In Varanasi, Muslim men in skull caps and Hindu pilgrims wearing saffron clothes make their way to a temple-mosque complex that's the subject of an ongoing dispute.

A few decades earlier, while Mahatma Gandhi preached Hindu-Muslim unity, the RSS advocated for transforming India — by force, if necessary — into a Hindu nation.

The changes took aim at references to the links between Hindu extremism and the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi; the secular foundation of post-colonial India; and the 2002 riots in Gujarat ...