IS THE HINDU?MUSLIM CONFLICT a unique resolution of caste inequality within Hindu society? How has hatred for the internal Other, the dalit, transformed into aggression against an external one, the Muslim? Does the dalit have the right to life in modern India? What use did a brahmin like E.M.S. Namboodiripad have for Marxism? How did an avarna write himself into modernity using the Malayalam novel and Christianity? Why is the use of violence in the maintenance of caste hierarchy so present yet invisible? Dilip M. Menon argues that communalism in India may well be the return of the repressed histories of caste.