میراث پسرم: تاریخچه‌ای پنهانی از دار زدن و عدالت خونین در هند

Babu, did you know as a child what your father did when he was annoyed with his mother? He used to drink up all the milk in the kitchen. Leave none for the family’s evening tea. To ensure that your father had enough milk and ghee, his grandfather had bought him a buffalo. So, despite having a buffalo all to himself, he would find excuses to polish off others’ share of milk. Your father’s love for milk was legendary and even made him the butt of jokes. During college days, when all the boys were going out drinking, your father would stay back nursing a glass of milk. Your father’s grandfather, Radhavallabh, was a respected wool trader of his village. He owned herds of sheep and goats that the local shepherds would take for grazing. He lived in Braj in a village called Aryakhera near the city of Mathura. My Sons Inheritance: A Secret History of Lynching and Blood Justice in India is a provocative and disturbing examination of the history of lynching in the country. Aparna Vaidiks investigation traverses several centuries and offers powerful insights into the phenomenon. She demonstrates how violence is secretly embedded in our myths, folklore, poetry, literature, and language, and is therefore invisible. She delves deep into family history to further illuminate how widespread violence is in Indian society. Framing her narrative as a message to her son, she acquaints him with his ancestorsthose who abet and carry out lynching as well as those who are lynched. In this way, her son embodies both the violator and the violated, much like the country in which he will come of age. She lays bare the heritage of violence bequeathed from generation to generation and disabuses us of the myth that nonviolence and tolerance are the essence of Indian culture. She argues that the perpetrators of violence are not just the state, the rulers, the police or the army but all of us who, through our silence and indifference, foster and perpetuate violence in India. My Sons Inheritance is a groundbreaking exploration of the phenomenon of lynching and the larger culture of violence that invests the social and political fabric of the country. Searing, thoughtful, deeply personal, and profoundly moving, My Sons Inheritance tells a story all Indians must hear and exposes a truth no Indian wishes to face. Shashi Tharoor Exploratory, powerful, persuasive, and highly readable. Neeladri Bhattacharya Provides a new perspective on the history of violence and the silence that shrouds blood justice. Gogu Shyamala