Modi offered prayers to nine stone blocks with Ram inscribed on them and kept in a small pit amid chanting of Hindu religious hymns to symbolise the start of construction of the temple, which is expected to take three and a half years to complete
An Indian citizen termed the ceremony as the death of secular India.
My beloved India, the India of my birth, is dead.
— Namita Bhandare (@namitabhandare) August 5, 2020
Another shared how Hindutva, the ideology propagated by Hindu radicals, was destroying the fabric of society.
My India is melting pot of many religions , home to many cultures, traditions and language ,all inclusive and your India starts with hindutva and ends with erosion of all those values which make this country great and which makes it India .
— ayushjuneja (@Liverpudlian61) August 5, 2020
Journalist Rana Ayyub said it was a 'black day' in the history of India.
Today is a black day in the history of India, the worlds largest democracy when the Prime Minister lays the foundation of a temple over an iconic Mosque demolished by Hindu nationalists. India stands diminished as a plural, secular republic. https://t.co/eg7D5j41uv
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) August 5, 2020
Another user said that a 'tolerant' India never existed for many.
Know the monster you fight!
Have the clarity to acknowledge the profound failures that have denied dignity and freedom to the vast majority of its people. Rember that only a few can mourn the death of a secular, tolerant India that never existed for many. pic.twitter.com/PihJuZAVJZ
— Suchitra Vijayan (@suchitrav) August 5, 2020
One Vidya Krishnan said it was a day of 'mourning'.
Today is a day of mourning. For me, the prisons that lodge our poets, profs,activists & journalists are holier than the land on which temples stand.
As a Hindu, I'm ashamed. As a citizen, I'm appalled at this spectacle made for live television- in the middle of a pandemic.
— Vidya (@VidyaKrishnan) August 5, 2020