Compiled and Edited by: Saritha Bhoi.

Organised violence directed against members of identified groups/communities has been a distinct
feature of the Indian society for quite sometime. Though violence does take place in the process
of change in many societies, and particularly so when radical alterations take place in the existing
social and power relations, it usually does not choose its victims on the basis of birth in a given social
entity. In India, however, this is precisely what has defined the character of violence in relation to
certain groups. The country has witnessed increase in both caste and communal violence since
independence which the processes of modernization have not abated. Rather, in some respects, it
has been intensified by them.