Does the Hindu nationalist movement’s mission to redress crimes allegedly committed by medieval Islamic rulers have a definable end goal? This is the question raised by last week’s unanimous Indian Supreme Court decision to award a disputed 2.8-acre plot in the northern city of Ayodhya to Hindus to build a temple to the God-king Ram. The court gave Muslim plaintiffs land for a mosque elsewhere in town.

The verdict closes a land-title suit that dragged on for nearly seven decades, but the underlying social and political issues...