The Guardian view on Modi in Ayodhya: an alarming new era for India | Editorial

The inauguration of the temple erased divisions between politics and religion in a theoretically secular state

Monday’s inauguration of the new Ram Mandir in Ayodhya by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, was a moment decades in the making. Yet it also came too early. Despite the grand spectacle of the ceremony, with celebrities, tycoons and politicians in attendance, the temple is still incomplete. There is an obvious explanation for this rushed endeavour, and it is not religious. India will go to the polls in late spring and while Mr Modi is all but guaranteed to win a third term, he wants a large majority for his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP).

Mr Modi rode to power, and has entrenched it, on the back of rightwing Hindu nationalism. On Monday he went beyond the exploitation of ethno-religious sentiment. He did not merely attend the ceremony; he carried out rituals. Religion and authoritarianism have proceeded hand-in-hand in recent years. But few strongmen have melded the political and religious to quite this degree. As his biographer, Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, observed, the event cast him as “the high priest of Hinduism”, disquieting some religious leaders.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/wPG8Qo1

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two years after Buffalo mass shooting, an art exhibit focuses on the victims

A few months after 14 May 2022, a curator sought out three local artists. The resulting exhibition, Before and After Again, is thought to be the first of its kind Two years ago, a white supremacist drove 200 miles to Buffalo, New York, and opened fire in a grocery store in the city’s predominantly Black East Side neighborhood, killing 10 people and injuring three. Though the Tops Friendly Markets where the racist mass shooting took place has been remodeled, and most of the country has forgotten about the violence that occurred on 14 May 2022, Buffalo’s East Side is forever changed. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/mqu1LFv
Read more

£1 Thursdays review – nightclubbing, sex talk and big decisions

Finborough theatre, London A mix of sweet observations about female friendship and cheeky brazenness about sex, Kat Rose-Martin’s play finds two young women at a crossroads in their lives In the cold air outside a sticky nightclub in Bradford, 17-year-olds Stacey and Jen are at a crossroads. In one direction lies the world they know: the family stress, the looming exams, the pumping pop beats at the club where they’ll reliably pull boys from school. In the other direction lies an uncertain path, and questions of who they are apart from one another, whether they could be the first in their families to go to university, and how to afford it if they do. Constantly on their minds, while they’re drunkenly dancing the nights away, is where they’ll end up, and what to do if they are the ones left behind. Thoughtful if not revelatory, £1 Thursdays covers an uneasy period of big decisions in these characters’ lives, as the gap between them widens. Monique Ashe-Palmer (Six) is ebullient as St
Read more

Eric Trump testifies ‘I don’t recall’ when asked about involvement in Trump Organization valuation - live

Prosecutors ask Eric Trump about financial statements and executives who cited calls with him for valuation, but he testifies he doesn’t remember conversation Sign up for Trump on Trial: a free newsletter on all the latest court developments Prosecutor Colleen Faherty asked Donald Trump Jr whether it’s a fair statement that he was generally familiar with the overall finances of the Trump Organization between 2011 and the present. “I would think so, yes,” Trump Jr replied, Law360’s Stewart Bishop reports. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/wzrfXa1
Read more