ABSTRACT
In developing countries somewhat similar processes have been evident, too. In India, the growth of communalism since the early 1980s reached its climax in the Gujarat riots of 2002, which saw the death of 5,000 Muslims and the further displacement of 100,000 into relief camps in state-sponsored pogroms (Singh 2004). The events in Gujarat were the culmination of almost two decades’ of aggressive mobilisation by the Hindu right that led to the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a national force. Although the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was defeated in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, its impact on public policy towards religious minorities was lasting in significantly changing terms of trade of India’s national identity and the place of religious minorities within it (Adney and Sáez 2005).
