A 500-Year-Old Dispute Threatens Modi’s Plan to Remake India

Under a rusty metal roof in one of India’s oldest cities, Amrat Lal and a dozen other craftsmen carefully engrave thousands of slabs of sandstone. When finally put together, they threaten to reignite religious violence.

The stone pillars and ceiling tiles are the building blocks of a temple marking the birthplace of the Hindu god Ram. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, which took power in May, has championed a decades-long fight to build the temple on the same site where Hindu groups razed a 16th century mosque in 1992.