India’s PM Narendra Modi is due to inaugurate a grand temple to popular Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya.
It replaces a 16th-Century mosque, razed by Hindu mobs in 1992. The demolition had sparked nationwide riots in which nearly 2,000 people died.
The temple fulfills a decades-long Hindu nationalist pledge to build a shrine to Lord Ram in the flashpoint city.
But some Hindu seers and most of the opposition are staying away, saying Modi is using it for political gains.
Many Hindus believe that Ayodhya is the birthplace of Ram and the Babri mosque was built by Muslim invaders on the ruins of a Ram temple at the exact spot where the Hindu god was born.
The movement to build a temple at the same site was a major factor that propelled the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into political prominence in the 1990s.
Constructed at a cost of $217m (£170m), the new three-storey structure – made with pink sandstone and anchored by black granite – stretches across 7.2 acres in a 70-acre complex.
Mr Modi will open only the ground floor of the temple – the remaining portions are expected to be completed by the end of the year.
A 51-inch (4.25-ft) statue of the deity, especially commissioned for the temple, was unveiled last week. The idol has been placed on a marble pedestal in the sanctum sanctorum.
Monday’s ceremony is called Pran Pratishtha, which loosely translates from Sanskrit into “establishment of life force”. Hindus believe that chanting of mantras and a set of rituals performed around a fire will infuse sacred life in an idol or a photograph of a deity.
Mr Modi has called the temple a major achievement and said that “the entire country is eagerly waiting for 22 January”.
“Many generations had looked forward to this moment,” he said in a message earlier this month, adding that he would be “representing all of India’s 1.4 billion people” at the consecration ceremony.
But a sour note has been struck with some top religious seers saying that as the temple is not yet complete, it is against Hinduism to perform these rituals there, and many opposition leaders deciding to stay away.
General elections are due in India in the next few months and Mr Modi’s political rivals say the governing BJP will be seeking votes in the temple’s name in a country where 80% of the population is Hindu.
(BBC)
