In recent decades, the world has witnessed the emergence of several protracted violent conflicts and the eruption of ethnic and communal violence in countries such as Bosnia, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka. Riots and Victims challenges the popular academic interpretation of such events as examples of tribal slaughter or spontaneous eruptions, fueled by historic conflict between religious and ethnic communities. This book examines the origins and consequences of the violence that occurred between the Muslim and Hindu communities in pre-partition Bengal, which ultimately resulted in the creation of Pakistan. Gossman argues that communal violence and communal identity were not merely the consequences of long-term animosities, but rather ploys orchestrated by mid-level politicians for their own advancement and aggrandizement. Riots and Victims introduces new analyses of local violence and identity, and explores issues of far-reaching importance.

This fascinating book uncovers the hidden stories behind Pakistan’s fixation with blasphemy–tales of revenge, political scheming and sovereign betrayal. Hussain’s account opens in nineteenth-century colonial Punjab and traces blasphemy killings to the present, linking their emergence to polemic encounters between Hindu and Muslim revivalist sects, namely the Arya Samaj and the Ahmadiyya. It offers, for the first time, the arresting backstories to the assassinations of Pandit Lekh Ram, a leading Hindu nationalist; Swami Shraddhanand, an early progenitor of Hindu nationalism and the principal advocate for converting Muslims; and Rajpal, the Hindu publisher of a sensationalist book on the Prophet Muhammad. Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in Pakistan then maps the curious afterlives of these killings, illuminating the most critical moments in Pakistan’s history: 1953, when outraged protestors smashed stores owned by religious minorities, triggering the country’s first state of emergency; 1974, when Islamist parties pressured Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to put blasphemy on the constitutional agenda; 1984, when Zia-ul-Haq transformed Pakistan according to his Islamist vision, which included more severe punishments for blasphemy; and the twenty-first century, when digital media has dramatically increased the visibility of blasphemy killings, prompting political parties to demonstrate their commitment to the cause.

At the time when the national movement was still in its early stages, Madan Mohan Malaviya emerged as an enigmatic but commanding figure in the political landscape of India. This work reconstructs Malaviya’s ideal of nationalism, which was composite, constructive and creative and offers a fresh perspective on an important period of modern India’s political history. Utilizing new and authentic source material, this book traces Malaviya’s role in the freedom struggle, the people who supported him, his relations with other established political leaders of the country within and outside of the Congress party and how he saw his own actions and role in public life. Taking Malaviya as a particular example of subcontinental leadership, Jagannath Prasad Misra studies the method and manner of Malaviya’s nationalist propaganda. He shows that rather than being a restraining influence, Malaviya’s faith in constitutional politics and educational advancement laid a solid foundation for the uplift of the nation.

An original and groundbreaking look at the encounter between British imperialism and Indian nationalism.