In part one of this series, we looked at the contested history of this janmabhoomi. Part two is all about the inauguration ceremony—and what it means for the elections and the idea of India, so to speak.
Ok, start with the big fat inauguration…
The temple: is spread across three hectares (7.4 acres), and cost an estimated $217 million. Its design is based on a form of temple architecture—Nagara—which emerged some time in the fifth century CE—during the late Gupta period, in north India. It is often juxtaposed with its Dravidian counterpart—which also emerged at that time:
“Nagara and Dravida may be called ‘styles’, but they cover vast areas and time spans,” Adam Hardy wrote in his highly influential The Temple Architecture of India (2007). Instead of ‘styles’, he refers to the two as “the two great classical languages of Indian temple architecture.” “‘Languages’ seems a [more] suitable term, in that each is a system providing a ‘vocabulary’, a kit of parts, along with a ‘grammar’ which regulates the ways of putting the parts together,” he wrote.
The temple is made with pink sandstone and has 46 doors—42 of which will have a layer of gold. It looks like this on the outside:
And here’s a glimpse of its interiors:
And here are those golden doors:
The Ram Lalla idol: is 1.3-meter (4.25-foot) tall—carved from dark stone. Yesterday’s “Pran Pratishtha” ceremony performed by the PM—signifies giving life to the statue. The idol can then receive worshippers. Lord Ram looks like this:
Point to note: A great part of the temple is still unfinished—which caused great consternation among the Shankaracharyas. They say performing the ceremony without completing construction is sacrilegious. It is one reason they chose to boycott the event. According to Scroll:
[T]he upcoming Ram temple, [is] currently an incomplete pink sandstone structure ushered by a staircase with 5-foot tall lion statues on either side. Large swathes of land in the Ram temple complex are mostly barren, with trucks carrying tonnes of earth. What is visible in most of the recent pictures of the temple is its main front, which faces east. The likely reason for this is that the structure looks most complete from this angle.
Here’s a photo of the unfinished side shared by the trust:
Ok, now tell me all about the rockstar ceremony…
It was certainly as spectacular as a rock concert—though with an A-plus guest list that would make any celeb jealous. We had the who’s who of India Inc—i.e Mukesh-bhai plus Kumar Mangalam Birla, Sunil Mittal et al. See the Ambani family below:
There were Bollywood celebs as well. There were the usual suspects like Kangna Ranaut and Randeep Hooda. Also in attendance: Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Rajnikanth, Chiranjeevi, Ram Charan, Ranbir Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Katrina Kaif, Vicky Kaushal, Madhuri Dixit and Ayushmann Khurrana. Though the mood of ecstatic celebration was something to see:
As was Hooda’s grand speech about a “cultural resurgence”:
Celebrations were spread far and wide across the globe among believers. Below is the scene at Times Square:
Even the newspapers: were in full celebration mode—as the government went on an ad-buying spree. This is what the Times of India looked like:
The Modi-ji reel: As we said, he performed the ceremony—instead of a priest—which is truly remarkable.
Point to note: Many liberals chose to share photos of the Constitution—including a number of Malayalam actors and directors.
But will it help Modi sweep the elections?
Certainly that is the intent—which is why it was important to hold the ceremony before the election dates were announced. Even the lead-up to the event was all about wooing different constituencies—with special attention to the South. This included a tour of the Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple in Tiruchi and a holy dip at the Ramanathaswamy Temple in Rameshwaram. The photo ops were truly stunning:
FYI: All the states in the South are ruled by the Opposition—not one of them declared a holiday. Oddly enough, the Telangana police arrested members of a movie club for airing Anand Patwardhan’s ‘Ram ke Naam’—a scathing documentary on the Babri Masjid demolition. Congress leaders like Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah staged their own shows of Ram worship. He inaugurated his very own Ram Temple in Bangalore on the same day—but also declared his commitment to secularism.
Ram Mandir magic: It is very likely the grand ceremony—telecast into every home—will seal the Hindi belt for the BJP. As Michael Kugelman notes in Foreign Policy, this seals the PM’s contract with his base—to bring Ram Lalla “home.” But experts don’t agree that the temple alone is sufficient to bring in a landslide.
Some say the mandir magic may not be as strong. For starters, it kinda kills one of BJP’s most powerful lures. The temple is built—and people would have moved on by the time the election comes around.
The BJP’s solution: will be to frame its welfare schemes through the lens of Ram Rajya. As Modi has said:
Whether recounting the tale of Rajaram in the Treta era or the contemporary Raj Katha, it remains inseparable from the well-being of the impoverished, the deprived, and our brothers and sisters dwelling in the forests. Our efforts persistently align with this ethos…Modi honours those who were long neglected.
A very key strategy to note: The BJP executed a series of grassroots campaigns connected to the temple—also a twofer for the party:
These included the likes of the Kalash Yatra, Ayodhya Darshan, Mandir Deep Jyoti, distributing booklets among the people on the history of the Ram temple movement, and reaching out to the people to sport the Ram flag at their houses and vehicles. Sangh Parivar volunteers also conducted household visits to deliver the poojit akshat (sacred rice).
And in Uttar Pradesh at least, it has helped Ram-ji trump Babasaheb Ambedkar among Dalit communities. Ram was used to package welfare schemes—and vice versa:
The welfarism of Modi—free ration, free power, health scheme and cooking gas – has opened the door to the BJP to make inroads in our village. And now, they’re talking about Ram.
The Shrimant Yogi: The visuals of Modi performing the ceremony have cemented an unprecedented brand that seamlessly mixes religion with politics. He offers far more than just a gas cylinder or a bus pass:
“I realised how important Hindutva is; I never listened to any of the gurus that my mother dragged me to, but what Modi says makes sense. That’s why he’s the leader of Hindus,” [23-year-old Rohit Kumar] said, pointing excitedly to the swarm of life-size cutouts of the PM that now line every major thoroughfare of Ayodhya, sharing space only with replicas of Lord Ram… In the eyes of many like Rohit, Modi embodies the resurgence of Hindu faith that has given young people like him something to be proud of.
The Ram Mandir itself has been framed as a decisive assertion of that Hindu pride—with the Prime Minister as its guardian. One mahant described Modi so: “God has sent him (Shivaji) to us again. A Shrimant Yogi is standing before us…. He has purified himself to attend the sacredness of a sadhu.” That kind of rhetoric made even RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat unhappy.
An intriguing point to note: Badri Narayan in the Outlook magazine argues that there is a special reason why Ramayana serves as a unifying Hindu text—transcending traditional barriers of caste:
Different characters from the Ramayana, too, have a distinct socio-narrative base. Many marginal and subaltern communities relate with characters like Hanuman, Jatayu, Nishad Raj Guhya and Sabari. Many tribal communities assert that they are descendants of Sabari. Because of this connection, the idea of Ram appeals to the tribal communities. Similarly, Nishad Raj Guhya, who helped Ram cross the Ganga River while he was on the way to his vanvaas (exile), is the greatest icon of… sizable Other Backward Caste (OBC) communities living across the coastal and river belts in the country.
In fact, the Ram Mandir trust plans to build temples dedicated to these epic characters—to reinforce that sense of pride.
Ram vs Rama: All this talk of mandir magic does not hold when we cross the Vindhyas. There's good reason why LK Advani’s rath yatra skipped the south. Also notable: The rhetoric around the temple has always been in Hindi—e.g ‘mandir yahin banayenge’. Most importantly, Rama is quite different from Ram:
Rama in southern India is not a muscular, Kshatriya king with deep political undertones. He is revered and worshipped, but the electorate will not allow him to be tethered to the ballot boxes.
About that Hindu voter: There is an unmistakable divide between those who are devout and those who are not. And it has been growing with each passing decade: Among those who visited temples regularly in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, 28% voted for the BJP. That number increased to 45% in 2014 and to 51% in 2019. Even more striking in 2019: Among Hindus who are more religious, 53% voted for the BJP while only 10% voted for the Congress. What’s really sad for the Grand Old Party: BJP still received 37% of votes of Hindus who are hardly religious—while 18% voted for the Congress.
PS: As we’ve noted in the past, being Hindu is far less important to the majority of voters in the south: “Nationally, 64% of Hindus in India say being a Hindu is very important to being truly Indian. But while this share is as high as 83% in the Central region, it falls to 42% in the south.”
So this is just election rhetoric or….
The temple is the centrepiece of the grand plan to transform India into a Hindu nation. Hence, all the talk of a civilisational coming of age from the likes of S Jaishankar. After the ceremony, Modi bluntly said: "Ram is the faith of India, Ram is the foundation of India. Ram is the idea of India, Ram is the law of India."—calling the mandir the “temple of national consciousness in the form of Ram.”
The Times of India writes:
Still, Ram temple issue is inextricably linked to BJP’s ambitious long-term cultural project, which certainly goes beyond electoral considerations for 2024. The party wants to redefine the established norms of our political culture. Ram temple, in this sense, is going to be projected as the temple of New India – a temple that could also be evoked to define Indianness in clear political terms.
The consecration of the temple is indeed a watershed moment in Indian politics. Whether it pans out quite as the New York Times claims—transforming argumentative Indians into a Modi-loving monolith—remains to be seen.
The bottomline: Some argue that the mandir is about not just changing the nation—but Hinduism itself:
More important is the fact that the Hindu faith is now offered its first planned version of the Vatican or Mecca, which may, with some effort, compete even with Jerusalem in terms of antiquity. We seem to be filling up one of the two gaps that separate us from Abrahamic religions—a single holy book and one indisputable holiest of holy towns. It may still take decades (if not centuries) to convince all into accepting Ayodhya as the religious epicentre of Hinduism but the regime’s Herculean efforts are surely in that direction.
It will be interesting to see how that project plays out. It’s all very well to be a Hindu nation—but the question is: ‘What kind of Hindu?’ But that may come as poor consolation to Indian Muslims.
Reading list
Outlook, Moneycontrol and Hindustan Times are best on the electoral impact. Deepika Amirapu in Hindustan Times explains why mandir magic doesn’t work in the South. Australian Financial Review and Indian Express look at how the BJP narrative is transforming Hinduism. NewsLaundry looks at the impact on RWAs—and residents of apartment buildings in North India. Hindu Business Line has a data story on the costs of construction. The temple will most certainly transform Ayodhya—and its reputation. Al Jazeera looks at the escalating price of land—while Hindu Business Line has the bigger picture. NDTV has more on the gold rush for idols.
