The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict

Sudhir Kakar

University of Chicago Press, 1996 - Psychology - 217 pages

For decades India has been intermittently tormented by brutal outbursts of religious violence, thrusting thousands of ordinary Hindus and Muslims into bloody conflict. In this provocative work, psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar exposes the psychological roots of Hindu-Muslim violence and examines with grace and intensity the subjective experience of religious hatred in his native land.

With honesty, insight, and unsparing self-reflection, Kakar confronts the profoundly enigmatic relations that link individual egos to cultural moralities and religious violence. His innovative psychological approach offers a framework for understanding the kind of ethnic-religious conflict that has so vexed social scientists in India and throughout the world.

Through riveting case studies, Kakar explores cultural stereotypes, religious antagonisms, ethnocentric histories, and episodic violence to trace the development of both Hindu and Muslim psyches. He argues that in early childhood the social identity of every Indian is grounded in traditional religious identifications and communalism. Together these bring about deep-set psychological anxieties and animosities toward the other. For Hindus and Muslims alike, violence becomes morally acceptable when communally and religiously sanctioned. As the changing pressures of modernization and secularism in a multicultural society grate at this entrenched communalism, and as each group vies for power, ethnic-religious conflicts ignite. The Colors of Violence speaks with eloquence and urgency to anyone concerned with the postmodern clash of religious and cultural identities.

Contents

• THE SETTING: 1
• Shifting Perspectives: 3
• Unparalleled in the World: 4
• Versions of the Past: 12
• Between Enemy Lines: 16
• THE RIOT: 25
• The Story of a Cousin Told by His Elder Brother: 27
• The Cousin from Lahore: 28
• Territory and Passion: 37
• Profile of a Riot: 40
• December 1990: 47
• THE WARRIORS: 52
• Testing the Tigers: 58
• The Violent Poet: 59
• Young Tigers and Pussy Cats: 69
• Spreading the Wind: 72
• Psyche and Wrestling: 81
• VICTIMS AND OTHERS I THE HINDUS: 87
• A Pardi Family: 92
• Pardis and the Modern World: 95
• The Night of Long Knives: 98
• The Past: 104
• Image of the Muslim: 105
• Gandhi Psychoanalysts and Cows: 109
• Childrens Tales: 114
• VICTIMS AND OTHERS II THE MUSLIMS: 119
• Rashids Family: 120
• Days and Nights of the Riot: 123
• Babars Children: 125
• The Victim Response: 128
• Morality of Violence: 132
• Morality and the Hindus: 139
• A NEW HINDU IDENTITY: 143
• Shadows of Mourning: 144
• Secret Wounds: 146
• Cultural Identity and Cure: 148
• Psychology versus Politics?: 149
• Search for Hinduness: 152
• The Virtuous Virago: 153
• THE MUSLIM FUNDAMENTALISM IDENTITY: 170
• Meeting the Mullahs: 171
• Religious Politics: 176
• CONCLUSION RELIGIOUS CONFLICT IN THE MODERN WORLD: 186
• Religious Identities and Violence: 190
• Histories and Futures: 194
• APPENDIXES: 199
• The Morality Interview: 202
• NOTES: 205
• INDEX: 211

About the author

Sudhir Kakar is a psychoanalyst and the author of many books, including The Analyst and the Mystic: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Religion and Mysticism; Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality; and Shamans, Mystics and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and its Healing Traditions.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict
• Author: Sudhir Kakar
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1996
• ISBN: 0226422852, 9780226422855
• Length: 217 pages
• Subjects: Psychology / General; Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social; Social Science / General