I “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever,” wrote George Orwell.  Nineteen Eighty-Four is not only the title of Orwell’s dystopian novel, but also the year that the future changed forever for the Republic of India. The events of that year reverberated around the world once again on 9 November 2019 when the Supreme Court of India issued a judgment in a land dispute. For decades, India’s courts kicked around various lawsuits filed by plaintiffs asserting their right of ownership to a disputed property in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. The Supreme Court’s final ruling came thirty years after the Hindu nationalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) —categorized by the US Central Intelligence Agency as a “religious militant organization” — laid at the site a foundation-stone for a temple to the Hindu deity, Ram. The land belonged, the court ruled, to the…

---