How a Hindu temple built on the remains of an ancient mosque at Ayodhya could help Narendra Modi win this year's election

Deceptichum@kbin.social to World News@lemmy.world – 31 points – Right-wing protesters tore down an ancient mosque with their bare hands. Now Modi is opening a temple there
abc.net.au

Decades after a sacred mosque was violently demolished by Hindu nationalists, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has unveiled a brand new temple on the site, which has been at the centre of a centuries-long religious rift.

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Can we ban religion already? What a fucking shit show

Non-religious people also fight each other, my dude. It's kinda human nature, veiled in a variety of justifications.

i don't see how this is going to play out in the long term, though. the right wing fervour in the country has been stoked primarily by this "mosque x temple issue", and modi's party has actually ridden this horse through the democratic process over the last three decades to "success" -- yes, make no mistake, democracy has not failed in india. the majority of voters are really that fervent in their championing of "hindutva".

but with the denouement of this chapter, they will no longer have the temple as a north star. they will no longer have this major unifying factor. this, in a way, is terrifying simply because the go-to fallback of this government to rally their voters into line is aggression towards pakistan.

with both countries pointing nuclear warheads at each other, this could have severe repercussions for the region and the world at large.

The headline is a bit misleading. The temple was built at the site of a destroyed mosque, which was built at the site of a destroyed temple.

According to Hindu nationalists, Baqi destroyed a pre-existing temple of Rama at the site. The existence of this temple is a matter of controversy.

The Archaeological Survey of India conducted an excavation of the disputed site on the orders of the Allahabad High Court.

The report of the excavation concluded that there were the ruins of "a massive structure" beneath the ruins of the mosque which was "indicative of remains which are distinctive features found associated with the temples of north India", but found no evidence that the structure was specifically demolished for the construction of the Babri Masjid.

Edited for clarity*

From the sounds of that, it’s not exactly the same situation as deliberately destroying one’s place of worship for another.

No the archaeological survey result just mean it's inconclusive whether the situation is exactly same or not. No evidence doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen, it just that we don't know for sure if it happebd or not.