The new grand Ram temple “will give constitutional powers to the future generations of the country to take pride in its heritage”, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, told the Indian parliament on 9 February. The remark came less than three weeks after a gala consecration event for the temple, and a few months before the country’s national elections. Amit Shah, the home affairs minister, made a similar comment a few days later, crediting the prime minister for reviving “several of our cultural centres such as Ram Mandir in Ayodhya”.
The temple has been constructed at the site of the destroyed Babri Masjid mosque in Ayodhya, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The mosque was razed to the ground in December 1992 by people affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has helmed the union government of India since 2014. The dispute about whether the mosque had been constructed on the site of a temple has resulted in one of the worst episodes of anti-Muslim violence in the country and has been symbolic of communal tensions in the country.
Ahead of the 2024 national elections, concluded on 1 June, it was widely expected that the Modi government would return to power with a sweeping majority—and the construction of the Ram temple would have had a role in that victory. A survey by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies before the elections showed that constructing the Ram temple was deemed “the most admired” work of the Modi government. The BJP had expected to win 400 of the 543 seats in the Indian parliament, but it won just 240, and has been forced to rely on alliance partners to form a government. Meanwhile, the opposition, which had been highlighting the tyrannical tendencies of the Modi government, was more successful than expected.
One of the BJP’s most notable losses was the constituency of Faizabad, which comprises Ayodhya. The story behind the Ram temple issue, and its loss, speaks volumes about the BJP’s exploitation of the issue of cultural heritage and the dynamic politics in the country.
A syncretic history
Ayodhya has had a syncretic history. Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, a professor at Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh, points out that the temples that dot the banks of the Sarayu River, which runs through the town, have dome-like structures. “You would find that most of those lands and temples were constructed by the Nawabs of Awadh,” he says. “And that is why their architecture is also Muslim in character. Instead of Shikharas [towers that are characteristic of Hindu temples], you will find domes out there.” Aditya Mukherjee, the president of the Indian History Congress, also notes that Ayodhya is full of temples and mosques. “That is its cultural heritage; what distinguishes India from many other parts of the world is precisely this, that for centuries, multiple religions have lived here together,” he says.
It was first claimed that the site of the Babri Masjid was the birthplace of the Hindu deity Ram in the mid-19th century. That Ram was born in Ayodhya is stated in the epic Ramayana, of which he is the protagonist. But Mukherjee points out that “no historian even knows where the Ayodhya of the Ramayana was. To say that Ram was born in that spot where the Babri Masjid was built is so absurd.”
The movement to create a Ram temple at the site of the Babri Masjid gained steam in the 1980s and 1990s. This was led by several organisations affiliated to the RSS and saw a participation of BJP leaders. After the mosque’s demolition in 1992, a long and contentious court battle followed, coming to a head on 9 November 2019 when the Indian Supreme Court allotted the site for Hindus to build a Ram temple, even though it declared that razing the mosque was illegal. By then, there had already been over five years of Modi rule, which saw an increasing divisiveness on religious lines in the country.
A ceremony at the Ram temple in Ayodhya, consecrated in January
© India’s Press Information Bureau
Experts have argued that there is no conclusive archaeological evidence of a temple having existed underneath the mosque. “As a historian, I can say that, in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court has given a judgement, there is no shred of evidence of the existence of a temple out there,” Rezavi tells The Art Newspaper. Rezavi was an observer during an excavation of the Babri mosque in 2003. He likens the situation in India to Turkey’s Hagia Sophia, a former cathedral and museum, which was turned into a mosque in 2020.
While campaigning for the elections, BJP candidates from across the country brandished the Ram temple as one of the main achievements of the Modi government. “This election is between the ones who constructed the Ram Temple and those who opened fire on Ram Bhakts,” the home affairs minister said at an election rally, referring to an opposition leader giving instructions to open fire at Hindu vigilantes who were charging towards the Babri Masjid in 1990.
Before the election, it appeared that the construction of the Ram temple may help the BJP. However, the BJP’s share of seats in Uttar Pradesh fell from 62 in the last general election to 33 this year. Several journalists and analysts have since shed light on why the BJP may have lost Ayodhya. For one, the constituency has a large population of Pasis, a Dalit community from which the winning candidate hails. As the news website Scroll reported, the community has been disillusioned with the BJP in Faizabad, and several residents of Ayodhya have been displaced and suffered because of development projects in the town.
What the future may hold
Under the BJP, several Islamic heritage sites in India have been under threat of destruction as well. Mukherjee says that because the BJP has had to form a coalition government, the threats to Islamic heritage sites may not escalate immediately. But the BJP’s “stripes are not going to disappear. The RSS still will be in command, this issue will be used again whenever the opportune time is found,” he says.
Both Mukherjee and Rezavi say that few speak up about these threats. “India is a country which never gives so much importance to its heritage structures,” Rezavi says. “There is a disconnect between the civic population and the monuments. If it is some tycoon looking after their heritage site and converting it into an economic business—they are least concerned.” Secondly, there has been a fear of criticising the BJP’s politics. But at least in the immediate aftermath of the election result, Mukherjee said, “The pall of fear has somewhat lifted.”