Sudha Pai and Sajjan Kumar
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- April 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199466290
- eISBN:
- 9780199095865
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199466290.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Indian Politics
The authors analyse the reasons underlying the resurgence of communalism in the 2000s in Uttar Pradesh (UP) leading to riots in Mau in 2005, Gorakhpur in 2007, and Muzaffarnagar in 2013, but more ...
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The authors analyse the reasons underlying the resurgence of communalism in the 2000s in Uttar Pradesh (UP) leading to riots in Mau in 2005, Gorakhpur in 2007, and Muzaffarnagar in 2013, but more importantly move beyond riots to analyse the new ways and means whereby communalism in the present phase is being manufactured by the Hindu right. They argue that UP is experiencing a post-Ayodhya phase of communalism markedly different from the late 1980s/early 1990s. The book employs a model of institutionalized everyday communalism whose defining feature is that rather than initiating major, state-wide riots, the strategy of the BJP–RSS currently is to create and sustain constant, low-key communal tension together with frequent, small, low-intensity incidents out of petty everyday issues that institutionalize communalism at the grassroots. The use of this strategy is examined based on extensive fieldwork in the districts of eastern and western UP that experienced major riots. A fusion of rising cultural aspirations and deep economic anxieties in UP, which remains an economically backward state, and where a deepening agrarian crisis, unemployment, poverty, and inequalities are widespread, has created fertile ground for the new kind of communal mobilization. The agenda of the BJP–RSS is political to establish majoritarian rule, but equally important cultural, because India is viewed as fundamentally ‘Hindu’ in a civilizational sense in which Muslims will remain alien. It is through this lens of the new ‘avatar’ of the BJP, its ideology and strategies, and its impact on society and polity that an attempt is made to understand the current round of communalism in UP.Less
The authors analyse the reasons underlying the resurgence of communalism in the 2000s in Uttar Pradesh (UP) leading to riots in Mau in 2005, Gorakhpur in 2007, and Muzaffarnagar in 2013, but more importantly move beyond riots to analyse the new ways and means whereby communalism in the present phase is being manufactured by the Hindu right. They argue that UP is experiencing a post-Ayodhya phase of communalism markedly different from the late 1980s/early 1990s. The book employs a model of institutionalized everyday communalism whose defining feature is that rather than initiating major, state-wide riots, the strategy of the BJP–RSS currently is to create and sustain constant, low-key communal tension together with frequent, small, low-intensity incidents out of petty everyday issues that institutionalize communalism at the grassroots. The use of this strategy is examined based on extensive fieldwork in the districts of eastern and western UP that experienced major riots. A fusion of rising cultural aspirations and deep economic anxieties in UP, which remains an economically backward state, and where a deepening agrarian crisis, unemployment, poverty, and inequalities are widespread, has created fertile ground for the new kind of communal mobilization. The agenda of the BJP–RSS is political to establish majoritarian rule, but equally important cultural, because India is viewed as fundamentally ‘Hindu’ in a civilizational sense in which Muslims will remain alien. It is through this lens of the new ‘avatar’ of the BJP, its ideology and strategies, and its impact on society and polity that an attempt is made to understand the current round of communalism in UP.
