Ever since 1986, when the locks on the gates of the makeshift Ram Lalla temple within the precincts of the Babri Masjid were opened, the debate over secularism and communalism has been revived in all its sound and fury. It now occupies center stage in our public discourse. In Confessions of a Secular Fundamentalist, Mani Shankar Aiyar, parliamentarian, commentator and crusader for a secular credo, calls for an unambiguous and decisive restoration of secularism to ...