I read with a growing sense of despair John Reed and Jyotsna Singh’s piece on the new temple in Ayodhya (“Temple shrine symbolises Modi’s Hindu nationalism”, Report, January 18).
The preamble to the Indian constitution declares the country to be “a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic”. The government of a secular republic very evidently should not be promoting a particular religion or basing its development on the promotion of that religion. It has not escaped most people that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tearing hurry to consecrate a visibly incomplete temple in an election year (rather than have priests carry out the ceremony) has more to do with politics than religion.
In case there was any doubt about this, it should be laid to rest by what Nripendra Mishra (a former principal secretary to the prime minister) told the FT, that “every citizen of India” — and he goes on to emphasise his use of the word citizen — “would like to . . . visit this temple at least once”.
In other words, good citizenship in India — which according to its constitution is still a secular democracy — now depends on visiting a temple that is being built on the site of a former mosque that was brought down by a Hindu mob in one day in December 1992 while the authorities looked on.
Slowly, but steadily, India appears to be moving towards a state religion, much like its twin, Pakistan.
Priyanjali Malik
London NW6, UK
