On the heels of the Ram Mandir event, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated yet another temple in a faraway land in the UAE. Thefirst traditional Hindu temple built of stone in the Middle East was opened on February 14, thereby internationalizing his re-election campaign and his drive to turn secular India into a Hindu state.
Addressing the crowd during the temple’s opening, Modi attempted to draw comparisons with the construction of Ram temple on the ruins of historic Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, which has been a key component of BJP’s re-election campaign.
“The joy we felt in Ayodhya has been amplified in Abu Dhabi today. It is my honor that I witnessed the consecration of the temple in Ayodhya last month and this temple in Abu Dhabi today,” Modi said, who inaugurated a Rs.700 crore Hindu temple with an aarti at Abu Mureikha in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The temple was built over four years.
Although there have been several Hindu temples in the United Arab Emirates for many years, this one, which is managed by a Hindu group with its headquarters in Gujarat, is said to be the first in the city of Abu Dhabi and the first stone temple of its kind in the Gulf state.
In Bur Dubai, the UAE’s first temple opened its doors in 1958. Although it was moved to Jebel Ali this year, The National newspaper said that the 66-year-old temple’s closing caused conflicting feelings among its devoted followers.
“The UAE has, in history, written a new chapter,” Modi said in his speech at the temple’s community hall.
“A five-centuries-old dream was fulfilled. All of India and every Indian are still cherishing that feeling. My friend Brahmavihari Swamy was saying, ‘Modi ji is the biggest priest’. I don’t know if I have the qualifications of a temple priest, but I am proud to be a priest of Mother India,” he said, referring to the opening ceremony on January 22 in Ayodhya.
On this occasion, Modi also rejected the label of priest, which many of his blind supporters have applied to him.
Following a ruling by the Indian Supreme Court in 2019, the temple in Ayodhya was constructed. This was three decades after a mob of Hindutva groups demolished the Babri Masjid at the same location.
Although Muslim groups and foreign observers express dismay, Hindutva forces celebrate the completion of the temple, which was constructed on the site of the destroyed 16th-century Babri Masjid.
“[We are] troubled by the recent construction and inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on the site of the demolished Babri Mosque,” Stephen Schneck, a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, told VOA in written comments.
“It highlights a concerning precedent regarding the security of places of worship in India, many of which remain damaged and destroyed, particularly in the aftermath of violence in Manipur, for example.”
Hindus for Human Rights, a US-based nongovernmental organization said in a statement that “Modi is not a priest, so leading this ceremony for political gain is both technically and morally wrong. This weaponization of our religion tramples what’s left of India’s secular democratic values.” It expressed concerns that BJP might be using Hinduism for political and electoral purposes.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or OIC, a 57-member intergovernmental organization of Muslim-majority nations, has denounced what it calls the obliteration of Islamic landmarks in India.
In his inauguration speech for Ram Mandir, Modi said, “Today our Lord Ram has come. After centuries of waiting, our Ram has arrived.” In his speech, any mention of Babri Mosque was notably absent. He reportedly observed a fast and prayers for 11 days prior to the opening of the Ram Temple.
The temple in Abu Mureikha, situated north of the city of Abu Dhabi, was built by the Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, or BAPS, a worldwide religious and civic organization within the Swaminarayan sect. Modi has close ties to the organization. It is said that on April 5, 1997, Pramukh Swami Maharaj prayed and begged for a temple to be built in the middle of Sharjah’s desert, the capital of the UAE.
“May there be a mandir (temple) in Abu Dhabi, which will strengthen ties between nations, communities, cultures, and faiths,” he prayed. On August 9, 2015, the UAE decided to donate a piece of land to construct a Hindu temple, according to an announcement made by Modi, who was the first Indian prime minister to visit the Emirates after 34 years.
The temple complex has seven ancillary buildings to cater to 15,000+ visitors daily. It has distinctive water features that represent three major Indian rivers: the Ganga, Yamuna, and Saraswati (a mythical river). The main temple is constructed on a raft foundation using unreinforced fly-ash concrete (the UAE’s largest single pour of unreinforced concrete). Instead of iron and steel reinforcements, bamboo sticks and glass fiber were used. The temple façade is built on this foundation, using 40,000 cubic meters of marble from Italy and 180,000 cubic meters of pink sandstone from Rajasthan.
During the whistlestop tour of the U.A.E., Modi embraced the UAE’s president, describing him as a brother, and spoke before global leaders at a Dubai summit.
After the United States, the UAE is the foreign country that Modi has visited the most, followed by France and Japan, with this being his seventh visit in the past ten years.
Modi addressed the World Government Summit on his second day in the country; however, the pliant media focused more on the Hindu temple than the actual visit to the UAE.
Modi self-praised his own record of governance and advocated for elevating the Global South in the international system during his speech at the World Governments Summit earlier in the day.
“Over the years, the trust of the people of the country in the government of India has become stronger,” Modi said. “People have full faith in both the intentions and commitments of our government. The Global South served as a rallying cry for India during its G20 chairmanship.
In an attempt to include topics crucial to developing nations on the G20 agenda, India hosted two virtual “Voice of the Global South” forums. Modi had cited the invitation to the African Union to join the forum as a major achievement of its presidency. “It is as a friend to the world that India is moving forward,” he said.
Modi’s personal touches during the visit, such as his embrace of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, appear to be an attempt to strengthen ties with the oil-rich nation that provides India with energy and shelter for some 3.5 million Indians.
But given that Hindutva groups have been attacking Muslim and Christian minorities in recent years, Modi’s policies and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which he leads, have many worried about the country’s future.
Because of this, improving India’s relations with the Muslim-led Gulf Arab governments is essential for the country’s international reputation as well as the energy security of millions of its foreign employees living in the region.