Democracy, Religious Violence, and India’s Future
Introduction: The Problem of the Clash Within
We begin at the outset of the work, where Nussbaum establishes the central question she will examine throughout. She locates the reader in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat violence, a series of brutal anti-Muslim pogroms in the Indian state of Gujarat, and uses this event as the entry point for a much larger inquiry about the nature of political violence in democratic societies.
Nussbaum opens by directly challenging a popular thesis of the early 2000s: Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” argument that future global conflicts would be between monolithic civilizational blocs—the West versus Islam, for instance. She states bluntly that this framework is wrong. The real clash, she argues, is not between civilizations, but “within” every modern nation. It is a clash between forces that are capable of respectful democratic pluralism and forces that are not—between what she will call the “democratic” and the “anti-democratic” tendencies that coexist within every society, including every individual psyche. As she writes: “The real clash is not between ‘Islam’ and ‘the West,’ but within each of these categories, between people who are willing to live with others on terms of mutual respect and people who are not.”
Nussbaum then clarifies her method. She is not offering a purely theoretical treatise but a deeply contextual analysis grounded in one specific case: India, and particularly the 2002 Gujarat violence. India, she argues, is the perfect test case for understanding this inner clash because it is the world’s largest democracy, a nation founded on principles of secularism (understood in the Indian sense as equal respect for all religions, not the French or American separationist model), and yet it has repeatedly experienced horrific religious violence. The book will examine how a democracy that enshrines pluralism in its constitution can nonetheless produce citizens who commit genocidal acts against their neighbors. To do this, she must look not only at politics and history, but also at psychology, literature, and philosophy.
The introduction serves to locate the reader in a specific intellectual and historical moment. Nussbaum is arguing that the events of 2002 in Gujarat were not an aberration but a manifestation of a deeper tension that exists in all democracies. She insists that we cannot understand political violence simply by examining religious texts or political ideologies; we must also examine the emotional and psychological roots of hatred, fear, and disgust—the “poisonous emotions” that can be cultivated by political leaders and that can turn ordinary people into perpetrators. This framing matters because it shifts the focus from “what Islam says” or “what Hinduism says” to the universal human vulnerabilities that make citizens susceptible to anti-democratic appeals.
Part One: The Anatomy of a Pogrom
Nussbaum now moves into the detailed empirical account of the Gujarat violence itself. This section is not simply a historical narrative; it is a forensic examination designed to show the reader the precise mechanisms by which democratic institutions can be subverted from within. She begins by establishing the factual record: on February 27, 2002, a train carrying Hindu pilgrims (the Sabarmati Express) was attacked in Godhra, in Gujarat. Fifty-nine people died in the fire, mostly Hindu pilgrims. The next day, a coordinated campaign of violence against Muslims began across Gujarat, lasting for weeks. The official death toll was around 1,000, but independent estimates place it much higher, possibly at 2,000 or more.
Nussbaum presents the core of her argument about the pogrom by focusing on organization and complicity. She presents evidence that the violence was not a spontaneous riot, but a well-planned operation with the active involvement of the state government. She details how lists of Muslim-owned businesses were prepared in advance, how the police either stood by or actively assisted the mobs, and how the state government refused to call in the army for days despite clear necessity. She writes: “The violence was not a spontaneous outburst of rage. It was a well-organized pogrom, involving state and non-state actors, and its goal was to humiliate and terrorize the Muslim community, not just to kill people.”
The author then provides harrowing testimony from survivors to demonstrate the specific character of the violence. She describes attacks on Muslim homes and businesses, mass rapes of Muslim women, and the systematic destruction of Muslim cultural and religious sites. She emphasizes the gendered nature of the violence: women were targeted for sexual humiliation in ways that were designed to destroy the honor and continuity of the community. Pregnant women were disemboweled, breasts were cut off, and young girls were raped before being killed. Nussbaum uses these details not for shock value but to make a psychological point: the violence was driven by a desire not just to kill but to degrade, to prove that Muslims were less than human, deserving of contempt and disgust.
What clarifies this section is Nussbaum’s insistence on specificity. She is not arguing that “religious prejudice causes violence” in the abstract. She is showing how a particular set of political actors—the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Gujarat, led by Chief Minister Narendra Modi—created the conditions for the violence through a sustained campaign of dehumanizing rhetoric about Muslims, by systematically dismantling secular policing and legal institutions, and by then refusing to stop the violence when it began. The pogrom, she argues, was not the result of “ancient hatreds” spontaneously erupting; it was a political project carried out with the active connivance of the state.
Part Two: The Politics of Hindutva
We now move into the ideological heart of the work. Nussbaum turns from the events themselves to the political ideology that drove them: Hindutva, or “Hindu-ness.” She presents Hindutva as a modern political ideology, not an ancient religious tradition. It was developed in the 1920s by figures such as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and later systematized by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization of the BJP. The core claim of Hindutva, as Nussbaum presents it, is that India is fundamentally a Hindu nation—that Indian culture, identity, and history are essentially Hindu, and that religious minorities (especially Muslims and Christians) are alien, foreign bodies that must either assimilate or be subordinated.
Nussbaum carefully distinguishes Hindutva from Hinduism as a religious tradition. She notes that many of the key figures in the Hindutva movement were not particularly religious in a conventional sense; Savarkar was an atheist and a rationalist. Hindutva, she explains, is a form of ethnic nationalism that uses the category of “Hindu” as a marker of national belonging, not necessarily of religious belief. Under this ideology, a Muslim or Christian can never be a true Indian because their “holy land” (Mecca, Jerusalem) lies outside India, while a Hindu’s holy land is entirely within India’s borders. As she writes: “For Hindutva, being a Hindu is a matter of national identity, not of religious faith. One can be an atheist Hindu, as Savarkar was, as long as one’s cultural roots are Hindu.”
The author then traces how this ideology was transformed from a marginal, fringe movement into a major political force. She examines the role of the Sangh Parivar (the “family” of RSS-affiliated organizations), including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal, in building a mass base. She discusses the Ayodhya movement of the 1980s and 1990s, in which Hindu nationalists demanded the destruction of a mosque (the Babri Masjid) that they claimed was built on the birthplace of the god Rama. The Hindu nationalists’ successful mobilization of mass emotion around the Ayodhya issue, culminating in the mosque’s demolition in 1992, established Hindutva as a potent electoral force. Nussbaum argues that this movement was a masterclass in the manipulation of anger, humiliation, and group pride—emotions that she will analyze more deeply in later chapters.
This section matters because it shows that the violence in Gujarat was not a random outbreak but the logical conclusion of an ideology that had been building for decades. Nussbaum is making the case that Hindutva, despite its claim to represent ancient Hindu traditions, is actually a modernist, nationalist project that is fundamentally incompatible with the pluralist, secular vision of India’s founding fathers. The clash, she insists, is not between “Hinduism” and “Islam” but between the inclusive, pluralistic idea of India embodied in the constitution and the exclusionary, hierarchical idea of India embodied in Hindutva.
The Religious Roots: Hinduism and Its Tensions
Nussbaum now shifts from politics to religion, examining the Hindu tradition itself to see what resources it offers for both pluralism and intolerance. She begins with the observation that Hinduism is not a single, unified religion but a vast and internally diverse family of traditions, philosophies, and practices. As she puts it: “Hinduism has no single founder, no single sacred text, no single creed, no single set of rituals. It is more like a sprawling, ancient city than a single building.”
She then presents the pluralistic strand of Hinduism, which she argues has been the dominant tradition in Indian history. She points to the Rig Veda (c. 1200 BCE), which contains the famous verse: “Truth is one, the wise call it by many names.” She discusses the Upanishads, with their emphasis on the unity of all being. She examines the Buddhist and Jain traditions, which arose in India as reform movements within the broader Hindu cultural milieu, and which were often absorbed rather than expelled. She highlights the Bhakti movement of the medieval period, a popular devotional tradition that emphasized direct personal love for God and rejected caste hierarchy and religious exclusivism. The great Bhakti poet-saints—such as Kabir, who wrote in a language that blended Hindu and Muslim influences—are presented as exemplars of a tolerant, syncretic spirituality.
But Nussbaum then turns to the exclusionary strands within Hinduism. She discusses the caste system and its ritual underpinnings, particularly the concept of purity and pollution that legitimates the hierarchical separation of social groups. She examines the Manusmriti (Laws of Manu), a legal text that codifies the subordination of women and lower castes. Most importantly, she discusses the concept of dharma in its conservative interpretation: as a fixed, hierarchical order in which each person has a predetermined role. She argues that this understanding of dharma can be mobilized to justify violence against those who are seen as violating the cosmic order—such as Muslims who “pollute” sacred Hindu spaces.
What becomes clear through this section is Nussbaum’s central claim: Hinduism, like every major religion, contains both a “gentle and inclusive” voice and a “harsh and punitive” voice. The task of democratic politics, she argues, is to nourish the first voice and restrain the second. Hindutva, by contrast, is a selective appropriation of the Hindu tradition that elevates the harsh, exclusionary elements (the “muscular Hinduism” of warrior gods and caste hierarchy) while suppressing the gentle, inclusive elements (the Bhakti poets, the Upanishadic monism, the tradition of argument and dissent). The clash within Hinduism, she insists, is the same clash that exists within every civilization—and the outcome is never predetermined. It depends on which voices are amplified by political leaders, educational institutions, and cultural movements.
The Psychology of Hatred: Fear and Disgust
Now Nussbaum makes her most original theoretical move. She leaves the specifics of India and turns to universal human psychology, asking: what makes ordinary people capable of the kind of cruelty witnessed in Gujarat? She draws on the work of psychoanalysts and philosophers, particularly Donald Winnicott and Julia Kristeva, to argue that much political violence is rooted in the “infantile emotions” of fear, shame, and disgust that are never fully outgrown. As she writes: “The roots of persecution lie deep in the human psyche, in the narcissism and vulnerability of early childhood.”
Nussbaum presents her theory of “projective disgust” as a key mechanism. Human beings, she argues, are unique among animals in being aware of their own mortality and bodily vulnerability. We are troubled by our own animality—our bodily fluids, our decay, our ultimate death. Disgust is the emotion that protects us from this anxiety: we feel disgust toward things that remind us of our own animal nature (feces, blood, rotting flesh), and we learn to “project” this disgust onto other human groups. By defining some group as dirty, polluting, and disgusting—as “cockroaches” or “vermin”—we can feel clean, pure, and superior by contrast. This projection is especially powerful when the targeted group is already marked as different in some visible way (skin color, religious dress, dietary habits).
Nussbaum then connects this psychological mechanism to political mobilization. She argues that demagogues throughout history have exploited the emotion of disgust to dehumanize minorities and justify violence. The Hindutva rhetoric about Muslims—that they are “dirty,” that they “breed like rabbits,” that they are a “fifth column” within India—is precisely a strategy of projective disgust. By making Muslims into objects of disgust, the Hindutva movement makes it possible for ordinary Hindus to feel righteous anger, even pleasure, at their suffering. The pogrom in Gujarat, she suggests, was experienced by many perpetrators as a “cleansing” —a ritual purification of the body politic.
This psychological analysis matters because it explains why rational argument alone is insufficient to combat political violence. You cannot reason someone out of a disgust response; it operates at a pre-rational, visceral level. Nussbaum is thus laying the groundwork for her later argument about the importance of education, art, and literature in cultivating the emotions that sustain democracy—what she will call “the poetic imagination.” If hatred is rooted in the psyche, then democracy must also be rooted there, in the cultivation of empathy, compassion, and the ability to see the humanity in those who are different.
Part Three: The Sources of Tolerance in Indian History
We move now from the pathologies of the psyche to the resources of history. This section examines what Nussbaum calls “the sources of tolerance” within the Indian tradition—not to argue that India has always been tolerant, but to show that a usable past exists, one that can counter the exclusivist narrative of Hindutva.
Nussbaum begins by acknowledging a difficult truth: no civilization is purely tolerant or purely intolerant. India’s history contains both “inclusive and exclusive traditions” —caste hierarchies, patriarchal structures, and religious persecution alongside philosophical pluralism, syncretic devotional movements, and constitutional secularism. The task is not to claim that India is naturally tolerant, but to identify those strands of its tradition that support democratic pluralism and to understand how they have been marginalized or suppressed by the current political movement.
She turns first to the ancient period, focusing on the Vedic and Upanishadic traditions. The Rig Veda contains a famous verse: “Truth is one, but the wise call it by many names” (Ekam sat, vipra bahudha vadanti). This is not a modern secular pluralism—it is a metaphysical claim about the unity of ultimate reality. But it has functioned historically as a resource for tolerance, suggesting that different religious paths are not false but partial. The Upanishads develop this further, with their emphasis on the Atman (the inner self) as identical with Brahman (the cosmic reality). If the deepest truth is the same for all beings, then outward differences of creed or ritual are secondary. This does not mean that all practices are equally valid—the tradition is intensely hierarchical—but it does create a philosophical space for diversity.
Nussbaum then examines the Buddhist and Jain traditions, which developed in the sixth century BCE as critiques of Vedic orthodoxy. Both traditions emphasize non-violence (ahimsa) and non-attachment to dogma. The Emperor Ashoka (third century BCE) is a crucial figure here. After the bloody conquest of Kalinga, Ashoka converted to Buddhism and issued a series of edicts that promoted religious tolerance. One edict declares: “All sects deserve reverence for one reason or another. By thus acting, a person exalts his own sect and at the same time does service to the sects of other people.” Nussbaum notes that Ashoka did not create a secular state—he was a Buddhist king—but his policy of “concord among all sects” (savapashanda samavaya) was a remarkable precedent for pluralism in a deeply religious society.
“Ashoka did not believe that all religions were equally true, nor did he think that the state should be neutral among them. But he did believe that the state should protect the practice of all religions, and he believed that violence against another’s religion was a sin against one’s own.”
This is a critical distinction. Ashoka’s tolerance is not grounded in skepticism or relativism. It is grounded in a religious conviction that reverence for one’s own faith requires reverence for others’ —because to attack another’s faith is to attack the very idea of faith, and therefore to dishonor one’s own. This is a model of tolerance that is compatible with strong religious commitment, and Nussbaum will later argue that it is precisely this kind of “internal” tolerance—rooted in a tradition’s own deepest values—that has the best chance of surviving political crisis.
The Mughal Emperor Akbar (sixteenth century) is another key example. Akbar, a Muslim ruler presiding over a Hindu-majority empire, created a policy of “sulh-i-kul” (universal peace or peace with all) . He abolished the jizya tax on non-Muslims, patronized Hindu artists and scholars, and founded a new syncretic religion called the Din-i-Ilahi (Religion of God) that drew on elements of Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism. More importantly, he instituted a policy of debate and dialogue among representatives of different faiths at his court—Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Zoroastrians, Jesuits. He did not aim to convert them all to a single truth, but to create a space where they could learn from one another. Nussbaum emphasizes that Akbar’s policy was not a form of “secularism” in the modern sense—he was a devout Muslim who believed he was fulfilling the Quran’s teaching that “there is no compulsion in religion.” But his state was remarkably pluralistic, and his example remains a living resource for Indian tolerance.
Nussbaum then turns to the Bhakti movement, a series of devotional (bhakti) traditions that swept across India from the seventh to the seventeenth centuries. Bhakti poets and saints—like Kabir, Mirabai, Tukaram, and the Alvars and Nayanars of South India—rejected caste hierarchy, priestly authority, and religious exclusivism. They sang in vernacular languages, not Sanskrit, and their poetry emphasized direct, loving relationship with God over ritual purity or doctrinal correctness. Kabir, a weaver who lived in fifteenth-century Benares, is particularly important. He was claimed as a saint by both Hindus and Muslims, but he rejected both orthodoxies: “Don’t go to the garden, O friend, don’t go there; / Your body is the garden. / Sit there with love and see the endless beauty.” Kabir’s poems mock the distinction between Hindu and Muslim as superficial: “The Hindu says Ram is the Beloved, / the Muslim says Rahman. / Then they fight and kill each other. / Nobody knows the secret.”
The Bhakti movement matters for Nussbaum’s argument because it shows that internal critique and pluralism are not Western imports imposed on India. They emerged from within the Indian religious tradition itself. The Bhakti poets were not secular humanists; they were deeply religious. But their religion was inclusive, egalitarian, and anti-hierarchical. They provide a living counter-tradition to the exclusivism of Hindutva—one that is authentically Indian and authentically spiritual.
Finally, Nussbaum examines the modern period, focusing on the Indian Constitution and the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. The Constitution, drafted between 1946 and 1950, established India as a secular state —not in the French or American sense of strict separation of church and state, but in the Indian sense of equal respect for all religions (sarva dharma samabhava). The state guarantees freedom of religion, prohibits discrimination on religious grounds, and allows religious communities to maintain their own personal laws (for marriage, inheritance, etc.) while also reserving the right to intervene in cases of “social reform.” This model of secularism is often called “principled distance” —the state is not hostile to religion, nor does it endorse any one religion, but it maintains a critical engagement with all religions in the name of justice and equality.
Gandhi’s contribution is more complex. Nussbaum notes that Gandhi was a deeply religious Hindu, but his religion was inclusive and non-dogmatic. He read the Bhagavad Gita as an allegory of the inner struggle between good and evil, not a justification for war. He believed that all religions contained a core of truth and that violence against another religion was violence against God. His concept of sarvodaya (the welfare of all) and his commitment to ahimsa (non-violence) were rooted in his Hindu faith, but he applied them universally. He was also a fierce critic of caste hierarchy, especially untouchability, which he called “the greatest blot on Hinduism.” He renamed the former “untouchables” as Harijans (Children of God) and campaigned for their full inclusion in Hindu society.
Nussbaum emphasizes that Gandhi’s tolerance was not a weak or passive pluralism. It was rooted in a strong commitment to truth (satya) and a willingness to engage in conflict —non-violent conflict, but conflict nonetheless. He did not believe that all religions were equally true; he believed that truth was one, and that it was the duty of every person to seek it through dialogue and struggle. This is a model of tolerance that is robust enough to withstand political pressure—unlike a tolerance rooted in indifference or relativism, which can collapse when challenged by passionate intolerance.
This historical survey matters because it provides the foundation for Nussbaum’s central argument: that there is a usable past within India’s own traditions that can support democratic pluralism. Hindutva is not the only possible form of Hindu identity. There are other, deeper, and more authentically pluralistic strands within the tradition—philosophical, devotional, and political. The task of democratic citizens is to recover and cultivate those strands, and to argue that they represent the true spirit of Hinduism, not the exclusivism of the Hindutva movement.
The Role of Education: Cultivating the “Inner Democracy”
We turn now to what is perhaps the most constructive and programmatic part of Nussbaum’s book: her argument about the role of education in creating citizens who can resist the appeal of hatred and violence. If the previous sections diagnosed the problem—the psychology of disgust, the rise of Hindutva—this section proposes a cure. The cure is not political coercion or constitutional reform alone, though those matter. It is the cultivation of the inner life through education in the humanities, the arts, and critical thinking.
Nussbaum begins by stating her core thesis: democracy requires citizens who can think for themselves, who can imagine the lives of others, and who can resist the seduction of simplistic narratives. These capacities are not natural; they must be cultivated. And the primary institution for this cultivation is education—not just any education, but a liberal education grounded in the humanities. She calls this the cultivation of “the poetic imagination” —the ability to see the world from another person’s perspective, to feel compassion for their suffering, and to recognize their full humanity.
“The arts and humanities are not just decorative frills; they are essential to the health of a democratic society. They cultivate the capacities for critical thinking, for empathy, for the understanding of complexity, and for the resistance to simplistic and hateful narratives.”
Nussbaum draws on the work of the American philosopher John Dewey, who argued that education is the foundation of democracy. Dewey believed that schools should not just transmit facts; they should teach students to think critically, to question authority, and to engage in cooperative problem-solving. Education should be Socratic —characterized by relentless questioning, the examination of one’s own beliefs, and the willingness to follow an argument wherever it leads. This is the opposite of the rote learning and authoritarian pedagogy that Nussbaum identifies as characteristic of the Indian education system, especially under the influence of Hindutva.
She then examines the Socratic tradition in more detail. Socrates, as depicted in Plato’s dialogues, was a relentless questioner. He did not claim to know the truth; he claimed to know that he did not know. His method was to ask questions, expose contradictions, and force his interlocutors to examine their own assumptions. This, Nussbaum argues, is the essential skill of democratic citizenship. A citizen who cannot question authority cannot resist tyranny. A citizen who cannot examine her own prejudices cannot overcome them. A citizen who cannot argue logically cannot engage in public deliberation.
But Socratic questioning alone is not enough. It can produce critical cynicism—a corrosive skepticism that destroys faith in everything without building anything in its place. That is why Nussbaum insists on the importance of the arts and literature in the same breath as philosophy. Literature, especially the novel, cultivates the narrative imagination —the ability to imagine what it is like to live another person’s life, to feel their joys and sorrows, to understand their choices and circumstances. This is not the same as logical argument; it is a form of emotional education.
Nussbaum uses the example of Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali poet, philosopher, and educator, who founded a school at Santiniketan based on these principles. Tagore believed that education should be holistic, connecting the student to nature, to the arts, and to the wider world. He rejected the British colonial education system, which he saw as mechanical and dehumanizing. He also rejected the narrow nationalism that was emerging in India, including the aggressive Hindu nationalism of his time. He wrote: “Nationalism is a great menace… It is the particular which is the universal, and the universal which is the particular.” His school emphasized creativity, freedom, and cross-cultural understanding. Students studied Indian and Western literature, music, dance, and art. They learned to see the world from multiple perspectives.
Tagore’s vision of education, Nussbaum argues, is the exact opposite of the Hindutva vision of education, which seeks to indoctrinate children into a single, unchanging narrative of Hindu greatness. She examines the curriculum reforms promoted by the BJP and the RSS during their periods of power, particularly in the state of Gujarat. These reforms included the rewriting of history textbooks to downplay or erase Muslim contributions to Indian civilization, the promotion of Sanskrit and Hindi at the expense of other languages, and the introduction of “value education” that taught Hindu religious concepts—like the divinity of the Vedas or the concept of karma—as objective truths rather than matters of faith.
Nussbaum is not arguing that religion has no place in education. She is arguing against indoctrination —the attempt to close the child’s mind rather than open it. A democratic education, she insists, must teach children to think for themselves. It must expose them to multiple perspectives, including perspectives that challenge their own traditions. It must encourage them to question, to doubt, to imagine. This is the only way to create citizens who can resist the seduction of hatred and violence.
She also emphasizes the importance of play, art, and music in early childhood education. These are not just recreational activities; they are fundamental to the development of the inner democracy. Through play, children learn to cooperate, to take turns, to see from another’s point of view. Through art, they learn to express their emotions and to engage with the emotions of others. Through music, they learn harmony and rhythm—the sense that different notes can come together to create something beautiful. Nussbaum cites the work of the educational theorist Lev Vygotsky, who argued that play is the “leading source of development” in early childhood, and the psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott, who argued that art and play are “transitional spaces” where the boundaries between self and other become fluid.
This section of the book is both hopeful and demanding. Nussbaum is proposing a vision of education that is deeply ambitious, perhaps utopian. But she insists that it is not optional. If democratic citizens are not educated in this way—if they are taught only to obey, to memorize, to follow—they will be vulnerable to the appeals of authoritarianism. They will lack the inner resources to resist. The “clash within” cannot be won by laws alone; it must be won in the classroom, in the playground, in the home, in the heart.
Part Four: Religious Pluralism and the Law — The Role of the Constitution
We are now in the portion of the book where Nussbaum moves from the psychological and educational foundations of tolerance to its legal and constitutional framework. This section examines how India’s constitution, particularly its approach to religious freedom, creates a structure that both protects minority rights and allows for the adjudication of conflicts between religious communities and the state’s commitment to equal citizenship.
Nussbaum begins by presenting the central tension that any democratic constitution must navigate when dealing with religion. She contrasts two models: the “separationist” model of the United States, which erects a strict wall between church and state, and the “establishment” model of the United Kingdom, which has an official state church. India, she argues, has chosen a third path, often described as “principled distance” or “equal respect.” The Indian Constitution does not establish a state religion, but it also does not demand a complete separation of religion from public life. Instead, it allows the state to intervene in religious affairs for the purpose of reform and social justice, particularly to eradicate practices like untouchability and caste discrimination. This is a crucial point: the Indian state is not neutral in the sense of being indifferent to religion; it is actively committed to ensuring that religious practice does not violate the fundamental rights of citizens.
“The Indian Constitution does not erect a wall of separation between church and state. Instead, it articulates a relationship of ‘principled distance,’ in which the state may intervene in religious affairs for the sake of equality and social justice.”
Nussbaum then walks through the specific constitutional provisions that define this relationship. Article 15 prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. Article 25 guarantees the freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate religion. But this right is not absolute; it is subject to “public order, morality and health” and to the state’s power to make laws “providing for social welfare and reform.” Article 26 gives religious denominations the right to manage their own affairs in matters of religion, but again, subject to public order, morality, and health. Article 17 abolishes “untouchability” and forbids its practice in any form. Nussbaum emphasizes that these provisions were the result of intense debate in the Constituent Assembly, where the framers, particularly B.R. Ambedkar, insisted that the constitution must be a tool for social transformation, not a mere guarantee of existing privileges. The constitution does not simply protect existing religious practice; it creates a framework within which religion must evolve to meet the demands of equal citizenship.
What this means, clarified through Nussbaum’s analysis, is that the Indian Constitution is a profoundly anti-hierarchical document. It recognizes that religious communities are not always internally democratic or egalitarian, and that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting vulnerable individuals—especially women and lower-caste Hindus—from the oppressive practices of their own religious traditions. This is a direct challenge to the Hindutva vision, which imagines a Hindu nation where religious authority is centralized and unchallenged. The constitution, by contrast, creates space for dissent, for reform, and for the individual conscience to stand against the claims of the community. Nussbaum’s point is that the constitutional framework is not a neutral backdrop; it is a battleground. The “clash within” is fought in the courts, in parliament, and in public debate, as different groups struggle to define what “religious freedom” means and where its limits lie.
The Shah Bano Case: A Crisis of Secularism
This section presents one of the most famous and controversial legal cases in modern Indian history, the Shah Bano case of 1985, and uses it to illustrate the deep tensions within India’s model of secularism. Nussbaum does not simply narrate the facts; she presents the case as a prism through which the competing claims of religious community, individual rights, and state authority are refracted.
The case involved Shah Bano, a 62-year-old Muslim woman who was divorced by her husband after 43 years of marriage. She filed a petition for maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provides for the maintenance of a destitute wife. The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment, ruled that she was entitled to maintenance, even though her husband argued that under Muslim personal law, he was only required to support her for the period of iddat (approximately three months after divorce). The Court held that the secular criminal code took precedence over Muslim personal law, and that the husband’s obligation to maintain his wife was not extinguished by religious law. Moreover, the Court delivered a series of observations that were deeply critical of the treatment of women in Islam, and it called for the enactment of a Uniform Civil Code, as envisioned in Article 44 of the Constitution.
“The Supreme Court’s judgment in the Shah Bano case was a powerful assertion of the primacy of fundamental rights over religious personal law. But the political backlash was ferocious, and it exposed the fragility of the secular commitment.”
Nussbaum then presents the political aftermath. The judgment provoked a storm of protest from conservative Muslim organizations, who claimed that the state was interfering in their religious affairs. The Rajiv Gandhi government, facing electoral pressures, capitulated and passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, which effectively overturned the Supreme Court’s judgment and removed Muslim women from the purview of Section 125. Nussbaum presents this as a moment of profound constitutional crisis. The state, which had a duty to protect the rights of a vulnerable individual, instead deferred to the claims of a conservative religious leadership. The result was that Shah Bano, and countless other Muslim women, were left without the legal protection that the secular state had previously provided. Nussbaum argues that this was not a triumph of pluralism, but a failure of the state’s commitment to equal citizenship. The government chose to appease a vocal religious community at the expense of the rights of its most vulnerable members.
What Nussbaum clarifies is that the Shah Bano case reveals a central paradox in India’s secularism. The constitution’s model of “principled distance” allows the state to intervene in religious affairs for the sake of reform, but it also allows the state to stay its hand. In this case, the state chose to stay its hand, and the result was the reinforcement of patriarchal religious authority. Nussbaum uses this case to argue that secularism cannot be merely a matter of non-interference; it must be an active commitment to protecting the equal rights of all citizens, especially the most vulnerable. The state must be willing to confront religious orthodoxy when it violates fundamental rights. The Shah Bano case, she argues, was a moment when the state failed to do so, and that failure emboldened the forces of identity politics and communalism that would later fuel the rise of Hindutva.
The Ayodhya Dispute: Religion, History, and the Politics of Space
Nussbaum now turns to the most explosive and divisive issue in modern Indian politics: the Ayodhya dispute. This section is not a mere historical recounting; it is a deep examination of how a contested religious site became the symbol of a political movement and the flashpoint for a crisis of constitutional democracy. She presents the dispute as a case study in how the politics of space and identity can override legal and historical nuance.
The core of the dispute is the Babri Masjid, a mosque built in Ayodhya in the 16th century by the Mughal emperor Babur. For decades, Hindu nationalists have claimed that the mosque was built on the site of a previous temple marking the birthplace of the god Rama. Nussbaum presents the historical evidence with careful precision. She notes that there is no archaeological consensus about whether a temple existed on that exact spot, and that the historical record is fragmentary and contested. What matters, she argues, is not the historical truth but the political use of the claim. The Ram Janmabhoomi (Birthplace of Rama) movement, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allied organizations, turned the demand for a temple into a mass mobilization that inflamed communal passions.
“The Ayodhya dispute was never really about history. It was about the present: about the desire of Hindu nationalists to assert that India is, and always has been, a Hindu nation, and that Muslims are interlopers who must accept a subordinate status.”
Nussbaum walks the reader through the key moments of the crisis. In 1989, the BJP launched a massive campaign to “liberate” the site, with L.K. Advani undertaking a cross-country rath yatra (chariot procession) that deliberately passed through Muslim-majority areas, provoking riots and violence. The climax came on December 6, 1992, when a crowd of kar sevaks (volunteer builders) stormed the Babri Masjid and demolished it, in plain sight of the state government and the police. Nussbaum presents this event not as a spontaneous outburst of religious fervor, but as a calculated political act. The demolition was a direct assault on the secular state and the rule of law. It was a moment when the mob, acting in the name of religion, defied the constitution and the courts, and the state was either complicit or helpless.
Nussbaum’s clarification is incisive: the Ayodhya dispute is not a simple case of two religious communities fighting over a piece of land. It is a test case for the meaning of Indian secularism. The demand for a temple at the site of a mosque is a demand that the state recognize Hinduism as the privileged religion of the nation. It is a demand for majoritarianism, where the symbols and claims of the majority community override the rights and protections of minorities. The demolition of the Babri Masjid was not an act of piety; it was an act of conquest, a declaration that the Hindu nation would no longer tolerate the “appeasement” of minorities. Nussbaum argues that this event exposed the fragility of India’s constitutional order. The state’s failure to protect the mosque, and the subsequent failure to fully prosecute those responsible, created a dangerous precedent: that the law can be broken with impunity in the service of a nationalist cause. The “clash within” had become an open war against the foundational principles of the republic.
We are now in the final major case study of Part Four, where Nussbaum turns from a legal controversy (Shah Bano) to a direct physical confrontation over sacred space, examining how the disputed Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhoomi site became the central battleground for defining India’s national identity.
Nussbaum begins by laying out the factual history of the site in the city of Ayodhya. The Babri Masjid was built in 1528 by a commander of the Mughal emperor Babur. For centuries, it functioned as a mosque, but a long-standing local tradition held that it had been built on the site of a previous temple marking the birthplace of the god Ram. Nussbaum notes that there was a long history of Hindus and Muslims praying at the site, with a platform outside the mosque where Hindus would worship. “For most of the colonial period, the dispute was a local one, managed through local agreements and court orders.” The British administration maintained the status quo, allowing Muslims to pray inside the mosque and Hindus to worship at the platform outside. This arrangement held until 1949, when, just after independence, a group of Hindus entered the mosque and placed idols of Ram inside. The district magistrate locked the gates, declaring the site disputed and preventing anyone from entering. For over three decades, the gates remained locked, and the legal dispute over ownership languished in the courts.
The conflict exploded into national politics in the 1980s. Nussbaum traces the shift from a local legal dispute to a mass political movement. In 1984, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) launched a campaign to “liberate” the site and build a grand Ram temple. The turning point came in 1989, when the Rajiv Gandhi government, in a bid to win Hindu votes, allowed the VHP to perform shilanyas (a foundation-laying ceremony) on land near the disputed structure. Nussbaum is scathing about this decision: “Rajiv Gandhi’s decision to open the gates of the Babri Masjid for Hindu worship was one of the most disastrous decisions in the history of independent India.” It signaled to the Hindu right that the state would bend to its demands. The campaign escalated into a massive march, the Rath Yatra (chariot pilgrimage), led by BJP leader L.K. Advani across northern India. Nussbaum describes the rhetoric of this campaign in detail: it portrayed Muslims as “foreigners” who had desecrated the birthplace of Ram, and it called for their humiliation as the price of Hindu pride. On December 6, 1992, a crowd of over 150,000 kar sevaks (volunteers) gathered at the site. Despite a Supreme Court order to protect the mosque, and despite assurances from the BJP state government of Uttar Pradesh, the crowd overwhelmed the police and demolished the Babri Masjid with pickaxes and bare hands. Nussbaum notes the chilling detail that the state government had strategically deployed the police elsewhere, and that the Chief Minister, Kalyan Singh, had promised the Prime Minister that morning that the mosque would be protected.
Nussbaum then presents the ideological reasoning behind the demolition. The claim that the Babri Masjid was built on the exact birthplace of Ram is, she argues, historically unverifiable and theologically questionable. She points out that the Ramayana itself is a sacred text, not a historical record, and that the “birthplace” of a divinity is a matter of faith, not archaeology. The Hindutva movement, however, insists on a literal, historical claim: that a temple was demolished by a Muslim invader, and that the honor of the Hindu nation requires its restoration. Nussbaum draws on the testimony of historians like Romila Thapar, who argued that the entire narrative was a political construction. The real purpose of the movement was not piety but power. “The temple movement was not about the reconstruction of a temple, but about the reconstruction of the nation.” The demolition was a symbolic act of majoritarianism, a violent assertion that the Hindu majority would no longer be bound by the secular, pluralist framework of the Constitution. The destruction of the mosque was a message to Muslims: you are second-class citizens in your own country.
Clarify: Nussbaum’s analysis of the Ayodhya dispute is the climax of her argument about the “clash within.” The demolition was not a spontaneous religious outburst but a carefully orchestrated political act that tested the strength of India’s constitutional order. The state’s failure to stop it, and the subsequent legal acquittals of the leaders involved, revealed the dangerous permeability of democratic institutions to majoritarian pressure. Nussbaum shows how the Hindutva movement weaponized history, turning a contested religious site into a symbol of national humiliation that required violent redemption. The secular state, she concludes, proved fundamentally weak in the face of this mobilized religious nationalism—not because secularism is flawed, but because the political class was unwilling to enforce it. The demolition stands as the most dramatic and consequential act of the “clash within,” a moment when the idea of India as a pluralist democracy was violently challenged and, for a time, defeated.
Part Five: Toward an “Inner Democracy” — The Role of the Arts and Humanities
We now move into the final part of the book, where Nussbaum shifts from diagnosis to prescription. Part Five examines the cultivation of inner democracy—the psychological and moral capacities necessary to resist the politics of hatred. The central claim is that a stable, pluralistic democracy requires not only good laws but also citizens with certain emotional and imaginative capabilities, and that these capabilities are best developed through education in the arts and humanities.
Nussbaum begins by returning to the psychological analysis of Part Two. We saw that hatred and disgust are powerful forces that can overwhelm reason. The question, then, is how to counteract these forces. She argues that the primary antidote is the cultivation of sympathy (which she carefully distinguishes from pity). Sympathy is the capacity to imagine the inner world of another person, to see their suffering and their humanity. Disgust, we recall, works by dehumanizing the other—by reducing them to a contaminating substance. Sympathy works in the opposite direction: it insists on the full humanity of the other. Nussbaum draws on the work of the philosopher John Rawls, who argued that a just society requires a sense of justice and a capacity for a conception of the good. But she goes beyond Rawls to argue that these rational capacities are not enough. They need to be nourished by emotional experiences of connection. “The law can forbid discrimination, but it cannot command the heart.” The real work of building a tolerant society happens in the realm of feelings and imagination.
The key institution for this work, Nussbaum argues, is liberal education—specifically, education in the arts and humanities. She contrasts this with two other models of education. The first is education for economic growth, which treats students as future workers and focuses on technical skills. The second is education for national pride, which treats students as future citizens of a particular nation and focuses on a narrow, chauvinistic curriculum. Both models, she argues, fail to develop the capacities needed for democratic citizenship. Liberal education, by contrast, aims to produce students who can think critically, question authority, and imaginatively enter the lives of others. Nussbaum describes this as the Socratic model: the ability to examine one’s own beliefs and to enter into rational dialogue with others. But she adds a crucial component: the narrative imagination, the ability to “think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself.” This capacity, she argues, is developed primarily through the study of literature, history, and the arts.
Clarify: Nussbaum’s turn to education is logically necessary. Having shown that the “clash within” is driven by psychological forces that resist legal regulation, she must show how these forces can be shaped. Her answer is that democratic citizenship requires a particular kind of character, and character is formed by education. The arts and humanities are not luxuries; they are the central mechanisms for creating citizens who can resist the seductions of hatred and disgust. This argument positions Nussbaum within a classical liberal tradition that emphasizes the formation of the citizen as a moral and emotional project. It also directly counters the Hindutva model of education, which, she notes, aims to produce patriotic Hindus rather than critical, pluralistic citizens. The “inner democracy” is not a given; it must be cultivated, and its cultivation is the most urgent task facing any pluralistic society.
Literature and the Narrative Imagination
Nussbaum now deepens her argument by focusing on the specific role of literature in cultivating democratic citizenship. She draws heavily on her previous work in philosophy and literature, particularly her book *Poetic Justice*. The central claim is that certain works of literature train the reader’s emotions in ways that are directly relevant to democratic life.
Nussbaum begins with a close reading of a passage from Charles Dickens’s *Hard Times*. In the novel, the utilitarian educator Thomas Gradgrind insists on “Facts, facts, facts”—reducing children to rational calculators without empathy. The novel’s heroine, Sissy Jupe, is a circus performer’s daughter who has been raised on stories and fables. Nussbaum argues that the novel shows Sissy’s narrative education to be superior: she can feel for others, she can imagine their inner lives, and she is therefore a better human being and a better citizen. This is not, Nussbaum insists, mere sentimentality. “The ability to imagine the pain of another is a necessary condition for justice.” Literature provides a form of ethical training that abstract philosophy cannot. When we read a novel, we are forced to inhabit the consciousness of characters who are different from us. We see the world through their eyes. This process of identification breaks down the barriers of disgust and dehumanization that fuel hatred.
Nussbaum extends this argument to the Indian context. She discusses the work of the Indian novelist Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote extensively about the dangers of nationalism and the need for a universal human sympathy. Tagore’s novel *The Home and the World* is analyzed as a case study in the conflict between nationalist passion and moral sympathy. The character of Sandip, a charismatic nationalist leader, uses rhetoric to stir up hatred against Muslims. The counterpoint is provided by Nikhil, who insists on seeing each person as an individual, not as a member of a group. Nussbaum argues that Tagore’s novel dramatizes the very dynamics she has been analyzing: the seductive power of group-based hatred and the fragility of individual sympathy. She also discusses the work of the Indian poet and activist Mahasweta Devi, whose stories about tribal communities force the urban Indian reader to confront the suffering of the marginalized. “Literature,” Nussbaum writes, “can break the shell of indifference.”
“The cultivation of sympathy is not a luxury; it is a necessity for democracy. Without the ability to see the other as a human being, the law is a dead letter.”
Nussbaum concludes this section by noting that the Hindutva movement has explicitly targeted the humanities in education. The rewriting of history textbooks, the removal of literature that challenges nationalist narratives, and the promotion of a sanitized, heroic version of Hindu culture are all attempts to shut down the narrative imagination. The right-wing understands, better than many liberals, that the arts and humanities are powerful forces. The battle over education is therefore a central front in the “clash within.” A society that refuses to cultivate the narrative imagination is a society that is defenseless against the politics of hatred.
Clarify: This section moves from the general claim about education to a specific mechanism—the narrative imagination as developed through literature. Nussbaum’s point is that the capacity for empathy is not innate; it is learned through practice. Literature is a uniquely powerful form of practice because it lets us enter into the subjective experience of another. This is not about sentimental feeling but about the cognitive and emotional work of recognizing shared humanity. The attack on the humanities, which Nussbaum documents in the Indian context, is thus an attack on the very foundations of a tolerant democracy. The Hindutva movement’s effort to control the curriculum is not just about history; it is about closing off the imaginative space that allows for pluralism.
The Role of the Arts: Music, Dance, and Theater
Nussbaum now broadens her analysis from literature to the other arts, arguing that music, dance, and theater play a crucial role in cultivating democratic emotions. The arts provide a form of non-discursive, embodied experience that can bypass intellectual defenses and directly shape the emotional landscape of citizens.
Nussbaum begins with a discussion of music. She argues that music has a unique power to create a sense of shared experience and emotional attunement. When people sing together, they experience a collective emotion that is not based on shared identity or ideology but on a shared rhythm and harmony. She cites the example of the Indian classical tradition, which emphasizes rasa—the aesthetic emotion that is cultivated through the disciplined listening to and performance of music. The experience of *rasa*, Nussbaum argues, teaches the listener to attend to subtle emotional states and to recognize the common humanity that underlies them. This is directly relevant to democratic life, which requires the ability to attend to the needs and feelings of others. She contrasts this with the use of music in nationalist movements, where it is used to create a uniform, aggressive collective emotion. The Hindutva movement has made heavy use of bhajans (devotional songs) and mass chants to create a sense of Hindu unity and to drown out difference. Nussbaum warns that music can be used for good or ill; the key is whether it cultivates a sense of openness or a sense of closure.
Nussbaum then turns to theater, focusing on the work of the Indian theater director Habib Tanvir. Tanvir’s plays, performed by rural Chhattisgarhi actors, mixed folk traditions with contemporary political themes. Nussbaum describes Tanvir’s masterpiece *The Tale of a Potato*, a satirical play about the Emergency (1975-77) that ridiculed authoritarianism using the earthy humor of folk theater. She argues that this kind of theater is a model for democratic art: it is participatory, critical, and inclusive. It brings together actors and audiences from different backgrounds and prompts them to think critically about power. Tanvir’s theater, she notes, was deeply pluralistic. It drew on Hindu, Muslim, and tribal traditions, creating a syncretic form that resisted the purity demanded by Hindu nationalism. Nussbaum also discusses the street theater tradition in India, which has been used by human rights activists to raise awareness about issues such as caste discrimination, domestic violence, and religious hatred. Street theater is a form of public pedagogy, taking democratic education directly into public spaces.
Clarify: The expansion to the other arts shows that Nussbaum is not making an argument for literature alone, but for a broad aesthetic education. The arts provide different forms of access to the democratic imagination. Music cultivates a non-verbal, embodied sense of connection; theater cultivates a critical, participatory engagement with social issues. Both are necessary for the “inner democracy” because they shape not just the mind but the body and the emotions. The Hindutva movement’s attempt to control the arts—to ban certain performances, to promote a sanitized Hindu aesthetic, to attack artists who are critical of nationalism—is a sign that the aesthetic dimension is deeply political. The “clash within” is also a clash over the shape of the national imagination, and the arts are a key battleground.
Religious Education and the “Inner Democracy”
We now turn to the final substantive section of the book, where Nussbaum addresses a question that has been implicit throughout: what is the role of religion itself in cultivating democratic citizenship? She argues that the response to intolerant religion should not be the suppression of religion, but the cultivation of a reflective, pluralistic religious sensibility.
Nussbaum begins by criticizing two common liberal responses to religious fundamentalism. The first is secularism as privatization, the view that religion should be confined to the private sphere and kept out of public life. The second is secularism as hostility, the view that religion is inherently irrational and dangerous and should be discouraged. Nussbaum argues that both responses are inadequate. The privatization model ignores the fact that religion is, for many people, a deep source of identity and meaning that cannot simply be set aside. The hostility model alienates religious believers and drives them into the arms of fundamentalists. What is needed instead is a liberal religious education that teaches believers to engage critically and reflectively with their own traditions.
Nussbaum draws on the work of the American philosopher John Dewey, who argued that education should be growth—the continuous expansion of experience and understanding. Applied to religion, this means that children should be taught about the world’s religious traditions in a way that fosters understanding, curiosity, and critical reflection. She contrasts this with two forms of religious education she condemns. The first is rote memorization and indoctrination, which teaches children to accept dogmas without questioning them. The second is exclusive education, which teaches children that only their own religion is true and that others are false or dangerous. Both forms, she argues, produce citizens who are incapable of the “inner democracy.” They cannot engage in Socratic dialogue with those who are different; they cannot use the narrative imagination to enter into the lives of others. Nussbaum emphasizes that this critique applies equally to Hindu nationalism, to Islamic fundamentalism, and to Christian evangelicalism.
“The enemy of democracy is not religion, but dogmatism — in religion, in politics, or in education. An education that treats the child as a passive receptacle for doctrine is an education for authoritarianism.”
Nussbaum then offers a positive model: a liberal religious education that is both intellectually rigorous and emotionally open. She describes how children can be taught to read sacred texts critically, learning about the historical contexts in which they were written and the diversity of interpretations they have generated. They can learn about the lives of saints and prophets from different traditions, developing a sense of spiritual pluralism. They can also learn about the ways in which religion has been used to justify both great good and great evil. This kind of education, Nussbaum argues, cultivates a reflective faith that is compatible with democratic citizenship. It allows believers to hold their own traditions with commitment while respecting the equal dignity of others. She points to examples of this kind of education in India, such as the Ramakrishna Mission and the schools run by the Christian missionary Mother Teresa (while acknowledging the controversies surrounding her work). The key is that religious education should foster love and compassion, not fear and hatred.
Clarify: This section is Nussbaum’s most direct engagement with the religious dimension of the “clash within.” Her argument is a form of liberal pluralism: the solution to bad religion is not less religion, but better religion. The goal is not to eliminate faith but to cultivate a form of faith that is self-critical, pluralistic, and oriented toward love rather than hatred. This position distinguishes her from “new atheist” critics of religion, who argue that religion is inherently dangerous. Nussbaum insists that religion is a human capacity that can be developed in either a democratic or an authoritarian direction. The task of a liberal society is to create the conditions for the former. This is a demanding vision, as it requires religious communities to undertake internal reform and governments to support a form of education that respects both religious freedom and critical inquiry.
Conclusion: The Work of the “Inner Democracy”
The book does not have a formal concluding chapter; instead, it ends with a brief epilogue that returns to the real-world case studies with which it began. Nussbaum revisits the Gujarat pogrom and the trials that followed, noting that the failure to secure justice for the victims has perpetuated the conditions for future violence. She also reflects on the broader trajectory of Indian democracy since the events she has analyzed.
Nussbaum offers a sobering assessment. The forces of hatred and disgust that drove the pogrom have not disappeared. They have been channeled into new forms—into online hate speech, into the ongoing marginalization of Muslims, into the erosion of academic freedom and press freedom. The “clash within” is a permanent feature of democratic life, not a problem that can be solved once and for all. However, she insists that the work of the “inner democracy” is never finished. It requires constant vigilance, constant education, and constant effort. The arts, the humanities, and a reflective religious sensibility are not luxuries; they are the daily bread of democratic citizenship.
The book closes with a call to action, addressed directly to the reader. Nussbaum writes that the future of democracy depends on the cultivation of the capacities she has described—the Socratic ability to question, the narrative imagination to sympathize, and the emotional resilience to resist the seductions of hatred. She ends by invoking the words of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, who called for a nation “where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; where knowledge is free; where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.” The “clash within” will never end, but the work of building an “inner democracy” can make it a creative conflict rather than a destructive one. The final sentence of the book is a challenge: “We must try, for the sake of our children’s children, and for the sake of all those who have suffered and still suffer, not to fail in this great task.”
Clarify: Nussbaum ends not with a solution but with a task. The “clash within” is not a problem to be solved but a condition to be managed. The resources for that management are already present—in the arts, in education, in the reflective traditions of religion—but they must be actively cultivated. The book’s final message is one of democratic hope tempered by tragic realism: the forces that destroyed the Babri Masjid and burned a Muslim family alive in Gulbarg Society are always present, but so are the forces of sympathy, love, and justice. The outcome depends on the work we do, in our schools, in our homes, and in our hearts.
