Three hundred years' worth of stories, clogging up the arteries of our men. Sitting tight around their hearts, slimy and thick with half-truths." Reading and re-reading these lines from a soliloquy by Devaki, a character in Annie Zaidi's new novel, Prelude To A Riot (Aleph Book Company), we are reminded of social media, where bigotry has become the norm. Self-appointed spokespersons of the powers that be are claiming that history has been unfair to them, and that the only way to rewrite the wrongs is to change our politics. Those on the fringes are seething—questioning this new truth, fighting this radicalisation. With every new post, hate is growing and clogging our timelines. Meanwhile, everyone is waiting, as if for the perfect time, when this will all come together and translate into something more sinister—it's like the prelude to the riot in Zaidi's novel.

The book is set in an unnamed peaceful southern town, surrounded by spice plantations. Three generations of two families, one Hindu and the other Muslim, coexist here, and among them, some even share a close friendship. But the spectre of religious intolerance threatens to haunt this community, in the guise of the Self-Respect Forum "whose mission is to divide the town and destroy the delicate balance". At risk are Dada, the owner of an estate; his grandchildren, Abu and Fareeda; the newly married Devaki, who is unable to comprehend how her husband, brother and father are turning into fanatics; Mariam, the gifted masseur and her lover, the bakery owner Kadir, and Garuda, the high-school teacher who is desperate to impart the truth about the country's history to his disinterested class. "The seed for many of these characters comes from a research trip I undertook a few years ago," says the Mumbai-based journalist and playwright. "This was not an area already branded as a flashpoint for disharmony or hate crimes. On the surface, all was well. But every time I talked to people for more than five minutes, something tumbled out of them—either bigotry or fear or anti-history rhetoric. It was very disorienting, because people were polite, hospitable. I also found that I could not challenge anyone in the moment. I didn't have the courage or even the full understanding of what was unfolding before me. That place, its corners, the way it was laid out and who lived where, it just got to me. I spent a long time processing what I heard and saw.