Ramaswami: In 2002, a Reuters photo became emblematic of the riots, showing a Muslim tailor, his shirt flecked with blood, imploring security forces with folded hands to rescue him from a mob that was surrounding his house. This week, another Reuters image emerged, of a Muslim man on all fours, bloodied and bowed, trying to shield his head from the dozen or so men encircling him and beating him with staves. His manner is abject, desperate. There are no police in sight. The photo stands for what now seems to be the fate of India’s minorities, as designed by the B.J.P.: to find being heavily outnumbered a matter of life and death; to cower in perpetual fear; and to know that the state will bring no relief, because it’s the state that’s choreographing the fear in the first place.