Narendra Modi on Monday presided over the consecration of a Hindu temple on the site of a destroyed mosque, delighting millions of his supporters but drawing criticism from opponents who said India’s leader was flouting the country’s secular constitutional principles.
Business leaders, celebrities and film stars joined the ceremony rich in pomp and symbolism that marked the opening of the first phase of the Ram Mandir shrine in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, a northern state ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party.
The BJP and the religious movement behind it, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, had for decades championed raising a temple at the contested holy site in devotion to the god Ram, who Hindu devotees believe was born there. In 2019, a Supreme Court ruling allowed the construction of the temple, where a 16th-century mosque had previously stood, to go ahead.