Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India [Hardcover]

Ashutosh Varshney (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300085303 | ISBN-13: 978-0300085303 | Publication Date: March 29, 2002 | Edition: 2nd

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 in 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 organisations, 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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

"A landmark synthesis. Varshney's comparison of communal violence and tranquillity in urban India is lucid, theoretically self-conscious, original, and empirically convincing. It should launch a veritable flotilla of comparable studies of civil life in its admirable wake." —James C. Scott, Yale University "Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life is an outstanding work of social science, one of the most important studies of ethnic violence to appear in many years. This book will decisively shape future scholarly research on this subject and deserves to have an important impact on public policy concerning ethnic conflict." — Samuel P. Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order "Varshney's rich findings about what types of civil society organizations and activities help contain religious conflict – and which do not – open up a whole new agenda for theorists and activists alike." — Alfred Stepan, author of Arguing Comparative Politics "Varshney has taken us a long way in understanding intra-Indian variations in communal violence, and he leaves a set of unanswered questions for future research. What more can be asked from a work of social science?" —David Laitin, Stanford University "South Asia scholars and social scientists will have to read Varshney, they will cite him, and they will learn from him." —Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, University of Chicago

About the Author

Ashutosh Varshney is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director, Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 2nd edition (March 29, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300085303
• ISBN-13: 978-0300085303
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,403,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Groundbreaking research, June 2, 2004

By 

Ronald Kraybill (Harrisonburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (Paperback)

I've worked and taught in the field of peacebuilding for 25 years and consider this book the single most important research that has been done in the field. Varshney breaks new ground in conducting indepth research into why some cities in India into fell into violence and some did not during times of high national tension.

He presents clear and extremely useful findings about what is useful and what is not useful in resisting violence. Specifically, his research shows that creating structures that bring people together to work for a common cause or benefit(such as Hindu-Muslim traders cooperatives, joint community development committees, peace committees, etc.) has a marked effect in reducing violence.

I present Varshney's findings in a variety of settings worldwide and find audiences always highly responsive. My students love the book and find Varshney's ideas so clear and insightful that the often refer back to him later.

This book in my view is an example of scholarship at its best: well-designed, provocative, clear in its conclusions. On top of that is it unusually lucid in writing style. I consider it a "classic" - a book that will endure for many years and that deserves to be on the shelf of any serious student of ethnic or religious violence.

You can read the first and last few chapters and get the real benefits of the book.

Ron Kraybill
Professor of Conflict Transformation
Eastern Mennonite University

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars grear research ..fresh approach and certainly unbiased, May 10, 2009

By 

inza "zar" (MD, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (Paperback)

Let me make it clear that I am neither a Hindu nor a Muslim, so am surprised when people call Varshney's research biased against Muslims, I am not sure how anyone could get that out of this book...if anyone for the sake of argument wanted to make a case for this book being biased there would be one for it being biased against Hindus!( which it is not either to be fair). But I guess if you are looking for Islamophobia you find it anywhere just as people promoting Islamophobia find reasons to be Islamophobic.. sad but true. Also this book is clearly in the genre of an optimistic search for ethnic peace..which makes it a tad bit 'innocent' but honestly that is the only reason I would read a book about ethnic conflict.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!!, July 10, 2008

By 

jnuwaala - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (Paperback)

This very compelling book tells the story of Hindu-Muslim violence in India not by relying on a hunch, or ideological predisposition, but by drawing on hard data. Tightly written, the book will make you think about ethnic violence in a systematic and intelligent manner. The author's significant argument that civil society is implicated in preventing riots in certain Indian cities has important implications both at the personal as well as the political level. For it makes us ask ourselves, as citizens how does our participation or non participation in civic life impact Hindu-Muslim relations in our cities? Furthermore, how can the state and international agencies encourage and entrench the kind of civic behavior that diminishes the prospect of conflict turning into riots? Should be read by all concerned citizens.