Ram mandir, Ayodhya | A monumental transition

As a manifest sign of the psychology of contemporary India—its social and political face, body and self-image—the Ram temple at Ayodhya has few parallels. The opening of its gates seemed to offer a kind of closure on a key chapter in its evolution. For the devout, a moment of spiritual euphoria and fulfilment. For the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, a key ideological promise embodied in reality. For others, a symbol of the political power that religion wields in modern India—the event calendar, with a prime minister leading a grand pran pratishtha three months before a general election, did nothing to allay those stark associations. As it happened, the expected electoral harvests didn’t quite materialise, and political well-being resulted because Ram was supplemented with latter-day ‘Paltu Rams’. Saffron, notably, lost even in Ayodhya. Nor was closure close at hand for the debate on identity—how ‘India’, as well as ‘Hindu’, would define themselves. A long-running epic in itself, one that had wracked the polity to its core for decades, it continued to new chapters. Despite express promises that Ayodhya would clinch the deal in India’s bargain with itself.