Elderly Hindu ascetic Ram Bhakt, 96, braved searing heat Friday as he hobbled through the narrow laneways of one of India’s holiest cities to vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his faith.
Nestled between the Himalayan foothills and the banks of the Ganges river, the ancient city of Haridwar is ringed by temples and a key pilgrimage site for India’s majority faith.
It is also a stronghold of support for Modi, whose Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has brought religion to the forefront of politics in defiance of the country’s secular political constitution.
“I am voting for India’s civilisational glory,” said the wizened nonagenarian, clad in a simple saffron robe and resting his weight on a wooden walking stick, his wrinkled forehead smeared with vermilion and ash.
“Under Modi, our country has become what we sages had always hoped for,” he told AFP.
Modi is widely expected to resoundingly win this year’s national elections in India, which began on Friday and continues in phases until June 1.
His enduring popularity in India has been forged in large part by his appeal to the Hindu faithful.
This year, he presided over the inauguration of a grand temple to Ram, one of the most important deities in the Hindu pantheon, built on the grounds of a centuries-old mosque razed by Hindu zealots.
At the glitzy ceremony attended by Bollywood celebrities and cricket stars, he told an audience of thousands that India was “creating the genesis of a new history”.
Construction of the temple fulfilled a long-standing demand of Hindu activists and was widely celebrated across India with back-to-back television coverage and street parties.
Shiv Shankar Giri, a young man serving in a Hindu monastic order in Haridwar, told AFP that he had cast his vote for “the one who had brought Ram”.
“We are all voting for the person who has made Hinduism strong,” said the 28-year-old. “We are voting for Modi.”
‘Our faith is secure’
The growing alignment between India’s politics and its majority faith has been cheered on around the country in the decade since Modi took office.
But the rising tide of Hindu nationalist fervour has also left the country’s 220 million-strong Muslim community and other minorities fearful.
Uttarakhand state, home to Haridwar and the source of the Ganges, is considered a geographical cornerstone of Hinduism, and has smouldered with sectarian tensions.
Hardline activist groups loosely affiliated with the BJP have issued calls for Muslims to be expelled from the state.
In another part of Uttarakhand, several Muslims were killed in February after clashes with their Hindu neighbours, prompted by municipal authorities demolishing a mosque they said had been constructed illegally.
For Mukesh Dubey, the priest of a small temple in Haridwar, the Modi government’s championing of his faith was a “fraud” and distraction from more pressing issues facing India, with millions of young university graduates out of work.
Sops to the faith amounted to nothing if “people do not have jobs and food to fill their stomachs”,” the 38-year-old told AFP.
Modi’s party is nonetheless expected to coast to victory in Haridwar, where in the last election five years ago the BJP candidate won 250,000 more votes than his nearest rival.
“Modi had ensured our country as well as our faith is secure,” Uday Bharti, 59, told AFP outside a polling station.
“We have come here to make sure Modi keeps doing his good work.”
