Hindutva And Violence

Examines the place of history in the political thought of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, one of the key architects of modern Hindu nationalism.

How Do We Understand Those Asectics Who Have Developed An Extremely Elaborate Martial Tradition An Yet Have Been Taken Strict Vows Of Non-Violence, Especially When, For Some Ascetics Today, That Tradition Has Been Put At The Service Of The Most Extreme Forms Of Hindu Militancy? And How Is That Tough Union Leaders Can, With Conviction Shere The Same Ideas As Gandhi, Or That Brahmins Scarcely Hesitate Before Using The Stick, Even Though They Loudly And Insistently Advertise Their Faith In Non-Violence?

This volume brings together important and original perspectives from South Asia on the relationship between violence---an increasingly important issue in multicultural societies---and the process of othering. The contributors state that societies create 'others' through deliberate acts of selection over a period of time. The objective of the process of othering is to deny rights and privileges that one sets for one's own group. This volume affirms that central to the understanding of violence in any society is the understanding of othering processes. Violence and nonviolence are influenced by the nature of othering processes as well as the kinds of others in a society. Groups engaged in mutual othering are also the ones that are often involved in violent relationships. Renowned scholars from diverse fields provide multidisciplinary perspectives on violence and othering, discussing the concepts of violence and nonviolence in multicultural societies, communal harmony, constructions of the other, truth commissions, state censorship of 'sensitive' issues, fundamentalism and secularism in multifaith societies, and specific cases from recent violence-prone areas. This volume focuses on the South Asian, and more specifically, the Indian context, but is relevant for researchers seeking to understand these issues anywhere in the world.

For decades India has been intermittently tormented by brutal outbursts of religious violence, thrusting thousands of ordinary Hindus and Muslims into bloody conflict. In this provocative work, psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar exposes the psychological roots of Hindu-Muslim violence and examines with grace and intensity the subjective experience of religious hatred in his native land. With honesty, insight, and unsparing self-reflection, Kakar confronts the profoundly enigmatic relations that link individual egos to cultural moralities and religious violence. His innovative psychological approach offers a framework for understanding the kind of ethnic-religious conflict that has so vexed social scientists in India and throughout the world. Through riveting case studies, Kakar explores cultural stereotypes, religious antagonisms, ethnocentric histories, and episodic violence to trace the development of both Hindu and Muslim psyches. He argues that in early childhood the social identity of every Indian is grounded in traditional religious identifications and communalism. Together these bring about deep-set psychological anxieties and animosities toward the other. For Hindus and Muslims alike, violence becomes morally acceptable when communally and religiously sanctioned. As the changing pressures of modernization and secularism in a multicultural society grate at this entrenched communalism, and as each group vies for power, ethnic-religious conflicts ignite. The Colors of Violence speaks with eloquence and urgency to anyone concerned with the postmodern clash of religious and cultural identities.

Chronic Hindu-Muslim rioting in India has created a situation in which communal violence is both so normal and so varied in its manifestations that it would seem to defy effective analysis. In this volume, Paul R. Brass, one of the world’s preeminent experts on South Asia, reports the results of an immense scholarly undertaking: his tracking of more than half a century’s riots in the north Indian city of Aligarh, where he has conducted extraordinary research for the past thirty-eight years.

Drawing Connections Between History, Individual Development, Group Psychology And The Cultures Of Specific Communities, The Colours Of Violence Paints Richly Textured Portraits Of A Range Of Subjects Involved In Riots, And Focuses On Not Just The Survivors But Also The Agents Of Violence. With Insight And Unsparing Self-Reflection, Kakar Shows How Hindu And Muslim Identities Are Formed By Rumour, Religion And Bigotry, And How They Are Fuelled By Nostalgic Histories And The Anxieties And Uncertainties Produced By The Process Of Modernization.

In theorizing about the link between violence and the politics of nationalism, most scholars have rejected the idea that primordial hatred between different ethnic and/or religious groups residing in close proximity will inevitably lead to conflict and the call for an ethnically/religiously pure nation-state. Rather, conflict tends to occur when humans manipulate social, political, economic, and ideological factors to construct nationalist identities and movements. The manipulation perspective is the underlying theoretical framework of Warriors in Politics which uses the Mumbai riots of December 1992 and January 1993 to analyze the brand of nationalism created and disseminated by the Indian political party Shiv Sena. While the theoretical and empirical research of others is an important part of this study, interviews conducted by the author when she lived in Mumbai during this tumultuous period as well as her own theorizing on the links among masculinity, militarism, and nationalism, provide an analysis of the factors - economic, political, and ideological - that converge to transform the simmering discontent of the politics of nationalism into violent conflict.

Investigates geographic variation in Hindu-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002 critically examining the logic of political violence.