Despite Opposition Hindu Temple AD runs in Times Square

The images of a Hindu deity were displayed on a large digital billboard in Times Square despite calls from a coalition of advocacy organizations — including Muslim, human rights, anti-fascist and secular groups — asking advertisers not to show the images.

On Wednesday in the Indian city of Ayodhya Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the groundbreaking for the Hindu temple. Modi supporters planned to gather in New York City’s Times Square throughout the day to mark the occasion.

On Wednesday morning, around a dozen people stood in front of the billboard, snapping selfies when the bright yellow image of the multi-level, arched temple along with an image of the Hindu deity Ram and the Indian flag came across the screen.

Modi laid the first silver bricks at the Uttar Pradesh site of the planned temple, which will be built where the Babri Masjid mosque stood. Hindus believe Ram was born at the site and claim that the Mughal Emperor Babur built a mosque on top of a temple there.

The website of the Times Square Alliance says it is owned by Clear Channel, which did not immediately return a request for comment. The billboard wraps around the corner of 47th Street and Seventh Avenue.

The organizers of the celebration in Times Square bought the prime billboard space, Jagdish Sewhani told the Press Trust of India, which described him as the president of the American Indian Public Affairs Committee. “We are just doing a celebration and it is not against anyone. This is a once in a mankind event and we thought what better place for it than Times Square.”

When asked specifically for details about his organization, Sewhani described it as a “group of people” concerned with U.S.-India relations and then said, “Let us focus on our Lord Ram.” In an interview with the South Asian Insider Show, Sewhani described himself as one of the founders of a U.S. wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist ruling party of India, a secular nation since independence from Britain in 1947.

Wednesday’s groundbreaking ceremony followed a ruling by India’s Supreme Court last November favoring the building of a Hindu temple. The court also ordered that Muslims be given 5 acres (2 hectares) of land to build a mosque nearby. But the ruling disappointed Muslims, who comprise around 14% of India’s 1.3 billion people.

The coalition opposing the billboards wrote to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, asking him to stand against the planned Times Square display, which they called Islamophobic and a symbol of violence against Muslims in India. In Times Square, Clarion India reported that the coalition also asked supporters to call major advertising companies to ask them not to run the images on their billboards. A representative of the company Branded Cities told the coalition on Monday that they would not run digital advertising for the celebration.

Shaik Ubaid, president of Indian Minorities Advocacy Network, told, “It shows not only glamorizing and glorifying an evil and cruel act,” “They are so confident they are doing this in Times Square, the heart of America.”

According to a press release, the Indian American Muslim Council is part of a coalition that plans to demonstrate in Times Square on Wednesday evening against the Hindu supremacy movement.