Violence of Democracy

Ruchi Chaturvedi is Senior Lecturer of Sociology at the University of Cape Town.

• Preface  ixAcknowledgments  xviiIntroduction  1I. Pastoral Power, Masculinity, and Interparty Conflict1. Containment and Cretinism: The Early Democratic Decades  272. The CPI (M) and the Making of an Antagonistic Political Field  583. Care, Connectedness, and Violence in Hindu Right Communities  88II. Judicial Responsibility and Subterfuge4. Law’s Subterfuge: Affording Alibis and Bolstering Conflict  1155. Individuating Responsibility: The Problem of Intention, Injustice, and Justice  145Conclusion  167Notes  173Bibliiography  225Index  245

“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)