From Somnath to Kedarnath, the Char Dham Pariyojana, Ayodhya and now the Kashi Vishwanath Dham – the transformation of India’s iconic temple sites under his watch could be the defining cult of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said it were the “Hindutva-vadis who were ruling India” and the Congress wanted to bring in a “Hindu Raj”, trying to strike a difference between the two terms. The BJP camp, however, said that it is a “Hindu faith ambassador” who is in power since 2014 and “seeing is believing” in this aspect as the “temple builder” in Modi has demonstrated.
Modi’s tryst with this mission began when he was the chief minister of Gujarat and initiated a face-lift of the Somnath temple complex, which was restored many decades ago by KM Munshi. After Modi became the Prime Minister and also the Chairman of the Somnath Trust, the scale of the improvements increased further with a Seaside Promenade and an Exhibition Centre being completed this year.
The Kedarnath floods in 2013 and its aftermath at the iconic temple complex was the first major challenge for Modi when he became the PM. Since the incident, he visited Kedarnath in Uttarakhand almost every year to personally review the restoration work given how the cause was personally dear to him and the promise he made to himself. It culminated in a big transformation unveiled by him this year.
Along with Kedarnath temple, another key project initiated by Prime Minister Modi has been the Char Dham Pariyojana to link the four holiest Hindu shrines of Uttarakhand – Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamnotri and Gangotri – by an all-weather road for the benefit of the lakhs of pilgrims who come every year. By 2025, a railway line would also come up to connect Rishikesh with Karnprayag.
The Big Focus from 2019
The most ambitious temple projects on Modi’s table since 2019 have been the Ram temple in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh and the Kashi Vishwanath Dham project in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi. While the Supreme Court paved the way for the temple in 2019 and PM Modi himself did its bhoom-pujan last year along with kick-starting a rejuvenation project for entire Ayodhya town, the Prime Minister has closely monitored the Kashi Vishwanath Dham project too.
As PM Modi could not visit Varanasi due to the Covid-19 restrictions, he got a model of the project constructed at his residence to review the progress of it over video-conferencing with the architects. In the words of architect Bimal Patel, Modi gave various key inputs for the project, many of which have enhanced quality of the project, and wanted the glory of the Kashi Vishwanath temple restored.
Kashi is described in Skanda Purana by Lord Shiva himself as “his royal place” in the “three worlds that form one city of him”. Patel recalled how Mahatma Gandhi spoke of rejuvenating the temple complex way back in 1916 when he came to Kashi to inaugurate the Banaras Hindu University (BHU). It’s Modi who finally seems to have restored the grandeur of Kashi.
The BJP said that the previous Congress-ruled government had turned a blind eye towards temple restoration efforts and sheer neglect was on display at various such iconic sites across the country. The BJP further claimed that India in Modi has found a modern version of Ahilyabai Holkar, who once restored the glory of Indian temples.
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