ABSTRACT
Violence in India and South Asia takes many forms. South Asia has not suffered the sustained violence of Cambodia or areas of Central Africa but it has its own pattern of terror, and the statistics are there to read. Hindu-Muslim violence might truly be said to be immanent - ineradicable and inherent within Indian society - and different in the respect from the political/criminal violence of the cities which is occasional and, often enough, predictable. The violence which comes from the diverse causes might conceivably be kept below the level of politics in a state that was determinedly non- democratic, but in South Asia politics are pervasive. The activity of parties, politicians and elections transmits social conflict into political demands, and the effect is to bring violence into public life as an extension of politics by other means. The use of violence by the state is obviously political in seeking to impose its authority by force.
