For seventy years after independence, India narrated a comforting story to itself and the world. It was the tale of Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb, the composite culture of the northern river plains where Hindus and Muslims shared dialects, culinary habits and a grudging respect for each other’s holy days. On paper, it was a secular state by law; in the streets, it was a pluralist one by habit. That story is now out of print.