Author Description

Most people believe that communal conflict is driven chiefly by religious intolerance and political ideology. Very few scholars know the economic, demographic and social-structural forces that cause rift between coexisting communities. The book makes a comparative analysis of major communal riots and caste conflicts in India against the backdrop of racial and ethnic conflicts across several countries in Asia, Africa and America to show that economic and demographic factors are the prime determinants in inter-community conflict.This is a pioneering work attempting a comparison of communal riots, inter-caste conflict, tribal unrest and even racial-ethnic conflict using the same theoretical structure. The book also shows that the very forces and factors that alienate two communities from each other are also essentially the same forces that had integrated them in the first place. The book also examines the interesting hypothesis that a communal conflict can escalate into a full fledged riot only when the population of the two communities in a locality is in the ratio of 60:40.A must read book for researchers and policy makers in the field of ethnic studies, tribal insurgence, communal riot, savarna-asavarna caste dynamics, Hindu-Muslim relationship and scheduled caste - scheduled tribe development etc.