By Rahul Bhattacharya
On a chilly morning this January, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, gathered over 8,000 luminaries – industrialists, film stars, athletes, seers – in Ayodhya to inaugurate an imposing temple, dedicated to the Hindu god Ram. The ceremony marked the culmination of a 34-year campaign by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to build a temple on a site once occupied by a 16th-century mosque. The mosque was destroyed in 1992 by a Hindu mob; subsequent riots across the country led to the deaths of 2,000 people.
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