We have seen that “state capacity” explanations seem to tell us very little about which states successfully prevent Hindu-Muslim violence and which do not. This chapter now turns to one of the other main explanations for patterns of Hindu-Muslim violence: Arend Lijphart's “consociational” power-sharing theory. Lijphart argues in an important 1996 article that India has since independence been a de facto consociational state, by which he means a state with a political “grand coalition” that includes representatives of all the main ethnic groups, a minority veto over important legislation, and minority proportionality in government and employment. Although India's Constitution does not require that minorities such as the Muslims and Sikhs will be included in government, he argues that the dominance of the Congress Party for most of the postindependence period nevertheless allowed these groups to gain effective representation and a veto over decisions harmful to their interests. India's consociational character, he claims, explains the country's relatively low level of ethnic violence, especially during the two decades immediately following independence, when Congress was dominant in Indian politics. Lijphart argues that the level of Hindu-Muslim violence in India has risen since the mid-1960s, however, as India has become “less firmly consociational,” the dominant multiethnic Congress Party has lost power in many states, and Indian governments have become much less ethnically representative and respectful of minority rights.