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The Colors of Violence: Cultural Identities, Religion, and Conflict
For decades India has been intermittently tormented by brutal outbursts of religious violence, thrusting thousands of ordinary Hindus and Muslims into bloody conflict. In this provocative work, psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar exposes the psychological roots of Hindu-Muslim violence and examines with grace and intensity the subjective experience of religious hatred in his native land.
With honesty, insight, and unsparing self-reflection, Kakar confronts the profoundly enigmatic relations that link individual egos to cultural moralities and religious violence. His innovative psychological approach offers a framework for understanding the kind of ethnic-religious conflict that has so vexed social scientists in India and throughout the world.
Through riveting case studies, Kakar explores cultural stereotypes, religious antagonisms, ethnocentric histories, and episodic violence to trace the development of both Hindu and Muslim psyches. He argues that in early childhood the social identity of every Indian is grounded in traditional religious identifications and communalism. Together these bring about deep-set psychological anxieties and animosities toward the other. For Hindus and Muslims alike, violence becomes morally acceptable when communally and religiously sanctioned. As the changing pressures of modernization and secularism in a multicultural society grate at this entrenched communalism, and as each group vies for power, ethnic-religious conflicts ignite. The Colors of Violence speaks with eloquence and urgency to anyone concerned with the postmodern clash of religious and cultural identities.
With honesty, insight, and unsparing self-reflection, Kakar confronts the profoundly enigmatic relations that link individual egos to cultural moralities and religious violence. His innovative psychological approach offers a framework for understanding the kind of ethnic-religious conflict that has so vexed social scientists in India and throughout the world.
Through riveting case studies, Kakar explores cultural stereotypes, religious antagonisms, ethnocentric histories, and episodic violence to trace the development of both Hindu and Muslim psyches. He argues that in early childhood the social identity of every Indian is grounded in traditional religious identifications and communalism. Together these bring about deep-set psychological anxieties and animosities toward the other. For Hindus and Muslims alike, violence becomes morally acceptable when communally and religiously sanctioned. As the changing pressures of modernization and secularism in a multicultural society grate at this entrenched communalism, and as each group vies for power, ethnic-religious conflicts ignite. The Colors of Violence speaks with eloquence and urgency to anyone concerned with the postmodern clash of religious and cultural identities.
232 pages, Paperback
First published October 14, 2000
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183 people want to read
About the author
Sudhir Kakar
64 books83 followersSudhir Kakar is a psychoanalyst and writer who lives in Goa, India.
Kakar took his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University, his Master’s degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in business economics from Mannheim in Germany and his doctorate in economics from Vienna before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. Between 1966 and 1971, Sudhir Kakar was a Lecturer in General Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Harvard Business School and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After returning to India in 1975 , Dr. Kakar set up a practice as a psychoanalyst in Delhi where he was also the Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology. He has been 40th Anniversary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Study of World Religions at Harvard (2001-02), a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago (1989-93), McGill (1976-77), Melbourne (1981), Hawaii (1998) and Vienna (1974-75), INSEAD, France (1994-2013). He has been a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study), Berlin, Centre for Advanced Study of Humanities, University of Cologne and is Honorary Professor, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.
A leading figure in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion, as well as a novelist, Dr. Kakar’s person and work have been profiled in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Die Zeit and Le Nouvel Observateur, which listed him as one of the world's 25 major thinkers while the German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. Dr. Kakar's many honors include the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, Germany ’s Goethe Medal, Rockefeller Residency, McArthur Fellowship Bhabha, Nehru and ICSSR National Fellowships and Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Board of Sigmund Freud Archives in the Library of Congress, Washington and the Academie Universelle des Culture, France. In February 2012, he was conferred the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest civilian order.
Sudhir Kakar’s twenty books of non-fiction and six of fiction, include The Inner World (now in its 16th printing since its first publication in 1978), Shamans, Mystics and Doctors , (with J.M. Ross ) Tales of Love, Sex and Danger,Intimate Relations, The Analyst and the Mystic, The Colors of Violence,Culture and Psyche, (with K.Kakar) The Indians: Portrait of a People, (with Wendy Doniger), a new translation of the Kamasutra for Oxford world Classics, Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern world and Young Tagore: The makings of a genius. His fifth novel, The Devil Take Love will be published by Penguin-Viking in August 2015.
Sudhir with Katharina Poggendorf Kakar
Sudhir Kakar is married to Katharina, a writer and a scholar of comparative religions and artist. He has two children, a son Rahul who is in financial services, and a daughter Shveta, a lawyer, both in New York.
Kakar took his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University, his Master’s degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in business economics from Mannheim in Germany and his doctorate in economics from Vienna before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. Between 1966 and 1971, Sudhir Kakar was a Lecturer in General Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Harvard Business School and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After returning to India in 1975 , Dr. Kakar set up a practice as a psychoanalyst in Delhi where he was also the Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology. He has been 40th Anniversary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Study of World Religions at Harvard (2001-02), a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago (1989-93), McGill (1976-77), Melbourne (1981), Hawaii (1998) and Vienna (1974-75), INSEAD, France (1994-2013). He has been a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study), Berlin, Centre for Advanced Study of Humanities, University of Cologne and is Honorary Professor, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.
A leading figure in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion, as well as a novelist, Dr. Kakar’s person and work have been profiled in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Die Zeit and Le Nouvel Observateur, which listed him as one of the world's 25 major thinkers while the German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. Dr. Kakar's many honors include the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, Germany ’s Goethe Medal, Rockefeller Residency, McArthur Fellowship Bhabha, Nehru and ICSSR National Fellowships and Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Board of Sigmund Freud Archives in the Library of Congress, Washington and the Academie Universelle des Culture, France. In February 2012, he was conferred the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest civilian order.
Sudhir Kakar’s twenty books of non-fiction and six of fiction, include The Inner World (now in its 16th printing since its first publication in 1978), Shamans, Mystics and Doctors , (with J.M. Ross ) Tales of Love, Sex and Danger,Intimate Relations, The Analyst and the Mystic, The Colors of Violence,Culture and Psyche, (with K.Kakar) The Indians: Portrait of a People, (with Wendy Doniger), a new translation of the Kamasutra for Oxford world Classics, Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern world and Young Tagore: The makings of a genius. His fifth novel, The Devil Take Love will be published by Penguin-Viking in August 2015.
Sudhir with Katharina Poggendorf Kakar
Sudhir Kakar is married to Katharina, a writer and a scholar of comparative religions and artist. He has two children, a son Rahul who is in financial services, and a daughter Shveta, a lawyer, both in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 17, 2022
One of the best books I've read about Hindu-Muslim relations and riots between the two communities in India. This is nearly as good as the books that V.S.Naipaul wrote about India, even though Kakkar was trying to do something different from what Naipaul did with his India trilogy.
Kakkar examines the history of Hindu-Muslim relations, the different intellectual positions with regard to the history of Hindu-Muslim relations (secularist as well as Hindu nationalist), the fallacies of the intellectual positions, his own experience of a Hindu-Muslim riot, the process through which a riot starts, the people who actually commit the violence (wrestlers from both communities are important participants) and finally the attitudes of both communities towards the violence. He examines all these aspects by studying a Hindu-Muslim riot that occurred in Ahmedabad. It is fascinating to read this book. I felt like a foreigner while reading the attitudes of less privileged Indians with whom I rarely come into direct contact. Maybe Naipaul was right after all when he said that most Indians have no sense of responsibility beyond their own families.
Kakkar gives some interesting perspective regarding why male genitals and female breasts are targeted during Hindu-Muslim riots:
"At one level, the castration of males and the cutting off of female breasts incorporate the more or less conscious wish to wipe the hated enemy off the face of the earth by eliminating the means of reproduction and nurturing of infants. At another, more unconscious level, in the deep reggression and the breakdown of of many normal defences occasioned by normal violence and fear of ones own imminent death, the castration of the enemy may be viewed as a counterphobic acting out of what psychoanalysis considers one of the chief male anxieties, that is, it is a doing unto others - castration - what one fears may be done to one's self. The mutilation of the breast may be similarly derived from the upsurge of a pervasive infantile fantasy - the fantasy of violent revenge on a withholding breast, a part of the mother whose absence gives rise to feelings of disintegration and murderous rage."
Kakkar discovers that sexual violence against women during riots is generally frowned upon by both communities. This was surprising to me because the reality during riots is something else.
It is a tremendously interesting book, especially if you're an Indian or someone who is interested in India or just someone who is shocked by the ferocity of Hindu-Muslim riots. And the book (published in 1996) is still relevant because Kakkar has dedicated a small section to why modernity has increased the importance of religion in people's lives. It is a very interesting book if you're wondering why religion in India seems to have leaped out of the private space into the public sphere.
Kakkar examines the history of Hindu-Muslim relations, the different intellectual positions with regard to the history of Hindu-Muslim relations (secularist as well as Hindu nationalist), the fallacies of the intellectual positions, his own experience of a Hindu-Muslim riot, the process through which a riot starts, the people who actually commit the violence (wrestlers from both communities are important participants) and finally the attitudes of both communities towards the violence. He examines all these aspects by studying a Hindu-Muslim riot that occurred in Ahmedabad. It is fascinating to read this book. I felt like a foreigner while reading the attitudes of less privileged Indians with whom I rarely come into direct contact. Maybe Naipaul was right after all when he said that most Indians have no sense of responsibility beyond their own families.
Kakkar gives some interesting perspective regarding why male genitals and female breasts are targeted during Hindu-Muslim riots:
"At one level, the castration of males and the cutting off of female breasts incorporate the more or less conscious wish to wipe the hated enemy off the face of the earth by eliminating the means of reproduction and nurturing of infants. At another, more unconscious level, in the deep reggression and the breakdown of of many normal defences occasioned by normal violence and fear of ones own imminent death, the castration of the enemy may be viewed as a counterphobic acting out of what psychoanalysis considers one of the chief male anxieties, that is, it is a doing unto others - castration - what one fears may be done to one's self. The mutilation of the breast may be similarly derived from the upsurge of a pervasive infantile fantasy - the fantasy of violent revenge on a withholding breast, a part of the mother whose absence gives rise to feelings of disintegration and murderous rage."
Kakkar discovers that sexual violence against women during riots is generally frowned upon by both communities. This was surprising to me because the reality during riots is something else.
It is a tremendously interesting book, especially if you're an Indian or someone who is interested in India or just someone who is shocked by the ferocity of Hindu-Muslim riots. And the book (published in 1996) is still relevant because Kakkar has dedicated a small section to why modernity has increased the importance of religion in people's lives. It is a very interesting book if you're wondering why religion in India seems to have leaped out of the private space into the public sphere.
February 25, 2018
a fresh and welcome respite from all the Marxist/Neo-Marxist analysis I've been immersed in while researching ethno-religious violence in India. Kakar's observations and emphasis on fundamentalism specifically transcend the cultures in which they've embedded to offer comparative religion scholars a more universal paradigm. Kakar's body of work (this, Indians Portrait of a People) bear testimony to the strength of a cross-disciplinary education. Highly recommend this!
April 13, 2016
Since I read both at the same time, I compared this with Huntington 19s 1Cclash of civilization 1D, and there you see the difference.
They both refer to Freud 19s 1Cnarcissism of minor differences 1D.
For Huntington, religion is not a minor difference and he claims that Freud downplays the point, whereas for Kakar, because the enemy cannot be similar (psychologically) any difference is exaggerated.
That, to me, is a fundamental divergence in their analysis, which explains to a great extent, why after reading Kakar you still maintain hope, whereas you get the message of inevitable doom with Huntington.
Also, I appreciated Kakar 19s way of dealing with people as individuals and of looking for reasons for religious fundamentalism. He doesn 19t label them and make sweeping generalizations (which Huntington does).
His psychological analysis is indepth and provides understandable reasons for violence. By that I don 19t mean he condones it, but as a study of violence, his is objective and he keeps the necessary distance from the subject.
Another comparison, which might give you a better picture of Kakar 19s point of view, is with what Obama said in his inauguration speech. I thought it was a pity that he kept referring to terrorists as to 1Cthem 1D as opposed to 1Cus 1D. And he mentioned that several times, that opposition between 1Cus 1D and 1Cthem 1D, as though terrorists were not terrorists because of what they do (acts of terror), but also because of them being 1Cthem 1D, like a group who are first and foremost different to 1Cus 1D. That might not make a lot of sense, but when you read Kakar, despite the obvious reference to different religions and communities, that idea does not cross your mind.
And here 19s a quote from Kakar, which sums up that last comparison: 18An Indian atheist cannot go along with an American counterpart 19s casual dismissal of religion as 1Cimportant, if true 1D but must amend it to 1Cimportant, even if not true 1D. 19
They both refer to Freud 19s 1Cnarcissism of minor differences 1D.
For Huntington, religion is not a minor difference and he claims that Freud downplays the point, whereas for Kakar, because the enemy cannot be similar (psychologically) any difference is exaggerated.
That, to me, is a fundamental divergence in their analysis, which explains to a great extent, why after reading Kakar you still maintain hope, whereas you get the message of inevitable doom with Huntington.
Also, I appreciated Kakar 19s way of dealing with people as individuals and of looking for reasons for religious fundamentalism. He doesn 19t label them and make sweeping generalizations (which Huntington does).
His psychological analysis is indepth and provides understandable reasons for violence. By that I don 19t mean he condones it, but as a study of violence, his is objective and he keeps the necessary distance from the subject.
Another comparison, which might give you a better picture of Kakar 19s point of view, is with what Obama said in his inauguration speech. I thought it was a pity that he kept referring to terrorists as to 1Cthem 1D as opposed to 1Cus 1D. And he mentioned that several times, that opposition between 1Cus 1D and 1Cthem 1D, as though terrorists were not terrorists because of what they do (acts of terror), but also because of them being 1Cthem 1D, like a group who are first and foremost different to 1Cus 1D. That might not make a lot of sense, but when you read Kakar, despite the obvious reference to different religions and communities, that idea does not cross your mind.
And here 19s a quote from Kakar, which sums up that last comparison: 18An Indian atheist cannot go along with an American counterpart 19s casual dismissal of religion as 1Cimportant, if true 1D but must amend it to 1Cimportant, even if not true 1D. 19
August 20, 2018
I have finished reading the 'Paperback' version brought by me online much before.Due to my hectic schedule I could't touch the pages before.'The Colours of Violence' has plenty of colors in it with the author Sudhir Kakkar describing in details the culture of both the Hindu & Muslims community,through his trademark style.Kakkar-ji depicts how identities are formed in Hindus/Muslims during riots fuelled by some other nations (say US) desire to sell weapons or product research survey purpose these communities,nurturing them through their own histories/cultures/traditions into an era of riots-uncertainties,fear,despair,frustrations etc.
December 31, 2016
A fascinating psychoanalytic perspective on Hindu-Muslim violence in India. Much of this is based on field work and interviews conducted by Kakar in Hyderabad, following riots in 1990. He offers insights into the group dynamics behind communal violence, with fascinating portraits of the instigators and victims of violence, and deconstructions of inflammatory speeches by Hindu nationalist demagogues. A bit specialist interest perhaps, but I found this to be an incredible read.
July 28, 2016
I read this book at the time of Gujarat's riots (2002). I wouldn't have understood the conflicts and crisis better if not for this book.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews