Production of Hindu- Muslim violence in contemporary India

Frequent communal violence in its varied manifestations has become such a normal experience in India that it seemingly defies any effective analysis. In this book Paul R. Brass has tracked more than half a century's riots in the north Indian city of Aligarh, covering the last three decades of British rule and the post-Independence history of the city.
This book is the culmination of a lifetime's thinking about the dynamics of inter-group violence in northern India and exposes the mechanisms by which such violence is started and sustained. Brass implicates several actors for their sustained role in trying
to produce communal violence. Much like a theatrical production, specific roles are played, with phases for rehearsal, staging, and interpretation. In this way riots become key defining factors in the history of struggle for political, economic and social dominance of one community over another.