Modi inaugurates new Indian parliament

Flanked by priests, Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a new Indian parliament on Sunday in a ceremony steeped in religious symbolism but boycotted by opposition parties.

The hexagonal new building -- shaped like a coffin, one opposition party said -- is the centrepiece of a remodelling of the heart of New Delhi by Modi aimed at ridding the Indian capital of the vestiges of British colonial rule.

“India is not only a democratic nation but also the mother of democracy,” Modi said.

“This is not just a building... this is the temple of democracy that gives the world a message of India’s determination.”

The unveiling was preceded by a multi-faith prayer ceremony and Modi later entered the chamber accompanied by a posse of chanting Hindu seers in saffron robes before installing a ceremonial sceptre.

He later re-entered the chamber to chants of “Modi Modi” by government lawmakers.

Many in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) party espouse the idea of Hindu hegemony in the Hindu-majority nation of 1.4 billion people, which is home to multiple faiths and which has a strictly secular constitution.

Sunday’s ceremony also took place on the birth anniversary of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, an important Hindu ideologue who was a mentor to the assassin of independence hero Mahatma Gandhi.

Nineteen opposition parties boycotted the event because Modi, and not Indian President Droupadi Murmu, was inaugurating the new chamber, calling it a “direct assault on our democracy”.

Modi “has relentlessly hollowed out” parliament, with opposition lawmakers “disqualified, suspended and muted” and laws passed “with almost no debate”, a statement by the parties said.

The new legislature building stands next to the ageing and cramped colonial-era parliament building designed by British architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker in the 1920s that it will replace.