Communalism in India

Communalism operates at different levels ranging from individual relations and interests to the local, institutional and national politics and to communal riots. There is a whole range of social relations and politics over which communalism pervades today and this spread of communalism involves two interrelated central issues.

• First is the state of consciousness in society.
• The second is communalism as an instrument of power, not purely for capturing state power, but for operating in political/social and economic domains and at almost all levels of social organization.

Religion is an integral factor in the existing state ot social consciousness in our society. It provides an identity of being part of a community to all those who believe in the same religion.  It is perceived and believed that those who belong to the same religion have a certain common identity. It is this belief in commonality which is used for communal mobilization. That is communalism.

• Communal mobilisation are based (or a possibility of creating a perception) that there are identities which ,are based on religious belonging. Such an identity, in fact, can be manipulated for purposes of power at various levels. The increasing efforts at communalisation are a part of this process, that is, manipulation of religious consciousness to serve the interests of certain political parties. The mobilisation of sections of society on the basis of religious beliefs for the purpose of power is central to the intensification of communalism today.

The process of communalisation draws upon communal solidarity which is both a contemporary – construction and an outcome of objective historical development during the colonial period. For constructing communal solidarity a selective appropriation of the past is being attempted, by equating Hindu with Indian. The contemporary communal mobilisation derives sustenance from a Hindu interpretation of the past. Needless to say, it is a backward projection of the needs of the present day communalism.

• Two good examples of this are the attempts to establish Hinduism as a homogeneous religion from ancient times and, secondly, the notion of the existence of Hindu community from early times. The very stimulating work done by Romila Thapar on the ancient history of India considers in detail the social and ideological dimensions of Hinduism as well- as its historical evolution.
• The Hindu community, as Romila Thapar has very rightly remarked, is an “imagined community”. It is not a community which really existed. In the past, the communities were based on location, on occupation, on caste and sometime on sects. Even in contemporary society, secular communities are more in operation than religious communities. An individual in society spends more time in secular pursuits than in religious matters.

Today communalism is primarily an instrument for acquiring power. And power is, to begin with, acquired at the grass-root level and, therefore, it has got to be contested at that level. These local associations or communities-, the grass root communities, are a way of positing an alternative to communalism.