This week, India marked the 20th anniversary of one of the most virulent acts of religious aggression in its history as an independent nation: The destruction of a mosque, the Babri Masjid, by thousands of Hindu activists in the northern town of Ayodhya.

The event's importance in modern India is hard to overstate. It marked a repudiation of one of the fundamental principles that Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, among others, had sought to instill in the world's largest democracy—an equal respect for all religions, even though Hindus comprise some 80% of the country's population.

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