India’s ruling party replaces a mosque with a Hindu temple

THIRTY YEARS ago a thrusting activist called Narendra Modi helped to organise a month-long political procession across northern India. The Ram Rath Yatra began at the city of Somnath, in his home state of Gujarat, and snaked up and down the country on its way to a mosque in the city of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh, at the spot where many Hindus believe the god Ram was born. Mr Modi had recently joined the national campaign team of the Hindu-chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was agitating for the demolition of the mosque and the construction of a temple in its stead.

The cavalcade vaulted the BJP into the top ranks of Indian politics. At the next election its share of the vote nearly doubled, making it the biggest opposition party. And even though the mosque was destroyed in 1992 after a BJP rally at its gates descended into a riot, the courts dithered for decades about what should become of the ruins, leaving the party with a perennial campaign issue. The fact that the demolition sparked nationwide violence that claimed over 2,000 lives only helped the BJP, by heightening sectarian tensions.