... of religious space, as illustrated by the conflict over the site in Ayodhya identified by Hindus as the birthplace of Rama and by Muslims as a historically significant mosque. Not merely meaningful, religious space is also powerful as an arena for asserting claims to access, control, and ultimately ownership...

...In regard to the question of militancy versus tolerance, this chapter reports on a trip the author made to Ayodhya in early 1993, a month after Hindu militants destroyed the mosque that had been built there by a lieutenant of the Mughal emperor Babar in 1528. A symbol of Muslim hegemony in India's...