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December 16, 2016

Publication Announcement: Splintered Justice - Living the Horror of Mass Communal Violence in Bhagalpur and Gujarat

New title from Three Essays

Available from December 19:


SPLINTERED JUSTICE
Living the Horror of Mass Communal Violence in Bhagalpur and Gujarat

by
Warisha Farasat & Prita Jha

Introduction by
Harsh Mander and Navsharan Singh

India, both during its struggle for independence and in the decades of freedom has been rocked by periodic episodes of communal violence, mostly taking the form of state-enabled violence, even massacres, of religious minorities. These episodes have been characterised by impunity, or the assurance that those who plan and execute these targeted communal attacks are protected from legal punishment. Scholars in the Centre for Equity Studies mapped through official records the ways in which impunity is accomplished in their book On Their Watch: Mass Violence and State Apathy in India. In this second work, Warisha Farasat and Prita Jha drill deeper into two major communal massacres, of Bhagalpur in 1989 and Gujarat in 2002. Relying not just on official papers but also on in-depth testimonies of many survivors, they systematically chart the troubling failures of India’s criminal justice system to secure justice for survivors of hate violence. Written with both rigorous scholarly insight and engaged compassion, this book is essential reading for all who care about upholding that most sacred pledge of India’s Constitution, of ensuring the equal treatment of all people, regardless of their faith, caste, gender or wealth, before the law of the land.

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Warisha Farasat and Prita Jha, long time human rights activists and legal experts on issues of communal genocides and rehabilitation of survivors, have given us an uncompromising book that details the aftermath of the Gujarat and Bhagalpur massacres of Muslims in independent India, and of the erosion of secularism and minority rights within the ruling establishment and in society.

The book tells it like it is… in the words and through the clearly and honestly articulated experiences of the victims and survivors, transformed into a valuable sociological and legal document through their [the authors] ability to focus on the essential contours of what constitutes a just ‘closure’ and actual justice. The book, justifiably, indicts the State and its organs, and the mainstream political leadership in the country, that has been complicit in the denial of justice. In the process, it exposes the wide gap between the equalities promised in the Constitution and the stark reality of India.

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Praise for the book

The persistence of so-called communal violence in India is aided by the very terms used to define and analyze it. Most pernicious are such terms as “communal violence”, “hate violence,” etcetera, that mask the deliberate planning that is involved, led by so-called “respectable people.” Of particular concern is the violence that targets local Muslim populations, killing large numbers of men, women, and children. Communal violence is not necessarily or usually something spontaneous, but is rather a “production” staged by these so-called reputable people who, for reasons of their own, pay hoodlums and murderers to carry out the violence. -Paul Brass



Drawing on rich narratives and interviews with the survivors of the Bhagalpur and Gujarat anti-Muslim carnage, this book anatomises how systemic impunity for the perpetrators of violence works and how the rights of minorities are trampled upon. This meticulous research work makes a significant and practical contribution to the discussions on impunity, state power and justice in India and provides rich material for a deeper analytical understanding of the Indian State and society. -Atul Sood



Few studies have followed up on what happens to the survivors of the communal massacres who, it is assumed, would have ‘moved on’. Here is a book that looks into their lives... the fight for justice, rehabilitation, livelihoods, and above all, dignity. It records their struggles to make sense of their lives, for a ‘closure’ that has eluded them. -Nalini Taneja



Mandatory reading. The Bhagalpur carnage – and other collective crimes we commit upon ourselves – are tragedies redoubled. Victims remain victims, perpetrators get away; we have a way of turning amnesiac on past sins. Here is a painstakingly documented reminder to all of us of our criminal commissions and omissions, and of what shouldn’t happen. -Sankarshan Thakur

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Contents:

Introduction

Mass Communal Violence in Independent India

Harsh Mander and Navsharan Singh


Part I. Warisha Farasat

Remembering the Bhagalpur Carnage


Subversion of the Justice Process

The Unhealed Wounds of Bhagalpur


Part II. Prita Jha

Remembering the Gujarat Carnage


Criminal Justice

Assessing Reparations


Acknowledgments & Index

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pp xiv+286, includes index. demy octavo 8.5 x 5.5 in.,

ISBN 978-93-83968-17-6 Hardcover Rs750

ISBN 978-93-83968-20-6 Paperback Rs500


Available at major bookstores and with IPD Alternatives 35A/1 Shahpur Jatt, New Delhi 110049 Tel. 011-26491448/26492040 e-mail ipd.alternatives@gmail.com