In The Once and Future Riot, Joe Sacco narrates the explosion and aftermath of Hindu-Muslim riots that occurred late in the summer of 2013, in the Muzaffarnagar district of Uttar Pradesh. Sacco’s chronology is granular, and his art feels hectic and thronged, as if to convey the tumult and panic of those weeks. But he also asks the question: why do such riots happen? In this case, he concludes, political parties – and specifically the Bharatiya Janata Party, with its Hindu nationalist ideology – stood to gain from murderous violence before an election.

In India, the book was to have been distributed by Penguin Random House, but late last year, Sacco received a five-page document full of objections from the company’s legal team. A few were fact checks. Many of the remarks were driven by the worry that descriptions of politicians connected with violence – including by people Sacco interviewed – could be defamatory. In some instances, the company was concerned that his text would be “construed as inflammatory” or “causing religious offence” – although reporting on a communal riot can hardly avoid citing the offensive language that feeds the blaze. At one point, a rightwing Hindu leader tells Sacco that India’s Muslim population needs to be curbed because “just like pigs they are creating children”. The legal document advises: “remove the word ‘pigs’ just say Muslims are multiplying.” 

(A Penguin Random House India executive has said that no one responded to the list of “red flags” in the document. “We are very clear about this: if we know there is an inaccurate map and no changes are forthcoming, we will not do it,” he said. “We have decided there will be no distribution of the book due to these red flags not being attended to.”)

Below, we publish a short excerpt from The Once and Future Riot, about the gathering storm. After two young men from the upper-caste, landed Hindu Jat community stab a Muslim man to death, allegedly for harassing their sister, they are in turn killed by a mob. In the village of Nagla Mandaur, Jat leaders call a meeting – a panchayat – at which tens of thousands of people turn up, demanding to take justice into their own hands.

The Once and Future Riot was published by Metropolitan Books. Reprinted by permission of Joe Sacco and Aragi Inc.