Ayodhya and the Politics of Reawakening

The Ram temple is a bold statement about India’s past, present and the future its rulers wish to shape.

The recent consecration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya was staged not merely as a religious milestone but as a civilisational declaration. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his 31-minute address beneath the saffron canopy of ceremony, it was clear that the event was intended to transcend ritual. The message was political, cultural and aspirational all at once - a call to reframe India’s national story through the idiom of faith, memory and development.

For many Indians, especially among the temple’s most ardent supporters, the moment was framed as the closing of a historical wound. The temple’s completion was described as the end of “centuries of pain” and the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream. Ayodhya, once a byword for political dispute and communal rupture, was recast as the cradle of moral regeneration and national unity.

Modi’s speech carefully recoded Ram not only as a deity but as a national archetype. Ram, he argued, is a symbol of governance, discipline, compassion and modern nationhood. This is a familiar articulation of the Prime Minister’s political method which is to merge cultural symbolism with developmental ambition. ‘Ram Rajya,’ the ancient ideal of righteous rule, has been softly aligned with India’s contemporary goals of economic acceleration, social discipline and geopolitical confidence.

The temple has thus become an instrument of narrative engineering. It offers a bridge between spiritual heritage and the government’s promise that India will become a $30–34 trillion economy by 2047, the centenary of independence.

Timeless University

Ayodhya’s symbolic power is carefully curated. It is portrayed not only as Ram’s birthplace, but as a timeless university of Indian values, home to sages such as Vashishtha, Vishwamitra, Valmiki and Agastya; sanctified by Sabari’s devotion; echoed by Tulsidas’s verse; and eternally guarded by Hanuman’s strength. These references knit together astronomy, asceticism, devotion and poetry into a single mythic continuum that modern India is urged to inherit and extend.

The temple has been celebrated as a product of mass participation by its donations from millions, labour by artisans, expertise from engineers and planners. This emphasis on shared ownership serves a political purpose in reframing a deeply polarising project as a national undertaking, smoothing over the conflicts that preceded it.

Ayodhya is not being presented merely as a relic of the past but is being remodelled as a laboratory of the future. In the vision sketched by the prime minister’s supporters, the city will become a global centre of education and research, possibly home to a ‘Shri Ram International University,’ symbolising the fusion of ancient ethics with modern science.

The ideological thrust is unmistakable. Ram is defined not as a historical person but as a value system embodying discipline, compassion, knowledge, restraint and courage. Citizens are invited to “awaken the Ram within.” Democracy, it is argued, can function properly only when rooted in these civilisational virtues.

This merging of statecraft and spirituality is not new to Indian politics, but it has rarely been executed with such scale or confidence. The Ram temple marks the maturation of a political project that has sought, for decades, to reposition Hindu symbolism from the margins of cultural assertion to the centre of national identity.

Critics, however, worry about what is left unsaid. The language of universal harmony, of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (‘the world as one family’), sits uneasily beside the memory of exclusion and violence that also shaped Ayodhya’s recent history.

Still, politically, the symbolism is potent. The temple offers the ruling party a narrative of cultural vindication, historical continuity and future-oriented nationalism, wrapped in devotional legitimacy. It supplies a moral vocabulary for governance at a time when economic growth alone no longer satisfies the electorate’s hunger for meaning.

India, as PM Modi often reminds audiences, is a living, changing civilisation. The message of Ayodhya is that this change must now proceed along lines drawn from sacred memory. Whether this fusion of faith and statecraft deepens social cohesion or sharpens existing fault lines will shape the moral architecture of the republic for decades to come.

In 2047, when India marks a hundred years of independence, today’s leaders hope the Ram temple will be remembered as a cornerstone of national renaissance. For future generations to see it as an emblem of unity will depend on how faithfully the lofty ideals invoked at Ayodhya are translated into justice, inclusion and prosperity on the ground by the government.

(The writer is a political commentator. Views personal.)