1 city, 2 people — and India’s widening religious divide

Syed Mohammad Munir Abidi is convinced India is no longer the same country it once was for its minority Muslim citizens. Swami Ram Das believes otherwise: He says India is on a quest to redeem its Hindu past and that the majority Hindus are finally getting their due. Both symbolize the opposing sides of India’s entrenched religious divide that intensified three decades ago in their holy hometown of Ayodhya after a historic mosque was demolished by Hindu hardliners to make way for a temple. India is on the cusp to eclipse China as the world’s most populated country, but its religious fault lines have become starker, a testament to the perils of rising Hindu nationalism in a constitutionally secular country.