La violence indienne aux prises avec l'imaginaire

Taking as examples the recurrent drama experienced within the framework of popular Hindu and Moslem milieus, this article attempts to portray the fundamental dimensions of mass violence. Instrumentalist and structuralist theories are not denied. However, the analysed situations reveal that, within entire gaps of violence, imaginary representations and hybrid « civilisation constructions » hold a considerable place. The data related to gender and sexual tensions, the reinvention of the hero and the martyr, the appropriation of space through religious bias play major parts. The fascination exerted on crowds through confrontation is not due to taste for brutality but to the relationships that the latter entertains with the intimate resorts of the psyche.