Against the witness: Hindu nationalism and the law in India

Moyukh Chatterjee*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

In the aftermath of anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat, India, in 2002, NGOs and activists encouraged survivors to testify against Hindu perpetrators in court. Through an ethnographic analysis of a criminal trial in the lower courts of Ahmedabad, I show how state officials and perpetrators used legal procedures to transform Muslim survivors into unreliable witnesses in the courtroom. These formal and informal techniques to destabilize Muslim witnesses are best understood not as byproducts of the law’s failure to address mass violence, but as a legal performance of Hindu supremacy. Procedural and positivistic approaches to the rule of law failed to address the law as a performance embedded in the context of Hindu nationalism in Gujarat. Not only do such trials discredit witnesses of mass violence, but they also give a legal form to the subordinate status of religious minorities within a majoritarian political regime.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)172-189
Number of pages18
JournalLaw, Culture and the Humanities
Volume15
Issue number1
Early online date8 Apr 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Feb 2019

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • Gujarat 2002
  • Hindu nationalism
  • India
  • minorities
  • tTestimony
  • violence
  • witnessing

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