Washington: Hindu Americans hold car rally to celebrate Ram Temple inauguration in Ayodhya

Members of the Hindu American community have organised an automobile rally in a suburb of Washington, DC, to kick off the month-long celebrations leading up to the opening of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya next month. For the event on Saturday afternoon, a number of locals gathered at the Shri Bhakta Anjaneya Temple in Ayodhya Way, close to Frederick City, Maryland. The date of the Ram Temple’s grand opening in Ayodhya is January 22, 2024. The organisers said that the event marked the beginning of India’s month-long Ram Mandir celebrations. “After 500 years of struggle by Hindus, Bhagwan Shri Ram Mandir is being inaugurated and so we are organising a historic celebration of the same in the Washington, DC area on January 20 next year with about 1,000 American Hindu families,” said Mahendra Sapa, the president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America DC chapter. “The celebration will include Ram Leela, stories of Shri Ram, Hindu prayers to Shri Ram, bhajans (devotional songs) to Bhagawan Shri Ram and his family,” he added. “The celebration will feature the enactment on the life of God Shri Ram by kids of various ages for about 45 minutes in a manner understandable to kids born in America.” Premkumar Swaminathan, a co-organizer and prominent member of the Tamil Hindu community in the area, performed a hymn honouring Lord Shri Rama in Tamil and extended invites to all families for both the January 20 celebration in the USA and the official inauguration in Ayodhya on January 22 of the next year. Other organisers discussed the significance of Bhagawan Shri Ram, who serves as an inspiration to Hindus worldwide, in Kannada, Telugu, and other languages. All followers of Shri Ram were invited by the rally’s organiser, Krishna Gudipati, to celebrate the Ayodhya Mandir with a larger car and motorcycle rally. Ankur Mishra, a prominent local Hindu, elucidated the significance of commemorating the momentous opening of Ayodhya Mandir for numerous Hindu families and generations to aspire to become exemplary members of American society. The Ram temple at Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, which is located on the banks of the Sarayu River, is now under construction thanks to a 2019 Supreme Court decision. On August 5, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lay the temple’s foundation stone. (With agency inputs)