Description
In Violence of Democracy Ruchi Chaturvedi tracks the rise of India's divisive politics through close examination of decades-long confrontations in Kerala between members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and supporters of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and extensive archival research, Chaturvedi investigates the unique character of the conflict between the party left and the Hindu right. This conflict, she shows, defies explanations centering religious, caste, or ideological differences. It offers instead new ways of understanding how quotidian political competition can produce antagonistic majoritarian communities. Rival political parties mobilize practices of disbursing care and aggressive masculinity in their struggle for electoral and popular power, a process intensified by a criminal justice system that reproduces rather than mitigating violence. Chaturvedi traces these dynamics from the late colonial period to the early 2000s, illuminating the broader relationships between democratic life, divisiveness, and majoritarianism.
About the Author
Ruchi Chaturvedi is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at the University of Cape Town.
Reviews
"Violence of Democracy raises urgent, timely, and important questions about democracy, violence, and authoritarianism in postcolonial democracies. Ruchi Chaturvedi examines the nature of modern democracy through a dense, historically engaged, and ethnographically rich exploration of the political lives of young men in North Kerala." -- Ritty A. Lukose, author of * Liberalization's Children: Gender, Youth, and Consumer Citizenship in Globalizing India *
"Ruchi Chaturvedi's Violence of Democracy is a fascinating ethnography of party politics and violence in North Kerala that rethinks fundamental issues about democratic competition and mobilization. This original and insightful analysis of the nature and sources of political violence in modern democracies makes a pathbreaking contribution to the study of postcolonial societies." -- Karuna Mantena, author of * Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism *
Book Information
ISBN 9781478020776
Author Ruchi Chaturvedi
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 381g
About the Author
Ruchi Chaturvedi is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at the University of Cape Town.
Reviews
"Violence of Democracy raises urgent, timely, and important questions about democracy, violence, and authoritarianism in postcolonial democracies. Ruchi Chaturvedi examines the nature of modern democracy through a dense, historically engaged, and ethnographically rich exploration of the political lives of young men in North Kerala." -- Ritty A. Lukose, author of * Liberalization's Children: Gender, Youth, and Consumer Citizenship in Globalizing India *
"Ruchi Chaturvedi's Violence of Democracy is a fascinating ethnography of party politics and violence in North Kerala that rethinks fundamental issues about democratic competition and mobilization. This original and insightful analysis of the nature and sources of political violence in modern democracies makes a pathbreaking contribution to the study of postcolonial societies." -- Karuna Mantena, author of * Alibis of Empire: Henry Maine and the Ends of Liberal Imperialism *
Book Information
ISBN 9781478020776
Author Ruchi Chaturvedi
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 381g
