Ayodhya verdict is cue for PM Modi to focus on fixing India's economy

The speed and energy with which the BJP's social agenda has been implemented stands in sharp contrast to the dilatory and timid approach the government has taken to structural economic reform.

Over the weekend, India’s Supreme Court pronounced on a title dispute in Ayodhya, a small town in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Like many other property cases in India, this one had been working its way through the judicial system for decades. But it may be the most consequential such dispute in Indian history.

Millions of Hindus believe Ayodhya was the capital of Ram, an avatar of Vishnu and hero of the epic Ramayana, and the dispute was over rights to the site where Hindus say a 16th century mosque was built over Ram’s birthplace. Reversing a lower court’s