In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di on Mon­day opened a con­tro­ver­sial Hin­du tem­ple built on the ru­ins of a his­toric mosque in the north­ern city of Ay­o­d­hya, in a po­lit­i­cal tri­umph for the pop­ulist leader who is seek­ing to trans­form the coun­try from a sec­u­lar democ­ra­cy in­to a Hin­du state.

The tem­ple is ded­i­cat­ed to Hin­duism’s Lord Ram and ful­fills a long-stand­ing de­mand by mil­lions of Hin­dus who wor­ship the revered de­ity and ex­toll him for the virtues of truth, sac­ri­fice and eth­i­cal gov­er­nance. Mo­di’s par­ty and oth­er Hin­du na­tion­al­ist groups who seized on the de­mand have por­trayed the tem­ple as cen­tral to their vi­sion of re­claim­ing Hin­du pride, which they say was sup­pressed by cen­turies of Mughal rule and British colo­nial­ism.

Mo­di and his gov­ern­ing Bharatiya Jana­ta Par­ty hope that open­ing the tem­ple will help cat­a­pult the prime min­is­ter to a record third suc­ces­sive term in elec­tions ex­pect­ed this spring. But with the tem­ple still un­der con­struc­tion, crit­ics ac­cuse Mo­di of a hur­ried open­ing to woo vot­ers.

Mo­di, dressed in a tra­di­tion­al kur­ta tu­nic, led the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny as Hin­du priests chant­ed hymns in­side the tem­ple’s in­ner sanc­tum, where a 1.3-me­ter (4.3-foot) stone sculp­ture of Lord Ram was in­stalled last week. A conch was blown by a priest to mark the tem­ple’s open­ing and Mo­di placed a lo­tus flower in front of the black stone idol, decked in in­tri­cate gold or­na­ments and hold­ing a gold­en bow and ar­row. He lat­er pros­trat­ed be­fore the idol.

Near­ly 7,500 peo­ple, in­clud­ing elite in­dus­tri­al­ists, politi­cians and movie stars, wit­nessed the rit­u­al on a gi­ant screen out­side the tem­ple as a mil­i­tary he­li­copter show­ered flower petals.

“Our Lord Ram has ar­rived af­ter cen­turies of wait,” Mo­di said in a speech af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, re­ceiv­ing a re­sound­ing ap­plause from thou­sands of at­ten­dees. He said the tem­ple was built af­ter “count­less sac­ri­fices” and is a tes­ta­ment to a ris­ing In­dia “break­ing the shack­les of slave men­tal­i­ty.”

“Jan. 22, 2024, is not mere­ly a date but marks the dawn of a new era,” Mo­di said.

Mo­di’s gov­ern­ment turned the event in­to a na­tion­al oc­ca­sion by or­ga­niz­ing live screen­ings across the coun­try and clos­ing of­fices for half a day. Saf­fron flags — the colour of Hin­duism — adorned the streets of var­i­ous cities where gov­ern­ment par­ty work­ers had gone door to door hand­ing out re­li­gious pam­phlets.

Tele­vi­sion news chan­nels ran non-stop cov­er­age of the event, por­trayed as a re­li­gious spec­ta­cle. Some movie the­aters broad­cast the event live with com­pli­men­ta­ry pop­corn. Many states de­clared the day a pub­lic hol­i­day. In a rare step, stock and mon­ey mar­kets were closed for the day.

“Ram Ra­jya (rule) be­gins,” a TV news head­line said. Ram Ra­jya is a Sankrit phrase that means just and eth­i­cal gov­er­nance in Hin­duism but has al­so been used by Hin­du na­tion­al­ists to sig­ni­fy Hin­du dom­i­na­tion in an of­fi­cial­ly sec­u­lar In­dia.

Mo­di has been the face of an un­prece­dent­ed and un­apolo­getic fu­sion of re­li­gion and pol­i­tics in In­dia. Ahead of the tem­ple open­ing, he set the tone by vis­it­ing nu­mer­ous Ram tem­ples over 11 days as part of a Hin­du rit­u­al.

An­a­lysts and crit­ics see Mon­day’s cer­e­mo­ny as the start of the elec­tion cam­paign for Mo­di, an avowed Hin­du na­tion­al­ist and one of In­dia’s most con­se­quen­tial lead­ers. They say the pomp-filled dis­play led by the gov­ern­ment shows the ex­tent to which the line be­tween re­li­gion and state has erod­ed un­der Mo­di.

“Prime min­is­ters pri­or to Mo­di have al­so been to tem­ples, been to oth­er places of wor­ship, but they went there as devo­tees. This is the first time that he went there as some­body who per­formed the rit­u­al,” said Ni­lan­jan Mukhopad­hyay, an ex­pert in Hin­du na­tion­al­ism and au­thor of a book on Mo­di.

The tem­ple, lo­cat­ed at one of In­dia’s most vexed re­li­gious sites, is ex­pect­ed to em­bold­en Mo­di’s chances of re­turn­ing to pow­er by draw­ing on the re­li­gious sen­ti­ments of Hin­dus, who make up 80% of In­dia’s pop­u­la­tion of 1.4 bil­lion.

Ay­o­d­hya, once crowd­ed with tight­ly packed hous­es and run­down stalls, has un­der­gone an elab­o­rate makeover in the lead up to the tem­ple’s in­au­gu­ra­tion. Nar­row roads have been turned in­to a four-lane pil­grim­age route lead­ing to the tem­ple, tourists are ar­riv­ing at a new air­port and sprawl­ing rail­way sta­tion, and ma­jor ho­tel chains are build­ing new prop­er­ties.

Ju­bi­lant devo­tees from across the coun­try have ar­rived to cel­e­brate the open­ing, with groups of them danc­ing to re­li­gious songs that blare from speak­ers on roads be­decked with flow­ers. Huge cut-outs of Lord Ram and bill­boards of Mo­di are ubiq­ui­tous across Ay­o­d­hya, where the bor­ders have been sealed to pre­vent more peo­ple from com­ing in. Some 20,000 se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel and more than 10,000 se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras have been de­ployed.

The mo­ment will be re­mem­bered as mo­men­tous and his­toric by many of the coun­try’s Hin­du cit­i­zens.

“I am here to see his­to­ry un­fold­ing be­fore our eyes. For cen­turies, the sto­ry of Lord Ram has res­onat­ed in the hearts of mil­lions,” said Har­ish Joshi who ar­rived in Ay­o­d­hya from Ut­tarak­hand state four days be­fore the cer­e­mo­ny.

Built at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $217 mil­lion and spread over near­ly 3 hectares (7.4 acres), the tem­ple lies atop the de­bris of the 16th-cen­tu­ry Babri Mosque, which was razed to the ground in 1992 by Hin­du mobs who be­lieved it was built on tem­ple ru­ins mark­ing the birth­place of Lord Ram.

The site has long been a re­li­gious flash­point for the two com­mu­ni­ties, with the de­mo­li­tion of the mosque trig­ger­ing bloody ri­ots across In­dia that killed 2,000 peo­ple, most­ly Mus­lims.

The dis­pute end­ed in 2019 when, in a con­tro­ver­sial de­ci­sion, In­dia’s Supreme Court called the mosque’s de­struc­tion “an egre­gious vi­o­la­tion” of the law but grant­ed the site to Hin­dus while giv­ing Mus­lims a dif­fer­ent plot of land.

The fraught his­to­ry is still an open wound for many Mus­lims, who have in­creas­ing­ly come un­der at­tack in re­cent years by Hin­du na­tion­al­ist groups and see the con­struc­tion of the tem­ple as a tes­ta­ment to Mo­di’s Hin­du-first pol­i­tics.

Of­fi­cials say the tem­ple, a three-sto­ry struc­ture made of pink sand­stone, will open to the pub­lic af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny and they ex­pect 100,000 devo­tees to vis­it dai­ly. Builders are still work­ing to fin­ish 46 elab­o­rate doors and in­tri­cate wall carv­ings.

But not all are re­joic­ing. Four key Hin­du re­li­gious au­thor­i­ties re­fused to at­tend, say­ing con­se­crat­ing an un­fin­ished tem­ple goes against Hin­du scrip­tures. Some top lead­ers from In­dia’s main op­po­si­tion Con­gress par­ty al­so boy­cotted the event, with many op­po­si­tion law­mak­ers ac­cus­ing Mo­di of ex­ploit­ing the tem­ple for po­lit­i­cal points.

Neigh­bour­ing Pak­istan con­demned the con­se­cra­tion, say­ing a tem­ple built on the site of a de­mol­ished mosque would re­main a blot on In­dia’s democ­ra­cy.

“There is a grow­ing list of mosques (in In­dia) fac­ing a sim­i­lar threat of des­e­cra­tion and de­struc­tion,” Pak­istan’s For­eign Min­istry said in a state­ment. It urged the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to help save Is­lam­ic her­itage sites in In­dia from “ex­trem­ist groups” and en­sure that mi­nor­i­ty rights are pro­tect­ed.

At least three his­tor­i­cal mosques in north­ern In­dia are em­broiled in court dis­putes over claims by Hin­du na­tion­al­ists who say they were built over tem­ple ru­ins. Hin­du na­tion­al­ists have al­so filed cas­es in In­di­an courts seek­ing own­er­ship of hun­dreds of his­toric mosques.

AY­O­D­HYA, In­dia (AP) —