The streets leading to India’s most contested religious site are going full throttle. Hindu priests mix with barefooted pilgrims chanting the names of deities. Armed officials patrol the city of Ayodhya from watchtowers and checkpoints.
On a sprawling construction site, bulldozers tear into the earth and men use drills to chisel slabs of stone. They’ve worked round-the-clock to prepare for Monday’s consecration of a controversial temple on Hindu holy land where an ancient mosque once stood, an occasion Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this month called the fulfillment of "dreams that many generations have cherished for years.”
"Modi has never hid that he’s a Hindu,” said Prakash Sharma, 63, who watched the demolition of the mosque in 1992 by far-right Hindu activists. "People used to hide and go to temples, but he proudly goes.”