Why did the Torching of 58 kar sevaks in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra take place! I was undoubtedly the work of some demented persons, insensitive to its possible aftermath. Worse, how did genocide on such a brutal scale in most parts of Gujarat occur? And that too in state which gave birth to Gandhi and nurtured him! People all over the world continue to wonder: Have human relations in a country known for its broad humanism fallen so low? Why is it that Hindus and Muslims who lived together for more than a thousand years in peace, have la begun to hate one other? Never before were women and children burnt and butchered in such a bestial manner.

The miscreants incited by communal Hindus belonging to different castes and sub-castes and cutting across the rich and the poor, unleashed such a terrible reign of murder, rape and loot that history itself stood aghast what it was forced to record.

Dr. Rafiq Zakaria, a scholar of international repute, who has spent more than 50 years of his life trying to bring
Hindus and Muslims together, delves deep into the past and present of the relationship between the two communities to discover what went wrong that brought about such conflagration of hatred and bloodshed. He also look at the future with diffidence but hope.

Prof. Amartya Sen of Cambridge University, one of the greatest thinkers of Our time, who was awarded the Nobel Price for Economics in 1998. has written the Foreword to the book He warns that unless the communal virus which seems to have overtaken india such a horrendous manifestation is not destroyed, it will destroy lodia itsell.