, of an idol of Lord Ram, one of Hinduism’s most revered deities. Depicted as a young boy, the statue of black stone was adorned with gold jewelry, gemstones, diamonds and flowers.
Outside, military helicopters flew over the temple and city releasing flower petals over the vast building and crowds of dignitaries below.
Among the speakers at the event was Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing parent organization of the BJP, who said the temple “has become a symbol of a new India that will stand tall.”
“It has been said, and we know, that today in Ayodhya, along with Lord Ram, India’s self has returned,” he said.
Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh state where Ayodhya is located and one of the country’s most polarizing political figures, called the Ram Mandir India’s “national temple” and an “important ritual of cultural reawakening.”
Throughout the day, saffron flags flew high and marigold flowers adorned building entrances as tens of thousands of devotees thronged the streets of the ancient town in celebratory processions.
“For 500 years Lord Ram was living in a hut,” devotee Acharya Mohanjodaro Bharadwaj told CNN, referring to the moment the Mughal-era mosque was built. “Today Modi made him sit inside a temple, the whole country is celebrating it like it’s Diwali.”
Celebrations were held across the country, with politicians encouraging people to take part in festivities in their homes and temples, ensuring it would be a national event.
Uttar Pradesh declared Monday a public holiday, with schools and liquor shops closed across the state.
Hundreds of members of the Indian diaspora gathered in New York on Sunday to celebrate the inauguration under a massive image of Lord Ram projected on a screen in Times Square. Indian embassies around the world hosted watch parties.
