Publisher's Synopsis
Literature is believed to be a reflection of lived experiences of the past and the present.
In this sense, how the acts of communal violence have been recorded, projected and narrated
warrant an in-depth analysis in order to create a public discussion and opinion about the barbaric
attitude of the perpetrators and obliviousness of the civil society. The very discourse of the
writers and activists about the communal violence always depend upon the religious and political
ideologies they endorse. So, the modes of narration of the communal violence differ from one
author to another author. In this study, the analysis starts from the discourse of minority identity
and the discrimination based on the religious difference and the reason behind the prevailing
The texts written based on
the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom and 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom will be well introduced and analyzed
in detail will be analyzed in the light of the theoretical concepts of Foucault, Louis Althusser and
Antonio Gramsci will be employed to study the literary works written about the human rights
violations. An attempt will be made to explicit how violence has been used in its various
dimensions for constructing the hegemonic power upon the social, cultural and economic life of
the minority subjects. Legal lacks within the existing system that paved way to the human rights
violation against the religious minority groups. The unanswered issues in uniting various
religious and cultural groups as a nation and its consequences that led to historical errors so the
This ends in the dissatisfaction of
certain religious and minority groups because of the process of nationalization. So the
construction of Socio- political ideology is based on or favor to majority community. Literature
in any given context responds to the existing clashes, conflicts and oppressions in various
manners. In this context, the vulnerable conditions of certain minorities like Sikhs and Muslims experienced the massive human rights violations in the form of pogrom because they were
number and are
vulnerable to communal threat, oppression and need for a society to constructed with majority
(religious) conscious in a secular, republic and democratic nation. Another point in continuation
of this communal polarization is targeting the Sikhs and Muslim minorities which was the
horrible communal violence followed by the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in
1984 and Godhra riot in 2002 and how the pogrom was meticulously planned and executed by
the state. Through this kind of human rights violations the sentiments and political power
sustained by the ruling class. Influence of colonial rule and the systems violating the human
rights and the states remuneration and rehabilitation treatment to the victims of anti-Sikh pogrom
and Gujarat pogrom. The study also focusses on the so-called justice provided to the terribly
affected Minority communities.
