The Ram temple in Ayodhya last month. Though it is only 70 percent finished, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, inaugurated the temple on Monday, months before an election.
Modi Opens a Giant Temple, a Triumph Toward a Hindu-First India
The temple inaugurated by the prime minister is on the site of a centuries-old mosque destroyed in a Hindu mob attack that set a precedent of impunity against Muslims.
The Ram temple in Ayodhya last month. Though it is only 70 percent finished, Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, inaugurated the temple on Monday, months before an election. Credit...
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By Mujib Mashal and Hari Kumar
Photographs by Atul Loke
Reporting from New Delhi and Ayodhya in India
Jan. 22, 2024Updated 2:59 a.m. ET
They fanned out across the vast country, knocking on doors in the name of a cause that would redefine India.
These foot soldiers and organizers, including a young Narendra Modi, collected millions of dollars to be socked away for a long fight to build a grand Hindu temple in Ayodhya, in northern India. Across 200,000 villages, ceremonies were arranged to bless individual bricks that would be sent to that sacred city, believed by Hindus to be the birthplace of the deity Ram.
The bricks, the campaign’s leaders declared, would not just be used for the temple’s construction on land occupied for centuries by a mosque. They would be the foundation for a Hindu rashtra, or Hindu nation, that would correct what right-wing Hindus saw as the injustice of India’s birth as a secular republic.
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Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. More about Mujib Mashal
Hari Kumar covers India, based out of New Delhi. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about Hari Kumar
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