Fragile Hope

"This is an outstanding book, a deeply thoughtful, imaginative, and occasionally startling piece of work. Through examining the social world of the Prevention Against Atrocities Act, it sets out in moving detail the challenges and possibilities of using the law to challenge ingrained forms of discrimination and violence. While pointing out the limits of the transformative power of the law, Fuchs opens up another level of analysis that explores its unexpected effects and possibilities. In doing so, this is a piece of work that is never willing to simply settle for easy answers, forcing us to ask some hard questions. Throughout, the book is highly engaging, beautifully written, and sensitive in its handling of the material and its subjects, making an important contribution to the social study of law and violence in South Asia."

—Tobias Kelly, author of This Side of Silence: Human Rights, Torture, and the Recognition of Cruelty

"This is a remarkable book focused on the social life of a law which connects to the deepest and most violent contradictions in contemporary Indian society. Fuchs sensitively explores how the processes around the Prevention of Atrocities Act bring into play the very caste-based violence, patriarchal authority, and silencing of victims that the law intends to prevent. It is a work of compassionate scholarship, with the kind of respect and curiosity that marks anthropology at its best. There are broader lessons here on legal processes amidst inequality: what does it take to be a 'credible complainant'; how are cases rendered 'false', what is the meaning of 'compromise'? The answers depart from what legal professionals might expect, showing how necessary this ethnographic work is to the understanding of law and the meaning of justice in social reality."

—David Mosse, author of The Saint in the Banyan Tree: Christianity and Caste Society in India

"Told through the harrowing stories of caste-based violence, a deeply moving and nuanced account of the hope offered by one of the world's most significant hate-crime laws to bring justice for Dalits while at the same time generating new forms of intra community violence. A beacon of what an anthropology that cares – based on deep ethnography – can produce, this is a must read for all concerned with hate-crime violence, race and caste, South Asia, and the social life of law."

—Alpa Shah, author of Nightmarch: A Journey into India's Naxal Heartlands

"Fragile Hope stands out as a pertinent and significant scholarly work. Beyond the technicalities of the law, the book explores the personal narratives and oppressed lives of the Dalits who mobilize creative legal labor to effect societal transformation."—Adelina Tratarou, Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Analysis

"The volume's strength is its captivating and insightful ethnographic field narratives. It also highlights the paucity of research on truth and reconciliation in cases of caste-based atrocities. With its compelling narratives, Fragile Hope underscores the need for strategies beyond legal mechanisms to combat caste-based violence. The volume is methodologically significant for anthropologists and ethnographers and is essential reading for scholars, activists, and policymakers engaged with restorative justice practices, human rights, caste, law, and gender issues."—Gaurav J. Pathania, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie