BOOK REVIEW
Ordinary Humans,
Extraordinary Inhumanity
Rudolf C Heredia
T
his book attempts a comparative
study between two kinds of
violence, that of Naxalites and
the Hindu extremists in two different
contexts, Jharkhand and Gujarat. It is
not a study of their ideologies, but of
the motivational and support structures
that make “ordinary people”, everyday
persons like you and me, perpetrators
of such “extraordinary violence”. What
makes them feel justified in killing inno-
cent persons, often their own neighbours,
often people they never knew or had any
contact with? Yet, such inhumanly horrific
behaviour, full of blood and gore, seems
to leave no regret or trace on their con-
science. They return to their “ordinary”
lives unscathed by what they have done
to their victims, even as the devastated
survivors of the horrors visited on them
struggle to get their lives back together
and cope with the trauma whose memo-
ries haunt them still.
The book sets out to address two criti-
cal questions among others: “Is there a
certain core context to foster (any)
Economic & Political Weekly EPW NOVEMBER 29, 2014
Ordinary People, Extraordinary Violence:
Naxalites and Hindu Extremists in India
by Chitralekha (London, New York, New Delhi: Routledge,
Taylor and Francis), 2013; pp xxi + 326, Rs 795.
extremist ideology? What are the condi-
tions in which extremism is formulated
and practiced?” (p 4). Far beyond its
place of origin in Naxalbari, Naxalism or
Maoism has spread through the tribal
belt in central India paralysing local
governance. Elsewhere, the Hindu ex-
tremists have strengthened their sup-
port base and expanded their network.
Each retributive attack targeting Mus-
lims has reaped rich returns for their
sponsors and handlers.
Review of Collective Violence
Several attempts made earlier to define
extremism are indicated here, but for the
purpose of this book an “extremist is the
radical who has already said no to the
possibility of discourse as a means to the
consummation of their cause and there-
fore yes to violence” (emphasis added)
vol xlIX no 48
(p 15). Once the “marketplace of ideas” is
closed down and the group radicalised,
the enemy is readily delegitimised and
demonised in the pursuit of a cause.
Thus, “one kills on giving up other means
of consummating the cause” (p 16).
To situate this approach in a wider
theoretical context, the book makes a
brief review of earlier theories on collec-
tive violence. The survey covers a wide
range of authors: Theda Skocpol’s (1979)
sketches of five stages of a revolutionary
movement – changes in society giving
rise to grievances, disorientation, new
interests, a mass movement, an ideology
and an organisation; Ted Gurr’s (1970)
politicisation of discontent and its actuali-
sation in violence; Charles Tilly’s (1978)
focus on psychological and ideological
causes to the purposive revolutionary
movement; Dipak Gupta (2001) on the
complexity of the motivations involved in
genocide and mass murder; and Stathis
Kalyas’s (2003) interaction between
political and private identities.
As an ethnographic research at the
ground level, the study focuses not on
the more remote leaders and ideologues,
but on local “foot soldiers” and their
instigators at the grass roots in an at-
tempt to go beyond their conscious in-
tentions to their implicit motivations.
The author uses detailed, in-depth inter-
views with a sample of both kinds of
29
BOOK REVIEW

extremists to reconstruct “the social
characteristics of the life-world” which
enables them to kill without regret or
guilt. The voices of the original perpe-
trators are used “to reconstruct the im-
mediate and the more significant longer
term context that makes participation in
such violence possible” (p 25).
In Jharkhand-Bihar, winning the con-
fidence of the Naxalites was a delicate
issue. Credible access to information
from active Naxalites in the field was
found to be unviable. After a few false
starts the author settled for interviews
with senior leaders from their front or-
ganisations, cadres out on bail or in jail.
In Gujarat, the most telling “laboratory”
for Hindutva “social engineering”, her
earlier contacts helped to chose the area
for her fieldwork. But the ethical ques-
tions remained ambiguous: how to posi-
tion herself as someone the interviewees
could trust with their story and be as-
sured of anonymity, even though justice
would demand they be brought to book?
Should a researcher’s potential contribu-
tion to knowledge override the demands
of natural justice? The final sample from
Jharkhand-Bihar included 40 armed
cadres, some in prison, others recently
released. In Gujarat 25 participants in
the 2002 pogrom plus an additional 39
“supporters and ideological instigators”
were interviewed.
Core Context
Against the background of a brief history
of the Naxalites and a description of its
organisational structure, the core values
of the movement are spelt out as dignity,
izzat (honour) for the poor and oppressed
(p 56). Party discipline is strict, organisa-
tional hierarchy emphasised, dissent dis-
couraged. Many among the cadre were
not the landless poorest, but rather small
landholders. In the current scenario the
enemy was no longer the big landlords,
of whom only a few are left, but the
corrupt and oppressive state (p 60).
Collating the data, the author cate-
gorises these interviewees into three
“motivational profiles”. About a fifth are
“committed” (p 82). These are generally
better educated and their commitment
to the cause more ideological. About a
fourth are “opportunists”, mostly from
the upper and middle castes (p 90). The
rest were “drifters”, who had made an
occupational choice for lack of more
attractive work-life options (p 94).
This, of course, contradicts the domi-
nant and accepted understanding of the
Naxalites among both laypersons and
academics. However, Chitralekha argues
that her data warns against such essen-
tialising of the discourse (p 222). She
even suggests that an armed movement
may not succeed without successfully
tapping the “drifters”. Political violence
is not always political and cannot be
reduced to the “ideologies derived from
the war’s master cleavages” (Kalyas 2003:
487). However, the motives of the cadres
cannot be reduced to “private issues”.
Rather they represent “a real and deeply
poignant politics of recognition” (p 124):
izzat (honour), for the marginalised and
the alienated.
Elaborating the background and current
dynamics of Hindu extremism in Gujarat,
the author asks who these extremists are
and why they kill Muslims. Among the
Hindu extremists in Ahmedabad, the
author distinguished three types of active

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30 NOVEMBER 29, 2014 vol xlIX no 48 EPW Economic & Political Weekly

participants (p 136). First are the mob
leaders who instigate. They lead the kill-
ing and generally are “political climbers”.
Their actions are not spontaneous but
premeditated, perceived to meet party
approval and assured of protection from
retribution by state agencies. These are
people of high social and economic
standing, whose “shared world view was
sourced from regular and sustained ex-
posure to the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideology in
early childhood”. Without any conflicting
ideologies this world views “provided
a thick ideological buffer against guilt”
(p 149). Second are the “killers and killer
rapists”. These are young and have no
role in strategy. Protected from risk their
participation brings “social visibility,
potency and power” (p 153). Violence is
justified as self-defence and rape as a
response against the Muslim “threat to
Hindu male sexuality” (p 164). The third
category is rioters, who indulge in loot-
ing and arson but do not kill. These are
dropouts, jobless or just poor. These cate-
gories are highly porous and “more of a
circumstantial and logistical boundary
than definitive ethical choices” (p 176).
Key Players
Beyond this core, the author distinguish-
es two “key-players” (p 177): the “local
supporters”, who endorse and legitimise
the violence and are influential commu-
nity leaders and critical to the imple-
mentation of violence in the field; and
the “ideological instigators”, who “may
not dirty their hand in violence at a local
level”, but over years prepare the ground
that provides the motivation and the
world view for such an agenda (p 204).
In rural Gujarat, where violence fol-
lowed after the pogrom began in
Ahmedabad, “the process of induction
into the ranks of the ‘Hindu extremists’
occurred in different space-time coordi-
nates in historically and socioeconomi-
cally distinct contexts” (p 208). Yet there
was “a pattern reminiscent of the find-
ings of the fieldwork in areas that saw
violence in Ahmedabad”: RSS shakhas were
active for over a decade creating a “sharply
rising resentment and ‘anger’ against
Muslims” (p 218). Here “local supporters”
were more critical in buttressing “mob
Economic & Political Weekly EPW NOVEMBER 29, 2014
leaders”, both categories crossing party
and ideological lines. This only under-
lines the already deep polarisation of
religious communities in Gujarat, which
has now evolved into a consolidation of
the majority Hindu community. The
Bharatiya Janata Party’s sweep in the
recent Lok Sabha elections confirms this.
The author attempts to reconstruct
the social circumstances that legitimate
such “extraordinary violence”. The simi-
larities between the two groups, Naxal-
ites and Hindu extremists, point to
motivations beyond ideological belief in
their cause. In both instances, the com-
mitment to the extremist cause seems
“almost a quasi occupational choice, to
fulfil psycho-social needs as ordinary
and as universal as recognition, sense of
achievement, social status, izzat in one’s
peer group and samaj (in one’s own
community not the hated other), …” (p 6).
Without in any way trivialising the
differences between these two kinds of
extremists, “the uncanny similarities in
the formative life worlds” of these extrem-
ists are most telling (p 5). Eric Hoffer’s
True Believer (1951: ix) had indicated the
similarities between different kinds of
fanaticism. For the fanatic, who is per-
petually incomplete and insecure in the
changing circumstances of their life,
what counts is the hunger for deep
assurance, total surrender, whole-hearted
clinging to a cause. Yet it is not so much
the content of the cause nor their class/
caste life-experiences that is the driving
force as is the longing for communion
with a congregation and the reassurance
this belonging then brings. These are
more underemployed than unemployed,
not the quintessential revolutionary.
Conclusions
Here is a summary of the findings in the
author’s words set out at the onset in her
introduction:
Most people who killed in the name of the
cause did not doubt its veracity…(p 7).
This kind of conviction is not gathered in a
hurry. It is well into place in early childhood,
often initiated at home but ‘completed’ in or-
ganised forums… (p 8).
To be really convinced it is important that at
this stage there are not too many conflicting
voices around to confuse… (p 9).
Significantly, however, belief was rarely the
reason people killed (p 10).
vol xlIX no 48
BOOK REVIEW
These findings are contrary to popular
understandings and so, difficult to accept.
But they need to be taken seriously and
explored further. What they do emphati-
cally underline is an agenda that is not
effectively addressed though most seri-
ous studies of collective violence in the
subcontinent have established the need
to do this. The state response is feeble,
delayed, ineffective, and almost deliber-
ately so. If mob violence is quickly and
firmly stopped, and the rioters called to
book, the level of risk can be raised so
that such mob violence on the street will
become too costly an indulgence and
mob leaders will not be able to precipi-
tate riots, nor rioters will be co-opted as
readily as now. However, partisan politi-
cal patronage and our ineffective legal
system protect rioters from being
brought to justice. And as long as such
violence yields electoral returns at the
hustings it will not stop.
Chitralekha’s findings confirm The
Srikrishna Commission Report into the
Bombay riots of December 1992, Janu-
ary 1993 and the serial bomb blasts in
March 1993, which named and blamed
the instigators, who for years, with hate
speeches demonising vulnerable minori-
ties, galvanised the mobs to a horrific
violence against innocent people justifying
this as self-defence. Such hate spewers
are rarely, if ever, booked and prosecuted.
The “action-reaction” justification of
helplessness used in Gujarat becomes an
encouragement to more of the same.
There is a desperate need to address the
upstream ideologies that prepare the
ground for the downstream violence, to
anticipate and defuse rather than to react
and resist after it has been precipitated.
As yet we refuse to learn from our history,
or worse learn the wrong lessons, so that
it repeats itself not as comedy but as
tragedy again and again.
Amartya Sen, as a young boy of 11,
with his father rushed to hospital Kader
Mia, a daily wage labourer who had col-
lapsed at his gate in Dacca during the
partition riots there. Relating the inci-
dent decades later he asks a question
that would not go away:
Why should someone suddenly be killed?
And why by people who did not even know
the victim, who could not have done any
31
BOOK REVIEW
harm to the killers? … The poorest members
of any community are the easiest to kill in
these riots, since they have to go out utterly
unprotected in search of daily subsistence
and their rickety shelters can easily be pene-
trated and ravaged by gangs (Sen 2006: 173).
This is a question that will not go
away. It will haunt us as the partition
violence of six decades ago still does
today. It is the unhealed memories from
then that are constantly and vindictively
32
revived today. We must come to terms
and heal them. Already too many have
died and worse may yet be in store for
this subcontinent.
Rudolf C Heredia (rudiheredia@gmail.com) is
an independent researcher based in Mumbai.
References
Gupta, Dipak K (2001): Path to Collective Madness:
A Study in Social Order and Political Pathology
(Connecticut, Westport: Praeger).
NOVEMBER 29, 2014
Gurr, Ted Robert (1970): Why Men Rebel (Prince-
ton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press).
Kalyvas, Stathis (2003): “The Ontology of ‘Politi-
cal Violence’: Action and Identity in Civil
War”, Perspectives on Politics, Vol 1, No 3,
pp 475-94.
Sen, Amartya (2006): Identity and Violence – The
Illusion of Destiny (London: Allen Lane, Pen-
guin Group).
Skocpol, Theda (1979): States and Social Revolu-
tion: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia
and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
Tilly, Charles (1978): From Mobilisation to Revolu-
tion (Massachusetts: Reading, Addison-Wesley).
vol xlIX no 48 EPW Economic & Political Weekly