Significance of the Ram Mandir

The drive to build a Ram temple is an attempt to reinstate the guiding principles our ancient land, of justice and pluralism and negate the forces of religious compulsion and domination that the Babri Masjid signified.

The second millennium was a dark period in the religious and cultural history of the ancient land of Bharata (I use this name as the terminology India came much later). It was a time when alien invaders laid waste to the land, butchering Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists by the thousands and destroying hundreds of Hindu temples and Buddhist monasteries with the explicit aim of wiping out a civilization. The nadir of this dark period was 1528, when Mir Baqi, a general belonging to the army of Babur, the first Mughal emperor of India ground to dust an existing Ram temple at Ayodhya and erected a mosque in its place.

This was a singular, irrefutable act of evil with no justification whatsoever; a deliberate atrocity designed to humiliate, insult and demoralize Hindus by destroying the temple that symbolized Shri Ram, the very essence of Hindu tradition and morality—all done with the purpose that Hindus would then become easy fodder for conversion.

Despite modern technology and scientific advancements, the moral concept of right and wrong is still at the core of humanity—nothing can erase or change it. And the cosmos has its own ways and its own timeline in enforcing its rules of morality. Therefore almost 500 years later, a tenure that has seen the passage of two empires and ushered in a modern democracy, this grave historical wrong is being rectified.

On 22 January 2024, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi performs the Pran Pratistha ceremony leading to the installation of the idol of Shri Ram Lalla in Ayodhya, it will be a day of immense satisfaction and pride for all the right-thinking Hindus of India; a vindication of their faith and their non-violent way of life in a world that has seen religions fight wars and forcefully dominate over one another.