Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T10:00:12.849Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Warriors in Politics: Hindu Nationalism, Violence, and the Shiv Sena in India. By Sikata Banerjee. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. 207p. $62.00.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2002

Sanjib Baruah
Affiliation:
Bard College,,

Abstract

These two books are about two powerful regional political forces in India-the Shiv Sena of Maharashtra (with a focus on the city of Mumbai) and the Dravidianist parties of Tamil Nadu. Many readers of this journal may know these places by their older names: Mumbai is Bombay, and the state of Tamil Nadu and its capital city were once known as Madras. Both books, not coincidentally, have much to say about the rise of Hindu nationalism in India, which is perhaps the most dramatic change in the Indian political landscape in recent years. That, indeed, is the central theme of Banerjee's book, which investigates the Hindu-Muslim riots in Mumbai in 1993. Banerjee argues that the politics of Hindu nationalism provides the context for the riots. In Mumbai, the major political force articulating a Hindu nationalist agenda is the Shiv Sena (literally, the warriors of Shivaji, a legendary Maharastrian Hindu hero).

Type
Book Review
Copyright
2001 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.