Ayodhya's New Avatar

The race is on to build a grand Ram Mandir and give Ayodhya a modern makeover before the 2024 election, with a new airport, railway station and township

- Prashant Srivastava

MUCH WATER HAS FLOWED DOWN the Sarayu since Ayodhya first became the centre of a dispute as long as the history of independent India itself. It gave birth to a violent politico-religious movement that divided the country till the November 9, 2019 Supreme Court verdict on Ayodhya settled the matter. The disputed 2.77 acres of land was handed to a trust that would oversee the construction of the Ram temple. Nine months later, on August 5, 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was presiding over the ground-breaking ceremony of the temple.

After years of unrest, has Ayodhya finally found peace? The temple town today is bustling with activity, as the ‘double-engine BJP sarkar’ (at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh) strives to have the temple ready in time for electoral dividend, particularly the big prize—a third chance at governing the country in the 2024 parliamentary election.

The urgency shows. “The construction work of the temple has been expedited,” says Champat Rai, general secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which was constituted at the apex court’s behest to oversee the construction of the temple. “The goal of the trust is to complete the construction of the ground floor three months before December 2023.”

The grandness of the project is not in question—the height from the ground to the top will be 181 feet; the ground floor will extend 380 feet in the east-west direction and 250 feet from north to south. White marble from Rajasthan’s Makrana hills will be used in the