Colours of Violence

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. About the Author Sudhir Kakar is a distinguished psychoanalyst and writer. He has written seventeen highly acclaimed books of non-fiction which include among others The Inner World (now in its sixteenth printing since its first publication in 1978) Shamans Mystics and Doctors Intimate Relations The Colours of Violence and most recently Young Tagore The Makings of a Genius.