Summary

The first essay of Field Notes on Democracy was written in May 2002 and a center around what the author determines was the genocide of Muslims in her home state of Gujarat in February, 2002. The slaughter of between 800 and 2,000 Muslims was justified by claims that Muslim “terrorists” had burned alive 58 Hindu passengers on the Sabarmati Express in Godhra. Roy explains that Gujarat, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power, has long been the “petri dish in which [grows] Hindu fascism” (31). According to Roy, mobs of people successfully shut down Muslim businesses and caused terror among Muslim communities. Roy worries that this is only the beginning of discrimination against minorities, and compares the Indian state to Nazi Germany. She predicts the day when Muslims will be ghettoized and expresses her disappointment that none of the BJP...