Abstract
Violence is considered as being inherently anathema to the ‘spirit and substance’ of democracy (Keane, Violence and Democracy, p. 1). Based on individualistic and egalitarian values, opportunities to protest, dissent and debate along with the constraints of the rule of law to protect rights, democracies world over are supposed to enable the individuals as well as varying social groups to realise them through democratic tactics, practices and institutions (Ramsay, ‘Liberal Democratic Politics as a Form of Violence’, p. 245). Hence, it is widely assumed that democracies render use of violence as means of politics unnecessary. Keeping violence excluded from the political arena is considered an avowed aim of democracies in conventional political theory literature.
How valid is the above assumption about democracies having built-in institutional mechanisms to contain all forms of conflicts and violence that arise out of collective claims? A democratic polity is assumed to be capable to meet the challenge of political violence by providing a space for peaceful dialogue and negotiation? If it is really the case, then why is it that ‘new’ democracies of late have been witness to the rising level of violence both in its ‘direct and physical’ (and therefore visible) as well as in ‘institutional/structural’ (mostly invisible) forms? (Schwarzmantel, ‘Democracy and Violence’, p. 218). Why there seems to be a dissonance between democracy’s ideal and reality, between the normative order and the existential order?
One comes across the above puzzle relating to the interrelationship between democracy and violence (‘parallel and possibly related’) most forcefully while referring to Indian democracy. Like most of the ‘new’ democracies of its ilk, Indian democracy is no exception when it comes to its inability to contain violence. It has been witness to violence in both institutional and structural forms, which are embedded in its normal functioning. Lack of strong state institutions/political organisations and gradual decline in terms of adhering to the formal democratic procedures has meant that democratic state in India has increasingly shown an alarming inclination to abandon democratic principles and values and resort to violence whenever it has been confronted with the violent movements/protests that are expressions of a collective demand for recognition, justice and inclusion by alienated/discontented social groups who wish to be recognised as valid actors in the democratic system.
Indian democratic state has particularly failed to contain violence perpetrated against the religious minorities which has continued unabated since the days of partition and has in fact increased in its intensity and scale in the recent decades. The book under review focuses on the conjunctural violence involving Hindus and Muslims despite India being a federal, multi-ethnic democracy. The author has undertaken ethnographical studies of the incidents of Hindu–Muslim violence that have occurred from 1980 to 2008. Taking up the four states of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan for her field studies, Basu underlines the fact that the timings, severity as well as the scale of violence have differed in the cases of Hindu–Muslim violence that have occurred in these states in contemporary India. How to explain the unevenness in the events of violence across the states in India is the research question that puzzles the author. Basu’s argument is that the scholars studying the Hindu–Muslim violence have attributed the communal violence to ‘parties, states, mobs, gangs and institutionalized riot system’. However, there has been an academic neglect of the significant roles of social movements and the civil society organisations in either inciting or curbing the violence. Based on comparative analysis, she attributes the inter-state differences in terms of extent and timing of anti-minority violence to the ‘relationships among ideologically driven parties, movements and the state’. In all these four states, majoritarian communal forces in order to succeed in their nefarious design against the minorities have shown ability to rope in the support of a large segment of upper castes and also subdue marginal castes assertions though their success has varied from one state to another. The assertion and mobilisation of the lower castes invariably weaken the communal forces as the lower castes identify themselves with the minorities considering them as fellow subalterns. What has also mattered in contributing to the level of success the communal forces have achieved is also due to the support they receive by both parties in power and the social movement based on sectarian majoritarianism. The complicity of the state becomes a distinct possibility once the party having a communal agenda comes in to power. The mobilisation along the lines of primordial identities under the changed mode of electoral politics has worked as an impetus to the growing sectarian violence on ethnic lines. Basu has focused on the role of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in alliance with Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) and backed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—all representing the Hindu nationalist forces—in stoking anti-Muslim violence in the four states to substantiate her theoretical contention. For the purpose, she brings about lot of empirical details about the political developments that have happened in the states during the period of the study.
Lastly, a note about the method employed by Basu needs attention. Of late, there has been much recognition and appreciation of the states to be viewed as important political units for developing a theoretical framework for analysing politics. The states are being considered as ‘critical’ to the understanding of the issues about emergent ‘national’ politics. Along with it, there has also been greater realisation that the constituent states of Indian union, all under the same legal-constitutional framework, are comparable. Basu using inter-state comparative analysis underlines the usefulness of the comparative method in developing/substantiating theoretical framework and reaching conclusions which are persuasive.