PASADENA – Randeep Singh stood alone in the corner of a small Hindu temple, on the edge of the white cloth that lined the floor. It had been a long time since he’d attended a temple service, and it had been a bad year. Having recently lost his job as a security guard, when Singh saw advertising for an event celebrating “Ram Lala’s Pran Pratistha at his birthplace,” he decided to make the trip from West Covina. While several people sat or kneeled at the altar under twinkling lights, Singh stayed upright, watching. “Welcome” was written in flower petals on a sign spanning the ceiling.
“Maybe things will get better,” Singh said of his return to worship. Dozens trailed into the room as the puja, an offering of flowers and food, continued. They were here to celebrate the culmination of more than 500 years of conflict over a sacred site found in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Outside the temple doors, a livestream was being set up. Several attendees wore T-shirts bearing the phrase “Chalo Ayodhya,” which roughly translates to “Let’s go to Ayodhya.” A projector displayed a live news broadcast from the city in India.
A crowd of around 200 gathered Jan. 21 in Pasadena to witness Prime Minister Narendra Modi lead the Pran Pratistha, a ceremony to consecrate the opening of the new Hindu temple, the Ram Mandir. The site is believed by some to be the birthplace of Rama and the location of a former Hindu temple destroyed by the Mughals in the 16th century. From then on, a mosque called the Babri Masjid stood until it was torn down by a Hindu nationalist mob in the early ‘90s, provoking riots that claimed nearly 2000 lives, most of them Muslim.
A symbol of faith to some, for others, the temple’s opening is evidence of political trends threatening India’s secular democracy on its way to becoming a Hindu nation. One man quieted the Pasadena crowd and urged attendees to greet each other with the phrase “jai shri ram,” the same rallying cry of “Victory to Lord Rama” reportedly heard in 1992 as crowds rushed the Masjid.
These trends carry what many say are known consequences in India today: “Minoritized communities are beaten up,” said Akhila Ananth, associate professor of criminal justice at Cal State LA. “I don’t know what kind of gymnastics you have to do to separate all of that from the opening of this temple.”
Ananth called to mind Salman Rushdie’s work writing about how the secular Bombay he grew up in no longer exists. “It’s a photograph, the photograph fades,” Ananth said. “The photograph is crumbling at this point.”
Attendees reflected on the meaning of the temple’s opening as they shared meals brought from home and sipped cups of chai. Aparna Kumar moved to the U.S. more than 30 years ago from Bangalore and recalled the site of the temple the year she and her husband, Sid, got married in 1994: “It was a big plot of land with a small temple on it. Now, it’s this.” Kumar shared a feeling of excitement to be witnessing the event. Still, she said, “There’s always the fear that it overtakes the secular part of India. But it’s nice to have it as one part of India.”
Sushma Kapoor remembers Ayodhya as a small city. The Los Angeles resident remarked on the recent addition of an airport and a train station, with an expected influx of devotees visiting the Ram Mandir. Kapoor, while emphasizing that India is a secular country, said the consecration brings people together, a far cry from the language of division that so often surrounds the site. “After so many years, it’s happening,” Kapoor said. “Everyone is so happy.”
Kamal Kapoor introduced himself as Sushma’s husband, seeking to share how the Supreme Court’s approval of the temple’s construction in 2021 lended legitimacy to the project. Only with the court’s approval could plans for the temple proceed after a long history marked with bloodshed. For Ananth, this history is paramount: “This prime minister has consecrated a Ram temple on the site of where the Babri Masjid used to stand with no kind of acknowledgement of what happened for that to be there,” she said.
“Do you see how times have changed?” asked Sid Kumar, a psychiatrist in Glendora originally from Uttar Pradesh. He said the Ram Mandir was a symbol of meaning among an eroding culture. “Building a temple or mosque is not easy,” he said: “You have to do it in a way so people see the reason behind it, the meaning.” For Kumar, the Ram Mandir represents “one way to let people feel.”
Also reflecting on how times have changed, Ananth mused, “We in the diaspora are strange creatures.” She reflected on her experience as a first-generation Indian American raised in an upper caste family. “Many of us were raised by parents who really tried to pass on something about India to us,” she said. “They wanted us to have a connection to India, but the India they wanted us to have a connection to was the India they left behind.”
Ananth said she has been outspoken about social justice issues since she was 17. She protested against Modi’s rule at community events, including the Lotus Festival honoring India at Echo Park. And, in August 2022, she penned a column in the Los Angeles Times titled, “As a Hindu, I can’t stay silent about injustices in India – committed in the name of our faith.” Her outspokenness came at the cost of relationships with family, but Ananth refused to bemoan this fact. “I’m not going to sit here and act like it traumatized me,” she said. “Because people are dying.”
Ananth acknowledged she can’t speak for the entire diaspora. Still, she said she hopes “that there are more in the diaspora who are realizing that we were told a glittery story about India that just is not true.”
The event in Pasadena was organized in part by Haimant and Rima Ji, with a car rally throughout the city in the morning. As night fell, the celebration featured a Tesla light show, with around a dozen Teslas parked in a row with their headlights blinking in unison. The biggest challenge was “getting people together,” Haimant said. But after 500 years of conflict, Rima called the ceremony “a dream come true.” Rima said she had received an invitation to attend the ceremony in Ayodhya, but kindly declined. It had been extended to her by the Ram Mandir’s chief engineer, who had paid the Pasadena temple a visit when he was recently in Southern California, Rima said.
The Pasadena location had become a community hub upon its founding back in 2003 by Pawan “Charlie” Madan, alongside other community members. It’s nearly a decade older than the grander BAPS Mandir in Chino Hills, just less than an hour away. BAPS organized a series of celebrations across the globe that same night. Singh said he had been to the Chino location but preferred the Pasadena temple. “It’s a business,” he said of the BAPS Mandir.
Looking around the festivities under a darkened sky, Madan reflected on the sense of togetherness. He also sought to answer the question, “Why now?” Why, after 500 years, is the Ram Mandir finally open for worship? In a rare break from the apolitical celebrations happening around him, Madan mused, “Mr. Modi had a lot to do with it.”