He then went to Delhi, the new nation’s capital, which was also seething with the rage of Hindu refugees fleeing from a Pakistan that had no time or place for them. On Jan. 30, 1948, a man who believed Gandhi had betrayed Hindus did to Gandhi what he had always been prepared for. As the leader fell to three bullets fired at point blank range, all hope for religious concord in India, seemed to vanish.

But has it vanished?

Indians, like people anywhere, do not want to hate. They do not want to hug suspicions, fears. But there are those, very political, ambitious and selfish people — men, mostly — who want to use incipient suspicion and fear to control their fellow citizens, turn India into a Hindu rashtra. And bigots on the other side, extremists using the name of Islam, feed Hindu communalism with just what extremists need to stay in business: the violent “other.”

And they love to foment fear. Some fears are real as, for instance, the fear of terrorism, of armed attacks from across borders, of externally orchestrated insurrection. But many other fears are fiction, such as the fear of a Muslim population explosion, a Muslim jihad. And Pakistan’s unpredictable militaristic politics, ever keeping an already conflicted Kashmir in ferment, helps the fire burn.

Two ways of life face India today. A path that wants Indians to have freedom of conscience, thought and speech so that the best ideas and energies can be devoted to raising up the poor, the marginalized and the discriminated and making India a republic for all its citizens. And the road that wants India to be dominated by one political and religious order, one majoritarian grip on all, making India a nation of stark uniformity, a Hindu rashtra.

Who are the Indians seeking a Hindu nation? They are the followers of the Hindu part of the Two Nations theory. Hate, they say, the one who wears clothes different from yours. Mistrust the one who eats foods different from yours, speaks and writes differently, sings songs that are not yours and — most crucially, who prays to a god not yours. If he does all that and even questions some of your beliefs, he is antinational, so just tell him to get out. So it goes, the new majoritarian rhetoric.