What happens after violence and how does it affect a democracy? why does internal displacement occur? and how do international human rights affect national politics?
When violence occurs in democracies it is often characterized as an aberration. Some people return to their homes and workplaces that were once sites of violence to reconstruct their lives while others who flee cannot return to their homes. This book examines what causes internal displacement through extensive fieldwork among displaced persons in Gujarat, a state otherwise known for good governance, in the world’s largest democracy that is India. Existing scholarship on internal displacement or forced migration is couched in the international language of human rights and trains the spotlight on humanitarian aspects focusing on various stages of displacement, immediate causes and moral arguments. Sanjeevini Badigar Lokhande uses forced migration as a probing lens to lend analytical visibility not just to human rights violations but also the state. She uses archival and ethnographic research to examine the state’s handling of communal violence and resultant forced migration from 1960-2003. The book also compares the state’s handling of forced migration due to disaster. It examines the role of non-state actors in reconstruction after the violence. This book offers fresh insight into communal violence and is an important resource for the emerging domain of forced migration and changing nature of the state in a globalized world.
Reviews of the book have appeared in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Economic and Political Weekly, Frontline, The Hindu and chapatimystery.com. A chapter of the book was translated to Marathi and published in the Marathi fortnightly Parivartanacha Vatsaru.
Discussion on the book by panelists Howard Spodek, Zahir Ali and Kumar Ketkar on its release at Mumbai University can be viewed here
Thomas Blom Hansen
Professor, Department of Political Science, Stanford University
" This account of the aftermath of the Gujarat pogrom in 2002 is a powerful and well-documented indictment of the dark underside of the much heralded development state of Gujarat. Focusing on the fate and living conditions of the hundreds of thousands displaced by the pogrom, Badigar Lokhande paints a disturbing picture of systematic neglect, paltry compensations and daily humiliations of displaced Muslims by state officials. Her meticulous research shows that the cruelties of the pogrom was followed by another kind of violence- structural, slow, callous and indifferent. This is a major contribution to the literature on violence, governance and internal displacements across the social sciences."
A.G. Noorani
Leading constitutional Expert, Advocate Supreme Court of India, Political Commentator and Author
"This book is indispensable to a proper understanding of the Godhra outrage and the post-Godhra pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 on Modi’s watch.....The book is a product of stupendous research, extensive interviews in fieldwork and incisive analysis. The author breaks new ground in citing recent international legislation on internally displaced persons (IDPs). The scholarship so evident in the documentation also stands out in the restraint of her comments."
Edward Simpson
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, UK
There are a great many interviews hidden away in the book. Shining through these now standard narratives are glimpses into the lives and tribulations of real people who experienced these events in their homes and on the streets; people who had near misses; and people who saw and heard things that they later wished they had not.