Tag: Symbolism

VARANASI, INDIA - In the Indian city Hindus consider the center of the world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has commissioned a grand promenade connecting the sacred Ganges River with the centuries-old Vishwanath temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, the god of destruction. In his five years as prime minister, Modi has pushed to promote this secular nation of 1.3 billion people and nine major religions — including about 170 million Muslims — as a distinctly Hindu state. And some Varanasi Muslims fear the project could embolden Hindu hard-liners who have demanded for decades that the 17th century Gyanvapi mosque — which they claim was built over an earlier Vishwanath temple demolished in the Mughal era — should itself be torn down. Around a Hindu festival day in March, Islahi said, a group tried to install a Hindu statue near the mosque to assert a claim on the property. The campaign includes restoring the Hindu names of cities that were renamed by Mughals centuries ago and excluding the Taj Mahal, a Muslim tomb, from government tourism materials. Though Varanasi draws millions of devout Hindus each year, scholars and residents emphasize its identity as a city where people of many faiths have long lived together harmoniously. But the temple project is a BJP-led effort to stamp India’s Hindu mores onto a multicultural society, historians and political scientists say. Last October, Modi unveiled another dream project: a statue in Gujarat of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, an Indian independence leader, politician and Hindu. But with the Vishwanath temple and other symbolic projects, one of Modi’s undisputed successes has been to insert religion into the center of the political debate in India. Khanna and his siblings, parents and grandfather live and run a wholesale garment business near the Vishwanath temple that deeds on weathered paper show the family has owned since Mughal times.