Riot Politics

About the Book: Riot Politics: Hindu-Muslim Violence AndThe Indian State On 27 February 2002, fifty-eight people died when a coach of theSabarmati Express was set on fire just outside a small-town railwaystation in Gujarat. The incident sparked the Gujarat riots, one ofthe worst outbursts of Hindu-Muslim violence in recent history. Based on an extensive ethnographic study of Gujarats localpolitics, Riot Politics offers a novel approach to understandingthe processes that foster outbursts of communal violence in India.Berenschot argues that the difficulties faced by poorercitizenswhen dealing with state institutions underlie the capacityand interests of political actors to instigate and organisecommunal violence. As the reader is led into the often shadowy world oflocalpolitics in Gujarat, the author reveals how the capacityandwillingness of various types of rioters ranging frompoliticians,local criminals, fundamentalist groups, toneighbourhood leadersand police officials to organise andperpetrate violence is closelyrelated to the different politicalpositions these actors hold. About Author: Ward Berenschot Ward Berenschot is a political scientist and a post doctoralresearcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute for SoutheastAsianand Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden. He specializes inidentity politics, citizenship and local democracy in India andIndonesia. Reviews Riot Politics is a remarkable addition to the literature oncommunalism in India.- Christophe Jaffrelot, Senior Research Fellow, CNRS,CERI