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Extensive security detail ahead of Ram Temple opening ceremony
Three decades after Hindu mobs tore down a historical mosque at Ayodhya, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the consecration ceremony of a grand Hindu temple for Lord Ram at the same site on Monday.
India's majority Hindus say the site was the birthplace of Lord Ram, and was holy to them long before Muslim Mughals razed a temple at the spot and built the Babri mosque there in 1528. A Hindu mob destroyed the mosque in 1992, triggering riots that killed about 2,000 people across India, most of them Muslims.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead the inauguration which is expected to be attended by a galaxy of business leaders and celebrities. The Supreme Courts verdict in 2019 allowed a temple to be built in place of the demolished Babri mosque.
Shahnawaz Ali Raihan, History researcher of Modern India from University of Oxford, talks about how this is going to affect tensions between Hindu extremists and Muslim. He also argues that many opposition leaders say this has nothing to do with religion and is designed to keep Modi in power for another term.
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