Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence and the Indian State
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Ward Berenschot
Rupa Raintree, 252 pages, Rs 495
On 27 February 2002, 58 people died when a coach of the Sabarmati Express was set on fire just outside a small-town railway station in Gujarat. The incident sparked the Gujarat riots, one of the worst outbursts of Hindu-Muslim violence in recent history. Based on an extensive ethnographic study of Gujarat’s local politics, this book offers a novel approach to understanding the processes that foster outbursts of communal violence in India. Berenschot argues that the difficulties faced by poorer citizens when dealing with state institutions underlie the capacity and interests of political actors to instigate and organise communal violence.
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