Scenes of jubilation, thousands of excited Hindus, waving saffron flags bearing the image of Ram, flowers showered by helicopters, Ayodhya, in unison with part of India celebrated, Monday January 22, the inauguration of the Ram temple, built in place of an old Mughal mosque destroyed by Hindu fanatics in 1992. All the televisions in the country, arriving a few days earlier in this city in Uttar Pradesh, broadcast live the event, which Modi has made his trump card to win the next general elections, scheduled for the spring. Several states had granted a day off to civil servants.
This temple symbolizes the domination of Hindus over other communities and the shift of the secular Indian republic into a new regime. Narendra Modi, who had organized the sumptuous ceremony entirely around himself, proclaimed: “January 22, 2024 is not just a date on the calendar, but announces the advent of a new era”, did he declare. This is the first time in India that a prime minister has performed such rituals in the exercise of his functions.
Wearing a kurta, the traditional gold-colored tunic, Prime Minister Modi was surrounded by two personalities from the ultranationalist family: Mohan Bhagwat, the leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the central organization of fundamentalists, and Yogi Adityanath, the leader of the government of Uttar Pradesh, extremist monk, at war against Muslims and Christians. Outside the temple, nearly 7,500 guests, industrialists, politicians and film stars, watched the rituals on a giant screen.
Concern among Muslims
Narendra Modi unveiled a black statue dedicated to the god Ram located in the heart of the temple, this Hindu deity, hero of the epic Ramayana, is supposed to have been born there. “Today our lord Ram has arrived, he has been waiting for centuries,” he proclaimed, forcing his voice deeper. He knows how much the Hindu faithful revere this god to whom they attribute the virtues of truth, sacrifice, compassion, righteousness. Narendra Modi did not have a word for the Muslims, whose mosque was reduced to nothing; on the contrary, he invoked the temple as a sign of the rise of India, which “break the chains of the slavery mentality”. The Hindu nationalist family believes that the country was the victim of twelve centuries of slavery under Muslim sultans and emperors and under the British.
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