You (Lord Ram) know this temple is founded on something akin to an act of terrorism, the razing down of a mosque. You know this temple is not a product of piety, but retaliation and revenge for an event centuries ago. Kings and invaders of years past must have razed many temples to the ground and they likely destroyed a temple at Ayodhya too. But that is neither here nor there. History is a slaughter house that no divinity of any stripe has been able to redeem. All we can do is snatch snippets of a fragile justice here and there. It is the ultimate hubris to think that we need to protect you rather than you to protect us. Revenge does not help. Past conflicts are being used as pretexts to reconfigure contemporary power. The forces that will consecrate this temple converted your name into the very opposite of what it signifies. They made Ram synonymous with revenge, with an insecure pride, with a blood curdling aggression, violence towards others, a coarsening of culture, and the erasure of every last shred of genuine piety in public devotion and public life.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, ‘Ram, I will not find you there’, Indian Express
