New Delhi
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend a groundbreaking ceremony next month for a Hindu temple on a disputed site in northern India, where a 16th century mosque was torn down by Hindu hard-liners in 1992, according to the trust overseeing the temple construction. The ceremony is set for Aug. 5, a date organizers said was astrologically auspicious for Hindus but that also marks a year since the Indian Parliament revoked the semi-autonomous status of its only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir. The symbolism was impossible to miss for both supporters and opponents of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP.—Agencies
