NEW DELHI, March 6 -- In a moving piece titled "A Different Nation", the respected educator and cultural activist, G. N. Devy, grieves over the demise of the India conceived by our founding fathers that held the promise of a truly egalitarian society. He harks back with nostalgia to a time when, in the little mofussil town in Maharashtra where he spent his early years, there was a comforting sense of affinity and fellowship that cut across religion, caste and language, where festivities and sorrows brought people together in solidarity. Children of the rich and the poor went to the same school, the same playground, the same clinic and library.

Not anymore. On a recent visit to his birthplace, the residents organized a felicitation cerem...