<em>Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India</em>, by Sandhya Fuchs. Stanford University Press, 2004. 358 pages. $32.00. ISBN 978-1503639362

A scholar of religion, Amarnath Amarasingam reviews Fragile Hope: Seeking Justice for Hate Crimes in India by Sandhya Fuchs. Fragile Hope is an ethnographic study of how justice operates in Dalit communities in Rajasthan in northwest India, particularly how the Prevention of Atrocities Act is both a tool of resistance and a site of disappointment. The book considers the history and conceptual framework of the Atrocities Act (also known as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act), how instances of caste violence become legal cases, and how survivors seek justice.