What kinds of civic ties between different ethnic communities can contain, or even prevent, ethnic violence? This book draws on new research on Hindu-Muslim conflict in India to address this important question. Ashutosh Varshney examines three pairs of Indian cities—one city in each pair with a history of communal violence, the other with a history of relative communal harmony—to discern why violence between Hindus and Muslims occurs in some situations but not others. His findings will be of strong interest to scholars, politicians, and policymakers of South Asia, but the implications of his study have theoretical and practical relevance for a broad range of multiethnic societies in other areas of the world as well. The book focuses on the networks of civic engagement that bring Hindu and Muslim urban communities together. Strong associational forms of civic engagement, such as integrated business organizations, trade unions, political parties, and professional associations, are able to control outbreaks of ethnic violence, Varshney shows. Vigorous and communally integrated associational life can serve as an agent of peace by restraining those, including powerful politicians, who would polarize Hindus and Muslims along communal lines.

This important new book critically evaluates the conventional reading of ethnicity and ethnic conflict in contemporary Indian politics. By focusing on India's nation and state-building in the peripheral regions since 1947, in particular Punjab, it argues that there is a case for considering India as an ethnic democracy. The long-term development of ethno-nationalist separatist movements and the future character of Indian democracy is assessed in light of the challenge posed by the rise of Hindutva forces, the demise of the Nehruvian state, and the internal political and economic pressures towards regionalization.

The neighboring north Indian districts of Jaipur and Ajmer are identical in language, geography, and religious and caste demography. But when the famous Babri Mosque in Ayodhya was destroyed in 1992, Jaipur burned while Ajmer remained peaceful; when the state clashed over low-caste affirmative action quotas in 2008, Ajmer's residents rioted while Jaipur's citizens stayed calm. What explains these divergent patterns of ethnic conflict across multiethnic states? Using archival research and elite interviews in five case studies spanning north, south, and east India, as well as a quantitative analysis of 589 districts, Ajay Verghese shows that the legacies of British colonialism drive contemporary conflict. Because India served as a model for British colonial expansion into parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, this project links Indian ethnic conflict to violent outcomes across an array of multiethnic states, including cases as diverse as Nigeria and Malaysia. The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Violence in India makes important contributions to the study of Indian politics, ethnicity, conflict, and historical legacies.

Katharine Adeney demonstrates that institutional design is the most important explanatory variable in understanding the different intensity and types of conflict in the two countries rather than the role of religion. Adeney examines the extent to which previous constitutional choices explain current day conflicts.

Myron Weiner's study of the relationship between internal migration and ethnic conflict in India is exceptional for two reasons: it focuses on intercultural and interstate migration throughout the nation, rather than on merely local or provincial phenomena, and it examines both the social and the political consequences of India's interethnic migrations. Professor Weiner examines selected regions of India in which migrants dominate the modern sector of the economy. He describes the forces that lead individual Indian citizens to move from one linguistic-cultural region to another in search of better opportunities, and he attempts to explain their emergence at the top of the occupational hierarchy. In addition, the author provides an account of the ways in which the indigenous ethnic groups ("sons of the soil") attempt to use political power to overcome their fears of economic defeat and cultural subordination by the more enterprising, more highly skilled, better educated migrants. In addressing the fundamental clash between the migrants' claims to equal access to their country and the claims of the local groups to equal treatment and protection by the state, Professor Weiner considers some of the ways in which government policy makers might achieve greater equality among ethnic groups without simultaneously restricting the spatial and social mobility of some of its own people. Originally published in 1978. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The book is a very detailed work on the relationship between movements for autonomy by indigenous peoples (the so-called ‘tribes’) and violence in Assam, in northeast India. The book addresses some of the reasons for the failure of ethnic conflict management and for the frequent emergence of violence in the region. In particular, the historical description of movements by the Dimasas, Misings and Bodos is well compiled and provides a good summary for the readers. At the same time, the work offers a good understanding of ethnic violence in contemporary India. The volume offers some new research data based on comparative analysis of different trajectories followed by three important movements among Assam’s ethnic minorities. While the pieces of the argument are based on the existing literature on ethnic violence and contentious politics, they are effectively connected to materials drawn from northeast India. Furthermore, the book raises significant concerns on the debates on crafting of decentralised institutions and executive opportunities that may facilitate ethnic accommodation thereby reducing the likelihood of such groups to pursue their goals through channels that are radical or extreme.

Updated to cover events between 1986 and 1992, including the destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya in December 1992, the book analyses the secessionist crisis in Punjab which led to Indira Gandhi's murder and examines larger themes of ethnic conflict and threats to Indian unity. The Punjab example sheds light on processes at work in the rest of India, as the introduction to the new edition of the book points out. It also considers the domestic implications for India of a world in which 'socialism' and 'non-alignment' have lost much of their meaning.

A hallmark of Indian politics, ethnic tension have escalated dramatically since the 1980s, endangering India's unity as a sovereign democracy. Although a succession of governments has attempted to resolve them, these conflicts have weakened India's role as the dominant power in the region. This work examines the connections between internal and external policy and explores the ways in which domestic tensions, particularly arising from ethnic and sectarian heterogenity, shape India's role in the region. The book studies movements in Punjab, Kashmir and Tamil Nadu, which escalated throughout the 1980s and influenced India's relations with Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It argues that India does not seek hegemony in South Asia; instead it acts to protect its nation-building efforts from similar problems faced by neighbouring countries. Paradoxically, this goal requires India to intervene in neighbouring countries ethnic conflicts.

Diverging from reductionist studies of Northeast India and its multifarious conflicts, this book presents an exclusive and intricate, empirical and theoretical study of Assam as a conflict zone. It traces the genesis and evolution of the ethnic and nationalistic politics in the state, and explores how this gave birth to nativist and militant movements. It further discusses how the State’s responses seem to have exacerbated rather than mitigated the conflict situation. The author proposes ethnic reconciliation as an effective way out of the current chaos, and finds the key in examining the relations between three communities (Axamiyā, Bodo and Koch) from Bodoland, the most violent region of Assam. She stresses upon the need to redefine ‘Axamiyā’, an issue of much discord in Assam’s ethnic politics since the modern-day formulation of the Axamiyā nation. The book will prove essential to scholars and students of peace and conflict studies, sociology, political science, and history, as also to policy-makers and those interested in Northeast India.

"Harel-Shalev's study is outstanding. Finally, a cogent and intelligent analysis of the myriad ways deeply divided societies maintain and negotiate democratic practices. This book will prove to be essential reading for anyone interested in the topics of identity politics, public policy, and democracy."---Rebecca Kook, Ben Gurion University --