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       Why India’s New Ram Temple Is So Important

       Its site is sacred to ancient Hindu myth, and it also represents the much more recent victory of Hinduism as a political identity.

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       Why India’s Ram Temple Is a Big Win for Modi

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       Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to fulfill a decades-long promise with the opening of the temple, which his Hindu nationalist base has compared to the Vatican. But its inauguration also stirs memories of a violent past. CreditCredit...Atul Loke for The New York Times

       By Alex Travelli and Hari Kumar

       Reporting from New Delhi

       Jan. 22, 2024Updated 2:41 a.m. ET

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       Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a gigantic new temple in the Indian city of Ayodhya on Monday, the conclusion of a mostly 20th-century odyssey in which Hindu nationalists eventually tore down a centuries-old mosque that has now been replaced with a structure devoted to the Hindu deity Ram.

       Leading up to the temple’s consecration, public spaces around India were thrumming with excitement. Ram is one of the most revered gods among India’s Hindus, who make up about 80 percent of a total population of 1.4 billion. As the hero of the Ramayana epic, he is a king and a paragon of virtue, exiled from his native Ayodhya, who comes home for a jubilant coronation.

       Islam does not appear in the Ramayana, having arrived in India only 1,000 years ago. But it is cast as the primary villain in the Hindu-nationalist telling of India’s history. Now, with a kind of spiritual and political homecoming for Mr. Modi, the Ram campaigners have the temple they had sought for decades.

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       Alex Travelli is a correspondent for The Times based in New Delhi, covering business and economic matters in India and the rest of South Asia. He previously worked as an editor and correspondent for The Economist. More about Alex Travelli

       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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