In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a controversial Hindu temple on Monday in the city of Ayodhya, in the northeast of the country.
The new temple is built on an important religious site for both Muslims and Hindus.
In 1992, the Babri mosque located there was destroyed by a mob of Hindu believers, because they believed the place was the birthplace of Ram, the most important deity of their religion.
The destruction of the Muslim place of worship by Hindus had greatly deteriorated relations between the two communities.. This was followed by violent uprisings which caused the deaths of some 2,000 people, the majority of them Muslims.
In a controversial decision dated 2019, the Indian Supreme Court recognized the illegal nature of the destruction of the mosque, but ordered that the site be granted to Hindus.
An increasingly blurred boundary between religion and politics
NarendraModi is regularly criticized for his desire to transform India into a Hindu nation. The inauguration of the temple in Ayodhya was a campaign promise to Hindu nationalists.
In the previous days, the prime minister had already visited eleven temples dedicated to the deity Ram, breaking once again with the principles of secularism supposed to be guaranteed by the country’s constitution.
Nearly 7,500 Indian personalities were invited to watch live on a giant screen the religious ritual in which the Prime Minister took part to inaugurate the new Hindu temple. A ceremony led by a priest in front of a statue of the god Ram which took on the appearance of an electoral campaign.
The next legislative elections will take place in April and May. Narendra Modi hopes to run for a third term at the head of India, where 80% of the population is Hindu.