September Indian nonfiction: Six new titles that revisit the past to question the present

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It Started with Words: The Epidemic of Hate Speech in New India, Harsh Mander

Since 2014, hate speech in India has moved from the political fringe to the centre of public life. It is heard from election platforms and religious stages, repeated in television studios, circulated through WhatsApp and YouTube, and rewarded with votes, influence and profit. It calls for minorities to be boycotted, evicted, stripped of their livelihoods, driven from neighbourhoods and, increasingly, met with violence.

These words have consequences. They create the climate in which homes and shops are demolished, and ordinary citizens are lynched, intimidated, and made to prove, again and again, that they belong to their own country.

Human rights activist Harsh Mander examines how this hatred is produced, spread and protected; who profits from it; and what happens when those who incite fear also command the machinery of the state. Drawing on several case studies, including his own attempt to seek legal action against politicians for incendiary speeches delivered in the lead-up to the communal riots in Delhi in 2020, Mander asks whether the law can still protect the vulnerable – or whether it has become another weapon in the hands of the powerful.

The Undocumented: One Family’s Journey from...

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