ABSTRACT
The book begins by focusing on a crucial timeframe in which the research was conducted. It shows how despite party-based mobilisation of the Left Front (LF) in their three decades of continuous rule, West Bengal continues to maintain Hindu–Muslim social cleavage based on partition-led riot memories. It shows how a) new myths regarding population and everyday practices of the two communities are generated, circulated and made natural that has resulted in even more prominent social cleavage and b) they fuel communal conflicts especially after 2014 when the BJP government was formed at the centre. With a review of the existing literature, this chapter shows that most of the studies on identity politics are historical and are rarely ethnographic. Hence, there is a gap between historical metanarratives and a handful of ethnographies that explores the after-effect of riots. This book does the much-needed study on the mechanisms, designs, actors, activities and micro-dynamics of religious polarisation and its interface with politics as they happen over the years through longitudinal, multi-site ethnographies.
