In December 1992, contending that the sixteenth-century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was built on the birth site of the god Ram, Hindu militants tore it down, setting into motion a chain reaction that claimed thousands of lives. (See Father, Son and Holy War, October 22.) In the Name of God, completed a year before this epochal event, lays bare the mechanics by which religion was politicized. A sharp-eyed Patwardhan records the march to Ayodhya, fronted by a politician in a Toyota done up like Ram's chariot, and conducts interviews that are alternately comic (a self-important ideologue turns out to be drunk) and horrifying (a man endorses Gandhi's assassination). We watch as young men converge into an avenging mob who claim they know the exact location of Ram's birthplace but, when questioned, have no idea in which century he was born. The film's moral center is a Hindu priest in Ayodhya, who points out that the nationalists are “playing a political game.” The priest was subsequently murdered; as of this writing, the site of the former mosque remains unused.