Is India headed for theocracy? | The Listening Post

The long-anticipated and deeply contentious consecration of a Hindu temple this past week involving Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

For almost 500 years, the site was home to a mosque, which was demolished by Hindu rioters in the early 1990s.

Modi’s party, the BJP, has long been agitating for the mosque to be replaced - by a temple to the god Ram, who many Hindus believe was born at that same site.

The timing is no coincidence. There’s an election just around the corner.
But the inauguration flies in the face of Indian secularism, which is supposed to be constitutionally protected.

Most media outlets – whether out of belief or fear – have been on message - as Indians have grown accustomed to under Modi.
But believers in a multi-faith, democratic India, are calling this one more step down a dangerous road to a theocracy.

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