Tolerating intolerance

Ms Vaidik's book is framed as a narrative to her son in which she demonstrates how violence has pervaded mythologies, folklore and language

In the 2019 film Article 15,  Ayan Ranjan, a policeman posted to a rural district in Uttar Pradesh (played by Ayushman Khurana), tells his partner Aditi in Delhi about the indifference in a village after two Dalit girls were murdered. “I will unmess the mess,” he tweets. Is unmess a word, Aditi asks. If it is, then Aparna Vaidik’s My Son’s Inheritance: A Secret History of Lynching and Blood Justice in India takes half a step towards “unmessing” or at least revealing the inherent violence at the root of Indian culture.

Ms Vaidik’s book is framed as a narrative to her