Contours of riots
Contours of riots
- WHILE India has witnessed many forms of ethnic violence long before Independence, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindutva ideology has clearly created a different context for violence against minority communities, particularly Muslims, or what the Hindutvawadi calls, “Babar’s santan” (Babar’s progeny). What is the nature of this violence? How different is it from the violence perpetrated in the States ruled by non-BJP parties? Such key questions have motivated research in the last several years.
Amrita Basu, the author of the book under review, Violent Conjunctures in Democratic India, is one of the leading South Asianists in the United States. She was the South Asia editor of the prestigious academic journal The Journal of Asian Studies. Amrita Basu, who teaches politics at Amherst College, has been researching questions of religious minority and collective violence for several decades and has published dozens of path-breaking essays and books.
- WHILE India has witnessed many forms of ethnic violence long before Independence, the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindutva ideology has clearly created a different context for violence against minority communities, particularly Muslims, or what the Hindutvawadi calls, “Babar’s santan” (Babar’s progeny). What is the nature of this violence? How different is it from the violence perpetrated in the States ruled by non-BJP parties? Such key questions have motivated research in the last several years.
Amrita Basu, the author of the book under review, Violent Conjunctures in Democratic India, is one of the leading South Asianists in the United States. She was the South Asia editor of the prestigious academic journal The Journal of Asian Studies. Amrita Basu, who teaches politics at Amherst College, has been researching questions of religious minority and collective violence for several decades and has published dozens of path-breaking essays and books.