The Indian stock market is closed today. Central government offices are only open half the day. Neighborhood watch parties were organized across the country. And tens of millions of Indians are prepared for one event: the consecration of a temple to the Hindu god Ram in the city of Ayodhya.

On Monday, shortly after noon local time, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will join priests in dedicating the temple, the opening of which in many ways also serves as the start of his campaign for re-election to a third term this year national elections is scheduled to take place between March and May.

The foundation responsible for the temple, whose construction is still underway, has invited an estimated 7,000 people – politicians, leading industrialists, sports stars and other public figures.

But while Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government presents the event as a national celebration, the temple’s history is rooted in what many call one of the darkest chapters of modern India – one that has shaped the country’s politics and the Light came deep religious fault lines in his society.

Here’s a look at the colorful history of the site where the temple is being built – and the controversies that surround it.

What is the controversy behind Ram Temple?

The temple is being built on a disputed plot of land in the northern Indian city Ayodhyain a place that many Hindus believe was the birthplace of Ram, a much-revered god who embodies the victory of good over evil in religion.

But until the morning of December 6, 1992, the Babri Masjid, a mosque built in 1528 and named after the Mughal king Babur, stood on this site. After more than a decade of angry and sometimes violent campaign, a mob of Hindu nationalists tore down the mosque and chanted religious slogans.

After years of being closed to the public, India opened in November 2019 The Supreme Court ruled that the site must be handed over to a trust set up specifically to oversee the construction of a Hindu temple.

A separate piece of land in Dhannipur village on the outskirts of Ayodhya has been allotted to Muslims for a mosque that could serve as a replacement for the Babri Mosque. Construction has yet to begin.

“Through the Supreme Court, we have now laid down the principle of creating an unbridgeable gap between Hindus and Muslims that they cannot live side by side,” writer and academic Apoorvanand said of Five Acre Justice. , a term coined by the Indians about the size of the newly allocated plot of land.

While some sections of the Indian population welcomed the verdict, others criticized it for lacking a solid legal basis and for compromising India’s secular and democratic constitutional ethics.

Locals have also pointed out the history of harmonious coexistence between the two communities in Ayodhya, even at places of worship. The ruling also sparked fears that it would encourage right-wing Hindus across the country to make similar efforts to destroy other mosques.

Although the Ram temple controversy goes back decades, Apoorvanand says Monday’s event “is also, in a way, a final announcement of Hindus surrendering their religion to the will of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.” The RSS is the Hindu nationalist Mother ship of the BJP and its right-wing extremist partner organizations.

The inauguration of the temple seals the site as a place of Hindu worship and follows Years There were legal battles and even violent riots over the land and its heritage.

Major events in the divide over the Ram temple

The first recorded instance of conflict over the site was in 1853, when a Hindu sect asserted that a temple had been demolished during Babur’s era to make way for the mosque.

Tensions especially started to take a turn in 1859 when British colonial rulers partitioned the building into separate sections – the inside for Muslims, and the outer court for Hindus.

In 1949, just two years after the subcontinent won independence, the mosque turned into disputed property. Police reports show that Hindu idols were brought into the mosque and its gates were closed. No Muslim prayers were offered at the mosque after that. In 1950, several civil suits were filed with both communities laying claim to the site.

But it was outside the courts that the fate of the Babri Masjid was ultimately decided.

In the 1980s, the BJP that now dominates Indian politics was largely a fringe party. But it built political momentum around a nationwide campaign to build a temple in the place of the mosque, led by then party chief Lal Krishna Advani, who would later serve as India’s deputy prime minister (1998-2004).

Under pressure from the BJP and its Hindu majoritarian allies and the support they were galvanising, the government of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, of the Indian National Congress, allowed a court decision to open the locks of the Babri Masjid site to go unchallenged in 1986.

That, however, only emboldened the BJP-led agitation. In 1990, Advani led a long rally over more than a month through the heart of India, building support for the Ram temple. Modi, then a young and rising party worker in the western state of Gujarat, helped organise the rally.

Then, on December 6, 1992, Hindu mobs tore down the Babri Masjid. Ensuing riots across the country killed about 2,000 people.

Following years of back and forth in court, the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in 2019.

The court acknowledged that both the surreptitious manner in which idols were brought into the mosque in 1949 and the demolition in 1949 were crimes. Still, by essentially ordering no consequences for those offences, the court created a scenario where Indian Muslims are “disappointed to see no remorse”, and feel there is little recourse for their concerns, says Apoorvanand.

Where exactly is the contested site?

The Ram temple is being built near the banks of the Sarayu River, which runs past Ayodhya and is mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures. Ayodhya is in India’s northern and most populous state, Uttar Pradesh.

Officially known as Shree Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, it has been constructed in the Nagara style of architecture, which is common in northern India and features tall steeples and a stone platform with steps leading up to the temple.

When will the Ram temple consecration take place?

The consecration is scheduled for just after 12pm local time (06:30 GMT) on Monday, January 22.

Many of the wings of the temple are still under construction, and some of Hinduism’s foremost seers, the four Shankaracharyas, have objected to the opening, saying that consecrating an incomplete temple goes against Hindu scriptures.

Nonetheless, the government, and the trust in charge of the temple, have insisted that the consecration does not violate any tenets of the faith.

Monday’s event will include a grand procession of idols to be taken into the building, and a four-foot statue of a child Ram being placed in the inner sanctum. Priests will join Modi for the actual ceremony, expected to last for half an hour.

Modi’s government has also planned live screenings of the event across the country. Some Indian embassies have also invited members of the Indian diaspora to screenings.

As Hindus across Ayodhya decorate streets and join celebratory rallies, messages are circulating among Muslims to remain at home as a precaution for their safety.

The constructed portion of the temple will be open to devotees and the public starting January 23. And as the temple’s doors open to them, so does a path to an economic boost for Ayodhya.

About 100 private jets are expected to touch down in Ayodhya ahead of the inauguration and retailers say they have run out of gold and gold-plated statues of Ram.

Property prices in Ayodhya have also skyrocketed as the city is set to become a pilgrimage and tourism hotspot.

How are Modi and India’s 2024 elections linked to the Ram temple?

Building the Ram temple at the spot where the Babri Masjid once stood has been one of the BJP’s three foundational promises — the end of Jammu and Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status, which was scrapped in 2019, and a uniform civil code for personal laws are the others.

Modi’s consecration of the temple fulfils that decades-long pledge, and comes just weeks before national elections.

The Ram temple movement has already paid rich dividends to the BJP’s political fortunes. The party won just two seats out of 543 in the lower house of parliament in 1984. A little more than a decade later, in the first national elections after the Babri Masjid’s demolition, it surged to become India’s single-largest party, winning 161 seats.

Its first stint in office lasted just 13 days — because of its association with the mosque demolition, most other parties were unwilling to form alliances that the BJP needed to get to the majority mark of 272 seats in parliament.

But as its brand of Hindu nationalism slowly gained acceptability, it came to power again in 1998, and ruled with allies until 2004. After a decade out of power, it stormed back into office under Modi, the most unapologetically Hindu nationalist leader the party has had.

On Monday, Modi will look to cement that legacy still further.