Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Nick Jonas offer prayers at Ayodhya’s Ram temple with daughter Malti

Actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas and her husband, American singer Nick Jonas, offered prayers at the Ram temple in Ayodhya with their two-year-old daughter, Malti Marie.

This is Chopra Jonas’s first visit to the temple after its consecration ceremony in January.

Chopra Jonas came to Mumbai earlier this month for multiple work commitments.

The Ram temple, situated in northern Uttar Pradesh state’s Ayodhya town, has a contentious history. The temple has been built in the same site the Babri Masjid once stood, a Mughal-era mosque razed by radical Hindu groups in 1992. Many Hindus believe that the Ayodhya site is the birthplace of the deity Lord Ram. The demolition of the mosque sparked nationwide riots that left around 2,000 dead, most of them Muslims.

A decades-long legal battle finally ended in 2019 with the Supreme Court, in a controversial decision, allowed a Hindu temple to be built there, on condition that Muslims received another plot to build a mosque, even as it called the destruction of the mosque “an egregious violation” of the law.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist election platform used the construction of the temple as one of the key promises of his campaign. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) believe that the temple is a sign of India’s reawakening from foreign subjugation.

The grand consecration ceremony on 22 January 2024 was attended by thousands of attendees, including elite industrialists, politicians, and a host of actors from the Hindi film industry, including Amitabh Bachchan, Rajinikanth, Alia Bhatt, Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, and Katrina Kaif.