Ayodhya: As Ram, Laxman, and Sita walk into the forest in exile, the 3D lights start to dim. When Ravan kidnaps Sita, the lights ripple in warning. And when she is rescued, they shimmer in celebration. The crowd, entranced by the 3D light-and-sound show at Ram Ki Paidi ghat, along the banks of Saryu River in Ayodhya, claps and cheers. Devotees used to come here to take a dip in the waters. Now, the place is teeming with young men and women sitting in the open-air arena along the river banks, munching on popcorn and veggie burgers, and taking selfies while the Ramayana unfolds in the background.
This is Ayodhya reimagined, rebooted, and rebuilt as a modern-day 21st-century temple town with wide roads, orange houses, multi-level parking, Wi-Fi hotspots, lakefront cafes, an international airport, electric buses, luxury hotels, homestays, and 3D sound and light shows. For Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Ayodhya is “emerging as the epitome of New India”, a city dedicated to Ram as envisioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. And thousands of labourers, contractors, supervisors, and painters are working in shifts all through the night at a frenetic pace to make this a reality.
Massive cranes are hauling bricks, workers are cementing roads, and proprietors are painting ‘Jai Shree Ram’, Hanuman, and the swastikas on their shop fronts. The entire state machinery, from Yogi Adityanath to the youngest priest, is counting down the days until the grand opening of the Ram Mandir on 22 January 2024.
Most of the buildings and shops have been painted orange. Sprawling ‘tent cities’ with air-conditioning have risen to host the lakhs of visitors expected for the consecration ceremony. Hotels like the Radisson are fully booked, and there’s talk of two Taj hotels coming up. The price of stay at the Radisson has skyrocketed to as much as Rs 50,000 per night.
Ayodhya is poised to become India’s newest pilgrim spot not just for seers, sadhus, and saints, but for an Instagram-loving Gen Z as well.
“The Chief Minister wants to make Ram appealing to everyone. He wanted us to create a city that displays the ethos, deeds, and learnings of lord Ram in such a manner that the younger generation can connect with it,” says Vishal Singh, vice chairman of the Ayodhya Development Authority.
With its four-lane roads and aspirations for state-of-the art infrastructure, Ayodhya is the antithesis of ancient pilgrim towns like Varanasi and Mathura with their maze of lanes, hawkers, and touts. Once the temple is consecrated and Modi and the country’s top leadership depart, this vision for the city will be put to the test.
“We don’t want people to come and visit Ram Mandir and leave. We want them to stay for at least two to three days. The idea is to evolve the city as a tourism hub that will also boost the economy of the district,” says Singh.
If the Rs 13,500 crore Central Vista project is Modi’s stamp in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi, then the Rs 32,000 crore reboot of Ayodhya is the centrepiece around which Hindi heartland’s future politics will supposedly pivot.
Also Read: Ayodhya Ram temple getting darshan-ready, mosque short on funds, map stuck
A rebirth in the making
At 10 pm on a Tuesday, Ayodhya still thrums with construction activity — the roads are filled with workers and supervisors in bright orange safety vests.
In the centre of the town, Ruchita Bansal, 41, instructs a team of six men on how to align the boards, paint the walls, and smooth out the bumps on the roads. She’s wearing a pair of track pants and sneakers, but nobody gives her a second glance. As a city planner working with one of the two private firms contracted by the district administration, this is her dream job.
“We had a long video call with the Chief Minister today. He visits the city every week and when he isn’t here, he conducts inspections via video conference with officers and the city planners,” says Bansal, as she takes a photo of a bump on the road and sends it to the administration’s WhatsApp group.
Back in his office, district magistrate (DM) Nitish Kumar pores over a large map of Ayodhya spread on a massive wooden table. He and his team of officers are identifying potential locations for new infrastructure projects.
“New townships, food courts, more parking lots, and railway over-bridges are to be constructed,” says Kumar. He’s planning for the future — Ayodhya will continue to grow even after the Ram temple is inaugurated. Kumar’s phone dings and pings continuously as he troubleshoots glitches and last-minute snags.
“There is so much on the plate. I can’t be everywhere. That’s why I am virtually keeping an eye on the construction in the city,” he adds. The IAS officer, said to be Yogi’s eyes and ears, was hand-picked to be the district magistrate of Ayodhya in 2021. He was special secretary to the CM between 2017 to 2019 and is also credited with the setting up of Bareilly airport when he was the DM of the district.
“He is the chief minister’s special man who understands his vision and implements it on the ground,” said a senior official in the UP government who did not want to be named. “In Ayodhya, the airport work was not taking off, and even the land was not being acquired properly. That’s when he was given the charge.”
Each and every house has a white arch, windows, and parapets in the same design, while shops have standardised signages— a brown board featuring the name of the shop and the new Ayodhya logo.
According to officers in the administration, Kumar hit the ground running to make Ayodhya’s Maryada Purshottam Shri Ram International Airport a reality. Eight villages including Janura, Ganja, Pura Hussain Khan, Dharampur, and Firozpur had to be demolished to acquire the land. It was Kumar who went from village to village, holding chaupals (public meetings) to get the residents on board and promising compensation.
In the process, he found himself mediating family feuds and petty squabbles over land.
“Families would come to my office with applications. They would fight. These are the small yet big aspects of a town’s development. You have to keep people happy,” Kumar says, as his phone buzzes again.
Spread over 821 acres and built at a cost of Rs 250 crore, the airport will connect Ayodhya not just to the rest of India but to countries like Thailand and Cambodia for those who want to make the complete Ram circuit. The symbolism of Ram is hammered into every nook and cranny of the two-storeyed airport building that mimics the Nagara style of temple architecture with ornately carved pillars and art inspired by the Ramayana.
Thousands of additional labourers have been deployed to complete the airport construction which is set to be inaugurated by Modi.
“We are working 24×7, there is no relief. The politicians belt out a date and they don’t even ask us,” said an official from the company overseeing the airport construction.
If the Rs 13,500 crore Central Vista project is Modi’s stamp in the heart of Lutyens’ Delhi, then the Rs 32,000 crore reboot of Ayodhya is the centrepiece around which Hindi heartland’s future politics will supposedly pivot.
Tracking Ayodhya’s transformation like a hawk is Yogi himself, who visits the city weekly for real-time inspections.
A sea of ‘orange’
All the houses and shops along the Faizabad-Gorakhpur highway, now called Rampath (path to Ram), are painted in shades of orange. At 13 km, it’s the longest corridor to lead straight to the Ram Mandir. Each and every house has a white arch, windows, and parapets in the same design, while shops have standardised signages— a brown board featuring the name of the shop and the new Ayodhya logo. It’s a white silhouette of the temple against the backdrop of a multi-coloured lotus.
Singh and Bansal call it ‘facade control’ — an attempt to impose uniformity on the old architecture of the city. Come 22 January, Rampath will open to 8,000 visitors, but it’s not the only temple corridor to be renamed and revamped. The 2 km Janmabhoomi Path, 0.75 km Bhakti Path, 12 km Lakshman Path, all named by the CM himself, are also undergoing a process of standardisation.
The guidelines for facade control were the brainchild of urban designer and architect Dikshu Kukreja of CP Kukreja Architects, the Delhi firm selected to draw up the blueprint plan for Ayodhya. Kukreja found that the city lacked an identity. He wanted to give Ayodhya a new avatar without eroding its “originality”.
The kind of work we have done in the last two years sounded impossible at first. But we did it. We along with the administration have successfully transformed Ayodhya
-Ruchita Bansal, city planner
“On the one side, the city was known for the great Ramayana, and on the other, it was a town falling apart. And we wanted the architecture to reflect a certain period and style which goes with what the architecture of Ayodhya has historically been about,” says Kukreja. The challenge for the team was to “bring the historical flavour of the character” and “contemporise” it.
And that’s when the idea of uniformity was brought in.
For inspiration, Kukreja studied the pilgrimage towns of Amritsar and Tirupati, as well as Italy’s Vatican City.
“The Vatican City gave a few learnings on how [to plan] a place which has a permanent population that is only a mere fraction of the visiting population,” says Kukreja. His team studied the kind of facilities and amenities needed for the lakhs of visitors while ensuring the privacy of residents.
Tracking Ayodhya’s transformation like a hawk is Yogi himself, who visits the city weekly for real-time inspections. The CM puts more stock in his firsthand observations than the slick presentations delivered in meetings by the district administration on future development projects, according to officials.
“I saw the presentation, now, what I witnessed in reality, let’s talk about that,” an official recalls Yogi saying during a meeting. He vets all the details of the plans too. For instance, the district authorities intended to give the contract for multi-level parking to a single agency, but Yogi didn’t like the idea. It was canned.
“The CM said that the contracts should be given to multiple agencies and the best of them should be chosen for the future. Competition will result in better amenities. He has a holistic view,” adds the official.
As part of the city planning team, Bansal tours all the key areas to make sure everything is in order. On a Thursday morning, she’s patrolling Janmabhoomi Path with two of her colleagues, looking for anomalies or anything that strays from ‘facade control’.
“The kind of work we have done in the last two years sounded impossible at first. But we did it. We along with the administration have successfully transformed Ayodhya,” says Bansal, running her fingers through her short hair.
Having worked on the early blueprints with a Delhi-based firm, she quit her job to join Agra-based Line Engineering when it was contracted to help plan the city, make tenders, and get vendors on board.
On their rounds, Bansal and her colleagues click pictures of the standardised signages, houses, roads, and the newly installed ornate street lamps. But they can’t control the troop of monkeys. A few shake the street light lamps as if testing them. Others perch on parapets for a better view and the rest swing from one pole to another in wild abandon.
Building an altar to commerce
Old temples, ghats, and kunds (ceremonial water tanks) are being revamped with food courts, fountains, and parks to entice tourists and get them to extend their stay in Ayodhya.
Guided tours are a dime a dozen— Rs 300-500 for a tour of the under-construction Ram Mandir (from the outside) to Hanuman Giri and then onwards to Ayodhya Dham. Small shopping complexes and waterfront eateries have started coming up, all with an eye on the expected tourist boom.
Pawan Pandey, who used to earn Rs 500-700 a day selling papads in Mumbai, moved to Ayodhya in August after hearing about the city’s massive redevelopment. Now, he runs a juice stall outside Janmabhoomi Path and says he feels blessed.
The BJP tries to divide Hindus and Muslims, but… they are doing development work in Ayodhya. It has opened employment prospects for us
-Mohammad Younis, taxi driver
“I’m able to save Rs 2,000 per day. This is all because of Ram Lalla. I always thought my work would never let me return to Ayodhya but with the Ram temple, I found a job and can also feed my family easily,” he says.
Some of the stores have Urdu signage, but nobody wants to talk about Babri Masjid, not even old-time Muslim residents.
“The BJP tries to divide Hindus and Muslims, but though I might not align ideologically with the party, they are doing development work in Ayodhya. It has opened employment prospects for us,” says taxi driver Mohammad Younis. He’s happy that the airport will be operational soon since it will mean a steady flow of income for him.
At Ram Ki Paidi, a series of ghats along the waterfront, visitors can watch the Ramayana sound and light show amid colourful fountains. Young men and women hold hands, while others relax in the canteen, watching Ram and Sita over pizzas and lemon tea.
“It is a religious and picnic spot combined. I loved the way religion has been modernised in Ayodhya,” says Vishal Kumar who is visiting with his girlfriend.
The Ram Ki Paidi revamp includes fresh paint for historic temples and a new canteen. Young boys stroll up and down the waterfront hawking tea and packets of chips and peanuts.
But it’s the hotels that are betting big on this new Ayodhya. The Tata Group’s Indian Hotels Company Limited, Marriott International, Sarovar Hotels & Resorts, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts have reportedly signed deals. Sarovar’s Park Inn by Radisson has already opened its doors to guests.
“We are expecting 30 lakh visitors a day after inauguration. Even if 10 per cent of them decide to stay back, we need a place for at least 3 lakh people. We are establishing tent cities, facilitating homestays, and encouraging new hotels to expand into Ayodhya. This ensures that people from all societal segments can find affordable and preferred lodging options,” says ADA vice chairman Vishal Singh.
Inspired by Ayodhya’s booming hospitality sector, residents are stepping out of their comfort zones. Ashutosh Uppal, who runs a well-established marble and tiles business, took a leap of faith into the hotel business.
“A hotel in Ayodhya was a risky deal because there were hardly any tourists. And those who came would only stay for a day,” he says. But when he saw Ayodhya transforming in front of his eyes, he bought a barren plot of land next to his tiles showroom and built a fancy hotel for KK Hotels, which is working with the popular chain Cygnett on a franchise model.
Within two weeks of opening his hotel on 1 December, 17 of the 30 rooms were booked. All these guests came to Ayodhya specifically to see the temple being built, Uppal says. Even busier days are on the horizon, with 80 per cent of his hotel rooms booked for 14-28 January, the Ram Mandir inauguration period. Uppal says most of these bookings have been made on behalf of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Trust for “VIPs” invited to the event.
At the Cygnett hotel’s restaurant, a diner pauses mid-breakfast and shares that he has come from Gorakhpur to Ayodhya in search of land for a hotel. “It’s all thanks to Yogi Ji,” he adds.
Also Read: How BJP, VHP & RSS are mobilising people across India for Ram Lalla’s pran pratishtha in Ayodhya
One wait ends, another begins
Ayodhya is buzzing with anticipation. Cranes towering over the cityscape shield the temple from curious eyes, but residents and tourists alike scramble onto rooftops to catch a sneak peek.
For many, the upcoming inauguration marks the end of a decades-long wait, but the final stretch is proving to be a test of their patience.
The ground beneath the temple has never been steady, with Hindus claiming it as the birthplace of Ram and the Muslims as the rightful site of the 16th-century Babri Masjid. In 1949, a group of Hindus entered the mosque and placed idols of Ram Lalla in the prayer hall. Forty-three years later, on 5 December 1992, contingents of kar sevaks led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), reduced the mosque to rubble with pickaxes, shovels, and crowbars, triggering riots across the country. Then came the protracted legal battle, which ended only after the Supreme Court awarded the disputed land to the Hindus in 2019. Prime Minister Modi laid the foundation stone for the temple the following year.
A construction blitz has overshadowed the history of destruction, but an edge of anxiety remains.
At Karsevakpuram, the VHP’s Ayodhya headquarters, the mood is more focused than giddy with excitement. They have to ensure that the grand opening of the Ram temple proceeds without a hitch.
The main hall reverberates with chants of “Ram Chandra ki Jai, Bharat Mata ki Jai, Akhand Bharat Jai,” sung in unison by VHP workers, raising their arms with each invocation. A local daily with the headline “Modi pe hi bharosa” (We trust only in Modi) rests on a white table.
Champat Rai, the VHP president and secretary of the Ram Janmabhoomi trust, oversees not just the temple’s construction but that of temporary tin-roofed ‘tent cities’ across Ayodhya. Three have been built so far, each with a capacity of around 1,500, to house the expected influx of sadhus, RSS and VHP workers, and villagers.
Work is far from over. “We are establishing 10 cities in coordination with the development authority and the CM,” says a VHP official requesting anonymity.
On the banks of Saryu River, about 300 metres away from the temple, another tent city has emerged. But this one, built by a Gujarat-based company called Praveg, has all the amenities of a luxury hotel, from air-conditioners and geysers to a restaurant and souvenir shop.
Huge wooden padukas (sandals) symbolising Ram decorate the entrance, but the place gives off a beachy vibe with white tents, recliners, and canopies.
“We made this tent city in 45 days. An open tender was floated in October by the development authority and we got it,” says manager Krishan Kant.
Praveg has also built tent cities in Kumbh, Banaras, and the Rann of Kutch, but “they are not as impressive as the one here in Ayodhya,” insists Kant. “The development authority clearly told us what they wanted and we did that.”
Dhannipur village, on the outskirts of Ayodhya, is much quieter. This is where the Uttar Pradesh government allocated 8 acres of barren land for the construction of a mosque.
While the construction timeline remains uncertain, residents say it will start after the Ram temple’s inauguration, or maybe even later.
“Perhaps after the Lok Sabha elections, work on the mosque will begin,” guesses a resident standing in front of a board depicting the mosque’s design. The architecture is futuristic and includes plans for a hospital and library, but the first brick is yet to be laid.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)