MY SON’S INHERITANCE: THE SECRET HISTORY OF LYNCHING

My Son?s Inheritance: A Secret
History of Lynching and Blood Justice in India is a provocative and
disturbing examination of the history of lynching in the country. Aparna
Vaidik?s investigation traverses several centuries and offers powerful
insights into the phenomenon. She demonstrates how violence is secretly
embedded in our myths, folklore, poetry, literature, and language, and is
therefore invisible. She delves deep into family history to further
illuminate how widespread violence is in Indian society. Framing her
narrative as a message to her son, she acquaints him with his ancestors?those
who abet and carry out lynching as well as those who are lynched. In this
way, her son embodies both the violator and the violated, much like the
country in which he will come of age. She lays bare the heritage of violence
bequeathed from generation to generation and disabuses us of the myth that
non-violence and tolerance are the essence of Indian culture. She argues that
the perpetrators of violence are not just the state, the rulers, the police
or the army but all of us who, through our silence and indifference, foster
and perpetuate violence in India. My Son?s Inheritance is a groundbreaking
exploration of the phenomenon of lynching and the larger culture of violence
that invests the social and political fabric of the country.