When India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in last year’s elections, there was an abundance of media hype about the party’s purportedly huge mandate. Yet its 31 percent vote share was the lowest ever for a winning party in Indian elections. The true significance of the victory instead lies in the trajectory of its leader, now–prime minister Narendra Modi.

In 2002, Modi was presiding over Gujarat when anti-Muslim riots in the western state claimed over a thousand lives and hundreds of places of worship. Twelve years later, he emerged as the prime minister of the world’s largest democracy. This speaks to the ways in which Indian politics has evolved under the pressure of groups like the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a self-styled cultural organization that controls much of the BJP and a host of affiliates, and the violent communal mobilizations to which they contribute.

This type of religious-nationalist violence and political outlook has come to be known in the country as “communalism.” Two of its most formidable opponents are journalists Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand, who started Communalism Combat in 1993 after witnessing a decade of violence.