A grand Mandir at Ayodhya dedicated to the Hindu god Lord Ram opens on Monday on a site in India which millions believe is his birthplace. The inaugural will be a religious spectacle led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi months before he seeks a third term in 2024. On Monday, prime minister Narendra Modi is set to perform the \u2018Pran Pratishtha\u2019 or the culmination of rituals, with a team of priests led by Lakshmikant Dixit overseeing the main rituals. The construction of the Ram mandir is a 35-year-old promise of the BJP and which was a contentious political issue that helped catapult the party to prominence and power. Even before the inaugural on January 22, the programme has attracted attention from various quarters largely over the government hijacking a religious event for political mileage. The mandir has been built on a 2.67-acre (1.08 hectares) site inside a 70-acre (28.33 hectares) complex and only its first phase is ready. The second and final phase is expected to be completed in December 2025. The project is estimated to cost of Rs.1800 crore and is entirely funded by donations from within the country. It is also being seen as the virtual launch of Modi\u2019s re-election campaign for general elections due by May 2024. This aspect has not been lost to the top four religious leaders of Hindu shrines who have refused to be tagged along with an event that has been programmed to suit BJP\u2019s political interests at the cost of Hindu religious scripture. All four prominent Shankaracharyas, or religious heads of major Hindu shrines, have already declared that they won\u2019t be attending the Ram Mandir consecration ceremony at Ayodhya on January 22. The heads of all four shrines called \u2018peeths\u2019, said they would not attend the inauguration event since it was being held \u201cagainst the shastras,\u201d or sacred Hindu scriptures. In India, there are four \u2018peeths\u2019 located in the states of Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Odisha, and Karnataka. In a video posted earlier on X on January 9, the chiefs of the Puri and Joshimath shrines announced that none of the four Shankaracharyas would be attending the inauguration since it would not adhere to the religious scriptures as the temple was being consecrated before construction was completed. Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, the 46th Shankaracharya of Jyotir Mutt, also stressed that the decision should not be interpreted as being \u201canti-Modi,\u201d but rather it was made because they didn\u2019t want to be \u201canti-shastras\u201d. He also said that it is the shankaracharyas\u2019 duty to follow religious scriptures and ensure that they are being followed properly. The principled stand taken by the pontiffs of four major Hindu shrines comes against the backdrop of a kind of religious fervour spread by the ruling party through a pliant media. For those who recollect, January 22, it is also the day, twenty five years ago, when Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two little sons-Philip and Timothy- were burned to death after they were locked inside a van by a horde of right wing extremists led by one Dara Singh. Though the date may be coincidental, yet it raises concerns of religion being overshadowed by politics which spark speculations that Indian democracy is perhaps on its way towards undergoing transformation away from democratic secularism and pluralism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A grand Mandir at Ayodhya dedicated to the Hindu god Lord Ram opens on Monday on a site in India which millions believe is his birthplace. The inaugural will be a religious spectacle led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi months before he seeks a third term in 2024. On Monday, prime minister Narendra Modi is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-400803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}