Modi hails a new ‘divine India’ as he inaugurates controversial Hindu temple ahead of nationwide elections

CNN —

Millions tuned in across India to watch the opening of a vast Hindu temple on Monday, in a ceremony considered to be the crowning moment for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist ambitions months before he seeks to win a rare third term in elections.

The inauguration of the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir – a temple devoted to Lord Ram – in northern India’s Ayodhya is more than 30 years in the making and is expected to give a major boost to Modi’s election campaign.

The Ram Mandir is the realization of Modi’s dream to create what he has called a “new India,” which many consider to be the transformation of the country into a distinctly Hindu nation.

For Modi’s detractors, the temple’s inauguration is the conclusion of a decades-long campaign to pull India away from the secular roots upon which the country was founded following independence.

“Today our Lord Ram has come. After centuries of waiting, our Ram has arrived. After centuries of unprecedented patience, countless sacrifices, renunciations, and penances, our Lord Ram has arrived,” Modi said in a speech to a 7,000-strong crowd that included movie stars, top cricket players and tycoons, from the newly-constructed temple bedecked with colorful flowers.

“Ram is not a dispute, Ram is the solution,” he added.

Monday’s ceremony fulfils a long-standing promise to voters by Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government that propelled them to power in 2014.

For years, Modi and his political allies vowed to build a temple on the site of a 16th century mosque that was destroyed by violent Hindu hardliners in a deadly 1992 attack that turbo-charged the country’s Hindu nationalist movement.

The mosque’s demolition, spurred on by the BJP and other right-wing