Democracy was the biggest investment India made at independence. The day three domes fell at Ayodhya may well have been when it all went sour. The retrieval project, begun faint-heartedly, has since floundered on an absence of political conviction. In that quarter century since mediaeval fury erupted at Ayodhya—over a third of India’s seven decades as an independent nation—the infirmities hastily covered up in the euphoria of freedom, have sharpened to a point where the foundations of civility, freedom and democracy are threatened.