Partitions of the heart : unmaking the idea of India

There was one partition of the land in 1947. Harsh Mander believes that another partition is underway in our hearts and minds. How much of this culpability lies with ordinary people? What are the responsibilities of a secular government, of a civil society, and of a progressive majority? In Partitions of the Heart: Unmaking the Idea of India, human rights and peace worker Harsh Mander takes stock of whether the republic has upheld the values it set out to achieve and offers painful, unsparing insight into the contours of hate violence. Through vivid stories from his own work, Mander shows that hate speech, communal propaganda and vigilante violence are mounting a fearsome climate of dread, that targeted crime is systematically fracturing our community, and that the damage to the country's social fabric may be irreparable. At the same time, he argues that hate can indeed be fought, but only with solidarity, reconciliation and love, and when all of these are founded on fairness. Ultimately, this meticulously researched social critique is a rallying cry for public compassion, conscience and justice, and a paean to the resilience of humanity. Title page Contents Advance Praise for the Book Dedication Prologue: Junaid, My Son Preface: A Gathering Darkness 1. Whatever Happened in Gulberg Society? 2. The Ethics of Collective Vengeance 3. Borders in Gujarat 4. Nationalizing the Gujarat Model 5. Less Than a Cow 6. ‘Encounter’ Killings, Terror, Innocents and the Wages of Official Prejudice 7. ‘Loving’ By Hating 8. The Multiple Betrayal of ‘Secular’ Parties 9. ‘Anti-National’ Conversions 10. Communal Violence, Lynching and Counterfeit Peace 11. The Unmaking of India 12. Partitions of the Heart If I Could Turn Back Time Notes Acknowledgements Follow Penguin Copyright