The production of Hindu-Muslim violence in contemporary India / Paul R. Brass.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Explaining communal violence -- Aligarh: politics, population, and social organization -- Hindu-Muslim violence in India and Aligarh -- The great Aligarh riots of December 1990 and January 1991 -- The control of communal conflict in Aligarh -- The geography and demography of riots -- The economics of riots: economic competition and victimization -- Riots and elections -- The practice of communal politics -- Communalization and polarization: selected constituency-wise results for Aligarh elections -- Communal solidarity and division at the local level -- The decline of communal violence and the transformation of electoral competition -- Riot interpretation, blame displacement, and the communal discourse -- Police views of Hindu-Muslim violence -- The role of the media The persistence of Hindu-Muslim violence: the dynamics of riot production.

"Chronic Hindu-Muslim rioting in India has created a situation in which communal violence is both so normal and so varied in its manifestations that it would seem to defy effective analysis. Paul R. Brass, one of the world's preeminent experts on South Asia, has tracked more than half a century's riots in the north Indian city of Aligarh. This book is the culmination of a lifetime's thinking about the dynamics of institutionalized intergroup violence in northern India, covering the last three decades of British rule as well as the entire post-independence history of Aligarh."--BOOK JACKET.