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BOOK REVIEW
december 7, 2013 vol xlviII no 49 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
32
In addition to that, encouraging an
already-biased law enforcement system to
arrest people based on inammatory
speech would result in leaders of margin-
alised communities being arrested at a far
more frequent rate than leaders of the ma-
jority community. Detaining people for
acts of speech, of course, requires that law
enforcement ofcials pass judgment in
o rder to deem certain speech inamma-
tory or not. And as Engineer very correctly
states, police believe that to be communal
is only prerogative of Muslims, therefore,
encouraging police to arrest more people
based on violence-inciting speeches which
would simply result in the disproportion-
ate and unjust arrest of Muslims and the
turning of many a blind eye to any inam-
matory speech made by Hindus.
Law enforcement in India should in-
stead concentrate on consistently halt-
ing instances of violence, because no po-
lice force alone is capable of changing
ideological currents that shape the moti-
vations for such violence. It is possible
for police to vigilantly respond to ha-
tred-fuelled speech acts with increased
security, countering of false rumours,
surveillance of the speakers other acti-
vities, crowd control, etc without
arresting people for making the spee-
ches. Encouraging the arrests of people
based on their speech acts only further
justies and allows for acts like the
Gujarat Congress Partys shutdown of an
entire television channel during the
2002 Godhra carnage, or the Mumbai
polices arrest of a young woman who
posted a facebook status that was per-
ceived as anti-Shiv Sena.
Impact on Minorities
In another extremely rhetorically pow-
erful chapter, Engineer discusses the im-
pact of a communal social climate on
minority communities themselves, de-
scribing how groups respond to violence
by isolating themselves from diversity,
thus leading to more strife and distance
between communities and thereby caus-
ing more violence and tension. This
chapter should be required reading for
anyone who makes the extremely com-
mon, victim-blaming argument that
people who suffer communal violence
should have known better than to openly
aunt their religion through their
clothing and other orthodox practices.
According to Engineer, it is the fear of
violence that causes religious identity to
suddenly become the most important
aspect of (peoples) existence that can
save or endanger (peoples lives).
A communitys turn inward is caused
by development of perception of self
and other binary in ethno-religious or
religious-nationalist terms. Engineer
shows how this polarisation is manifest-
ed outwardly in many practices more
men start wearing skull caps or growing
beards increases after riots, men pray in
mosques more often as identity markers.
Muslim women start wearing burkha and
conform to the expected norms of behav-
iour to identify with the community or as
a measure for security. In an extremely
disturbing footnote, Engineer cites Sophia
Khan, director of Social Action Forum
Against Repression, Ahmedabad, who
reported a signicant decrease in the
amount of Muslim women ling domes-
tic violence cases, despite the fact that
domestic violence was on the rise.
Conclusions
To conclude Issues of Communal Violence,
Engineer briey explores possible avenues
for ameliorating communal violence in
todays society. He correctly asserts that
building peace has to exist both at the
state level as well as within society. The
state, he argues, will have to perceive
the threat posed by communal violence
and terrorism as a threat to democracy.
One cannot be fought in isolation from the
other (p 45). He is correct; in order for a
democracy to function all constituents
must be able to participate in a society
without fear for their lives and liveli-
hoods. At only two pages, Engineer does
not leave much room in this chapter for
the elaboration of actual schemes that
might start solving endemic problems of
communalism, but that, of course, can
be a topic for another book. As it cur-
rently reads, Issues of Communal Violence
is an extremely well-crafted primer on
the basic issues and causes behind com-
munalism and its violent iterations.
Aria Thaker (ariathaker@gmail.com) is with
Davenport College, Yale University, United States.
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