The Temple Modi Built

Vajpayee, who went on to become the prime minister of India, called out his party in a video interview in the days after the incident. He regretted the loss, Vajpayee said, and underscored that the incident should never have happened—the “worst miscalculation my party has made.” Today, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks his third consecutive term, the BJP is once again exploiting religious division to kick-start its campaign for 2024 general elections.

On Monday, Modi consecrated a giant new temple, Ram Mandir, devoted to the Hindu deity Rama in Ayodhya, which is believed by Hindus to be Rama’s birthplace. The BJP left no stone unturned to use the event to its advantage. In the lead-up, Ayodhya’s orange buildings were draped with festive Hindu artwork—saffron flags, swastikas, bows and arrows—as chants of “Jai Shree Rama” (“Glory to Lord Rama”) rang through the streets.

“It was our long-cherished dream to see Rama ji coming home, and Modi has finally made it possible,” said Nani Ben, a 45-year-old woman who traveled nearly 900 miles with several other women from the city of Ahmedabad in the northwestern state of Gujarat. Many of India’s 1 billion Hindus are of the belief that without Modi, the formation of the temple would have remained a distant dream.

Religious fever was running high as devotees traveled from all over the country for the temple opening, yet the visibility of politics—and specifically, the BJP—also couldn’t be missed in Ayodhya.

Posters featuring Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath constantly reminded visitors that they were here because of them.

The BJP, which is the political arm of the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), had spearheaded the campaign for the construction of a temple dedicated to Rama in Ayodhya for decades prior to the destruction of Babri Masjid. After that incident, building the temple became a priority for the BJP, a right-wing party with a devoted Hindu base.

Govind Mittal distributes pamphlets featuring Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to devotees in Ayodhya on Jan. 12. Luqman Zeerak for Foreign Policy

A week before the consecration, Govind Mittal, a 59-year-old YouTube personality who performs Hindu devotional songs, was distributing pamphlets in the town market. The pamphlets featured pictures of Modi and Rama.

Of the temple, Mittal said that “it would not have been possible if Modi ji didn’t make it happen. … All these years, no government dared to build a temple here. Today, it is a reality.”

Mittal, who traveled from Mathura, another town in Uttar Pradesh, was in the city with a group of six friends to witness Modi leading the consecration ceremony.

A woman is framed by cutouts of Modi and the Hindu deity Lord Rama as she opens a temple door in Ayodhya on Dec. 26, 2023. Biplov Bhuyan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

“It is a historic moment, and I want to be here to witness it,” he said. “They”—the Muslims—“took it from us; we have only reclaimed it today.”

The dispute in Ayodhya is a long-standing and complex issue between India’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims. It revolves around the piece of land where the Babri Masjid, a mosque built in the 16th century, was situated.

The first recorded instance of violent conflict over the site came in 1853, when a group of Hindus contended that the mosque was built on the birthplace of Rama. Muslims, on the other hand, argued that they had been praying at the Babri Masjid for generations—until 1949, when an idol of Rama was stealthily placed inside the mosque.

The dispute took another ugly turn during the aforementioned day in December 1992 when a violent mob of around 150,000 people, mobilized by the right-wing Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bharatiya Janata Party, tore down the mosque.

An inquiry into the incident that was completed in 2009 found 68 people responsible, including BJP leaders Lal Krishna Advani, Uma Bharti, and Murli Manohar Joshi, all of whom reportedly gave speeches at the rally at the mosque on the day of its destruction.

In November 2019, with the BJP in its second consecutive term in power, the Supreme Court of India delivered a historic verdict on the Ayodhya dispute, stating that the disputed land should be handed over to a trust to build a Hindu temple. Muslims were provided an alternative piece of land to construct a mosque.

Later, on Sept.30, 2020, the court acquitted all those accused in the 2009 report into Babri Masjid’s demolition on account of “inconclusive evidence.”

As the consecration day neared, hundreds of people who had been part of the mob that tore down the 16th-century mosque three decades prior arrived in the city to celebrate the big day.

Govind Kamabhai shows his 1992 karsevak card in Ayodhya on Jan. 12. Luqmaan Zeerak for Foreign Policy

Govind Kamabhai, a resident of Gujarat, was 30 years old when he last came to Ayodhya as one of the karsevaks, or religious volunteers, to demolish the mosque.

Feeling elated about seeing the temple consecrated where he stormed a mosque 31 years ago, Kamabhai described it as a happy ending.

“All credit goes to Modi ji, who fulfilled our long pending desire,” he said while flaunting his karsevak identity card, given to religious volunteers, which was issued in 1992.

Radha Devi sells rosaries for a living outside Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya on Jan. 12. Luqman Zeerak for Foreign Policy

At the entry gate of the temple, a 65-year-old woman named Radha Devi was selling rosaries for a living. She made her way to the city in 1992 from the state of Jharkhand, along with her husband, to take part in the demolition of the mosque. She recently returned to Ayodhya.

“It was my husband’s religious duty to demolish the mosque,” she said. “May Rama bless Modi ji for bringing back our lord to us.”

Workers cross the construction site of the Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya on Dec. 29, 2023. Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images

Apoorvanand, a professor in the Hindi department at Delhi University and a contributor to publications including the Wire and Frontline, told Foreign Policy that after Babri Masjid was razed in broad daylight, Ram Mandir will stand as a “monument of the greatest injustice.”

Of this week’s consecration, he said that “the objective to conduct this program in January was decided way back so that BJP can build on it for 2024 elections.”

About 300,000 people flooded into Ayodhya for the ceremony, and there were more than 4,000 special invitees from across India and abroad.

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But the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, declined the invitation to the inauguration, calling it a “political project,” while a BJP spokesperson said that Congress’s unwillingness to attend the event was equivalent to “opposing God.”

Apoorvanand believes that boycotting the consecration ceremony was a good decision by Congress.

“I think Congress is assumed to be a pro-Muslim and anti-Hindu party. So, this perception is not going to change whatever decision they would have made. Even if they had decided to attend the ceremony, BJP would have declared its victory,” he said.

India’s four prominent Shankaracharyas—the heads of the country’s main monasteries—have also decided not to attend the consecration ceremony, citing the rules of the Sanatan Dharma (eternal religion) in Hinduism, which forbid visiting any temple under construction.

The VHP and RSS telecast the temple’s consecration event on giant screens across India, while across the country, Indians illuminated their homes with lamps to mark the occasion, on the prime minister’s urging.

The damaged Malik Shah Masjid under repair in Ayodhya on Jan. 12. Luqmaan Zeerak for Foreign Policy

In a bid to build wider roads approaching to the temple, the Uttar Pradesh government has demolished houses, temples, mosques, tombs, and several thousand shops, threatening the livelihoods and housing of affected locals.

Nand Kumar Gupta, the president of a local traders’ union called Ayodhya Udyog Vyapar Mandal, said that out of 4,000 shops in the town, around 1,600 were demolished in the process. Moreover, according to the union, 800 houses, 30 temples, nine mosques, and six tombs have also been bulldozed for the city’s beautification.

“Nobody is bothered about us, as if we don’t exist,” Gupta said. “Our homes and livelihood have been snatched, but nobody is paying heed to our pleas.” He added that very little or no compensation was given by the authorities to the affected people.

The situation of the handful of Muslims in Ayodhya is much worse. Apart from losing their shops and homes, Muslims who spoke with Foreign Policy complained of living in “constant fear” due to alleged “provocative sloganeering” by the Hindus outside their homes.

Over a mile away from the new temple is a standalone mosque that lost a part of the front of its façade during the road widening process—a lone testament to Islam’s presence in the town.

Hesmatullah Nisra, a 95-year-old who helped build that mosque in her youth and lives in a two-room house adjacent to it, said, “I have given my life to this mosque. All my earnings got exhausted in making it. And with the grace of Allah, I will defend it till my last breath.”

Hesmatullah Nisra and Mohammad Shahzad Khan pose inside the mosque premises in Ayodhya on Jan. 13. Luqmaan Zeeark for Foreign Policy

The mosque is currently looked after by her 50-year-old son, Mohammad Shahzad Khan. A butcher by profession, Khan had to shut down his mutton shop following the local government’s new guidelines that prohibit selling meat and alcohol within the temple’s vicinity.

Khan said that after demolishing the portion of the mosque, the authorities are now forcing local Muslims to paint the outer walls of it with Hindu artwork to match the city’s theme.

“We are consistently resisting it. We cannot paint the mosque’s walls with Hindu deities,” he said.

After the road widening, the area has been left with only 10 to 12 Muslim households, while the rest of the families living in shanties were told to vacate.

“They”—the authorities—“also want us to leave this place,” Khan said. “Our neighbors, whom we know for ages, have turned against us. But we are not going anywhere. It would be on our dead bodies to leave this mosque.”

A cyclist rides past a Hindu temple illuminated with lights on the banks of the Sarayu River in Ayodhya on Dec. 27, 2023. Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images

Located in the village of Dhannipur, the land has been turned into a playground by the local youth and children. A shrine to the Sufi saint Hazrat Abdul Rehman Saani Seherwadi sits on the edge of the land.

Though the Waqf Board, a statutory body administered by the Ministry of Minority Affairs that controls Muslim religious properties, has prepared the blueprint to build the mosque—along with a cancer hospital, law college, and a community kitchen—there isn’t money to make the plan a reality. And an Uttar Pradesh Waqf Board member, Athar Hussain, said that there were no firm plans to begin work on the project.

“We are facing a financial crunch. We are in talks with several organizations for funds, but as of now, we don’t have any specific timeline to start the construction,” Hussain said. Unlike the way the Ram Mandir temple was planned, he said, “the land allotment to us came abruptly, and we were not prepared for it.”

Residents of Dhannipur feel blessed to be getting a significant mosque built in their village, but the pain of losing Babri Masjid is deep in their hearts.

“The construction of this mosque is indeed the greatest joy in our life, but we can never forget the cost Muslims had to pay for it,” said a local named Mehtab Khan.