 INTRODUCTION

 Communalism is the belief that people of the same religion share political, economic
and social interests. All other identities are overshadowed by religion. They share not
only religious interests but also secular interests. But these claims are seldom
substantiated with valid examples.
 It also treats people of different religions as intrinsically different and having mutually
exclusive interests. It includes the belief that different religious communities have
distinct histories and communal tensions had always existed in the past, while
phases of tolerance are only temporary.
 All negative circumstances faced by a religious group is blamed on the other
community, overlooking other social and individual factors. For example, Muslim
backwardness is seen as a result of Hindu domination
 All Hindus and Muslims were expected to support the political faction which
represented their community.
 The group which is in power is only supposed to work for the benefit of their co-
religionists and oppress people of other religions. Hence rule by democratic
representatives is equated to rule by the religious majority and such a regime is seen
to be oppressive towards the religious minorities.
 Communalism is often seen as unique to India because of its history of Muslim
invasions and the divide-and-rule policy of the British.
 Communalism is often seen to be rooted in India’s past but Bipan Chandra explains
that it is a thoroughly modern phenomena. In Pre-modern India, politics was only
concerned with the ruling elite and hence there was no potential to mobilise entire
religious groups.

 Bipan Chandra differentiates between communal tension and communal politics`.

Communal tension is usually spasmodic and associated with the lower classes. It
manifests itself in form of riots. Once the chaos and excitement of the riot cools
down, communal tensions decrease.
 Communal riots only started in India from the last quarter of the 19th century and only
emerged as a significant phenomenon after 1946-47.
 Communal politics, on the contrary is usually long-term and continuous. The middle
classes, landlords and bureaucratic elements are the main agents of communal
politics.
 Communal riots are not the main form of communalism but its consequence. The
emotional legacy of riots is used by politicians to further their communal cause.

TYPES OF COMMUNALISM

 Bipan Chandra points out that communalism manifests itself in three forms in the
modern era.

1. Communal nationalism

 This form barely qualifies as communalism. It is a deviation from or weakness of

nationalism.
 They believe that that different religious communities have their own interests but
sought to integrate them with the national interests
 They did not see different communal interests as conflicting and asserted that all
communal interests can only be protected by developing nationalism.
 They believe that an individual’s religion should not play a significant role in their
politics
 An example of this can be Jinnah before 1920s when he preached the separation of
religion and politics and secularism
 Many Congressmen were actually communal nationalists but as they belonged to the
majority religion they felt that their politics was not different than generic nationalism
 In the 1920s many communal nationalists joined communal organisations such as
Hindu Mahasabha, Muslim League and Akali Dal.
 Most nationalists found it difficult to separate their politics from communal interests.
Purely secular nationalists like Gandhi, Nehru and Azad were a rare occurrence

2. Liberal communalism

 Proponents of liberal communalism engaged in communal politics while

simultaneously believing in liberal values such as democracy, humanism and
nationalism
 They believed that interests of different religious groups could gradually be
accommodated and brought into harmony with nationalist interests
 The ultimate goal of Indian politics was to integrate different communities into a
single nation
 They did demand safeguards for their communal interests in form of separate
electorates and reservations
 They believed that communal tensions could be eradicated once all the legitimate
interests of different communal groups are accommodated
 They seldom preached aggression against the other communities
 They were open to debate and discussions and put forward their arguments with
rationality
 Examples include Syed Ahmed Khan, the Ali brothers, Jinnah before 1937 and
Madan Mohan Malviya especially after 1922

3. Extreme or Fascist communism

 This works within the fascist framework and is dependent on fear, hatred and
violence
 Extreme communalism spread in India after 1937. This period saw a transformation
in the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha and Rashtriya Swamajsevak sangh. They
turned irrational and fascist
 Extreme communalism mostly mobilised the urban lower middle classes
 The fascist movements in Italy and Germany provided a model for right-wing mass
politics in India
 Extreme communalists used the language of war to mobilise people
 In this phase of communalism, the idea that Hindus and Muslims constituted
separate nations with opposing interests which made co-existence impossible, took
hold.
 Hindu nationalists excluded Muslims from the definition of India as a nation. They
viewed the Muslims as an alien and hostile element which should either adjust to
subordination of the majority in independent India or be expelled completely
 The Muslim nationalists framed INC as a Hindu and fascist body which would
establish Hindu raj in India
 Arguments of the extreme communalists were seldom backed with logic and
historical evidence
 An example of how Indian communalists drew from Fascist movements in Europe is
how the Muslim communalists accused the Congress of establishing Bania
imperialism under which Muslims would be subordinated to Hindu capitalists. A
parallel can be drawn with the Nazi idea of Jewish capitalism.

 The three forms of communalism interacted and influenced each other. There were
no rigid boundaries between them. Leaders and groups moved fluidly from one form
 to another. The logic of liberal communalism became the basis for extreme
communalism

HISTORIOGRAPHY

 Radhika Seshan informs that historiography often presents communalism as Indian

avatar of nationalism. Indians adapted the Western idea of nationalism according to
their social reality.

 The colonial period can be identified with the start of modern history writing in India.
 James Mill was a significant colonial historian who periodised Indian history into
Hindu, Muslim and British periods in 1817. This became the basis for communal
historiography. This periodisation is still followed today. The terms have been simply
changed to ancient, medieval and modern.
 The British claimed that the Muslim invasion had endangered the Hindus, the original
inhabitants of the subcontinents, and it was the responsibility of the British to
empower the Hindus.
 Colonial historiography framed the Muslims in a negative light because their
immediate political predecessors were the Mughals. They used history to combat the
hold of the memory of the Mughals over the subcontinent.
 Another factor is that Muslims had been seen as the enemies of Christianity for a
long time in European history.
 Colonial distrust of the Muslims intensified when the rebels sought the symbolic
leadership of the Mughal emperor in 1857.
 The fact that Muslims were reluctant to adopt English education, helped the British to
stereotype them to be resistant to change
 Colonial historiography also sought to explain why there had not been any scientific
development since the ancient period in India through the theory of degradation
under Muslim rule

 Many premises of colonial historiography were accepted unthinkingly by Indian

scholars such as Mill’s periodisation and the idea that the Hindus were peace-loving
contrary to the hostile Muslims
 The socio-religious movements that took place in the 19th century mostly excluded
Muslims. They preached a return to the roots of the Indian civilisation, embodied by
the Vedas and Upanishads
 Indian history writing emerged in the late 19th century. History was seen as a way to
channelise nationalism.
 As most of the early Indian history writing focused on the ancient period, which was
characterised as Hindu, Muslims did not feature in them
 This period also saw an expansion of print media. Communal ideas were
communicated through pamphlets and newspapers. The British blamed these
pamphlets for the riots in Bombay in 1893.
 cow protection societies cropped up.
 The 1870s saw the emergence of the Pan-Islamic movement in India. Many started
to see the Ottoman sultan as their spiritual leader.
 During this time, the Aligarh movement led by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan also emerged.
Sir Syed did not think unity was possible and the Muslims needed British help to
combat the domination of the Hindus.
 1905 is seen as the starting point of extremist nationalistic politics with the start of the
Swadeshi movement. After 1905, communalist tendencies intensified. This period
 saw the establishment of communal organisations like the Muslim league and the
Hindu Mahasabha
 The Muslims felt disappointed when the partition of Bengal was reversed in 1911 because of
the efforts of the Swadeshi movement
 The Khilafat movement did mark a collaboration between the Muslim League and INC but it
also emphasised the fact that the Muslims’ main loyalty lay not with their fellow Indians but
with the Pan-Islamic community.
 As Indians were trying to evoke a national consciousness, they tried to emphasis examples
from history wherein Indians had resisted foreign invaders. This mostly focused on Hindu
rulers fighting against the Muslim invaders including Prithviraj Chauhan, Rani Padmani, Rana
Pratap and Shivaji.
 Muslim rule was seen to be characterised by oppression, forceful conversions, dogmatism
and wilful destruction of temples. Akbar was only seen as an exception to the rule.
 Muslim writers portrayed the opposite. They characterised the medieval period as a golden
age. They regarded Akbar as a weak ruler who pandered to the Hindus. They celebrated
Aurangazeb for restoring the glory of Islam.
 The position of women was also presented to have degraded with the Muslim invasions.
Women in ancient India were seen to be educated and liberated, embodied in the examples
of Gargi and Maitreye. Purdah and child marriage was seen as necessary for protecting
women from Muslim invaders in the medieval period. Muslim women were seen to be more
oppressed than their Hindu counterparts
 Yet another strand of historiography focused on composite or syncretic culture in Indian
history. The examples of Bhakti and Sufi saints were used to illustrate this.
 By the 1930s, Muslim scholars like Jinnah and Muhammad Iqbal firmly believed that the
demand for a separate Muslim nation was justified.

 In the post-independence period, the discipline of history was institutionalised

 Marxist historiography developed in this period. Marxist historians like Mohammad Habib
rebutted the idea of medieval Indian state being theocratic
 But even after independence, historians did not abandon the colonial periodisation of
history and the communal implications of it continued.
 There was also a gap between the understanding of the professional historians and
laypersons which is illustrated in the communal strife surrounding the Babri masjid

ROLE OF BRITISH POLICY

 The British took advantage of the communal tensions and amplified which finally resulted in
the carnage of 1946-1947
 It is important to understand that the colonial divide and rule policy was only successful
because there were internal social, political, economic and cultural preconditions to support
it
 But the various social groups such as landlords and the petty bourgeoise which were
involved in communal activities, had no political power, and hence would not have been able
to do much if they did not have colonial backing.
 the divide and rule policy was used from the end of the 19th century to stop the growth of
nationalism and stop the consolidation of various communities for the nationalist cause
 the British tried to gain legitimacy by claiming that they were protecting the minorities
 the divide and rule policy did not just operate on communal lines but also utilised other
divisions in Indian society
 supporting communalism would make each communal group view the opposing religion as
their main enemy instead of the colonisers
  but the colonial state did not extend full-fledged support to communal groups until the very
end because communal violence would lead to disruption of law and order which was
central to the ethos of colonial rule
 hindu communalists were not given support unlike the muslim communalists as the hindus
were the majority and if empowered could become an anti-colonial force
 furthermore the hindus were divided by castes and sects. Supporting Hindu communalism
would unite all the hindus and would thus be detrimental to the colonial cause
 hence the British mostly supported the muslim league and not the hindu Mahasabha
 they also did not want to alienate the majority of the population by outwardly showing
support to muslim communalists
 hence they only extended full support to muslim communalists after 1939, by the time when
the support of the Hindu population was already lost
 the british adapted their divide and rule policy according to the circumstances prevailing in
different provinces and periods
 for example, the policy was not followed in Punjab as it was a strategically important
province and provided the majority of the soldiers for the colonial army. Communal violence
in this region would have thus endangered the security of the colonial state
 similarly in UP, the talukdars and zamindars supported colonial rule and communal tensions
would have weakened this group by dividing the hindu and muslim zamindars
 but the British started to make no attempt to curb communal violence from 1945 when it
was clear that colonial rule was not going to persist in India

COMMIUNAL PARTIES AND ORGANISATIONS

The league as political organization came to its own in the first decade of the 20th century. Several
political events, including the partition of Bengal, introduction of the separate electorates for the
Muslims, etc. brought the League into relevance. In its initial years, the League had remained a loyal
political organization to the British and had cooperated to seek benefits to the Muslim community in
the social, economic, professional and political spheres. It is in the 1920s that the Muslim league
under the influence of the Khilafat movement started getting radicalized. It was in late 1930s after
Legaue's dismal performance in the elections of 1937 that the organization got shaken up. Until then
even in the Muslim majority provinces of Bengal and Punjab the League was seriously contested by
class based, or the regional solidarity based party like the Krishak Praja Party in West Bengal and the
Unionist Party in Punjab. Both these parties fared well in the 1937 elections even in the face of rout
of the League. After Mohammand Ali Jinnah took over the reins of the Muslim League post 1937
elections the party was revived and revitalized. In the aftermath of the resounding Congress victory
in 1937 elections the League was completely written off as the representative of the Muslim
interests. Jawaharlal Nehru had declared that the Congress rather than the League was the
representative of all sections of the Indian population, including the Muslims. Muslims in the
meanwhile started growing apprehensive of certain political developments like the comprehensive
domination of the Congress, growing capacity of the Hindu Mahasabha to steer Institute of Lifelong
Learning, University of Delhi 25 the Congress policy and programmes and the dwindling influence of
the League. The Muslims were particularly afraid of living under comprehensive domination of the
Hindu rule produced through democratic majority and abstract notion of individual citizenship
advocated by the Congress. In order to counter this, League and other Muslim organizations focused
on campaigns based on the separate electorate as well as the demand for the minority veto over
legislative provisions that affected the interests of the Muslims. In 1930s such assertions of the
minority community gained new momentum, particularly as the prospect for the selfgovernment and
possibly independence grew. The second round table conference of 1932 yielded to such assertions
leading consequently, to the „communal award.‟ Ramsay MacDonald, the British Prime Minister
acceded to the demands not only of the Muslims to provide special representation but also extended
it to other religious as well as secular categories. Thus, Muslims, Sikhs, Anglo Indians, Indian
Christians, depressed classes, tribals etc. all were given special measures of representation. Jinnah at
this stage started campaigning for equal partnership of the Muslim community in any further
constitutional scheme for India. Symbolic issues like the passing of the Shariat Application Act in
1937, that granted autonomy to the Muslim community from being subject to any other law or
custom in personal matters led to galvanization of All India Muslim support for the League as well as
Jinnah-its forceful advocate. The idea of a „nation within nation‟ nurtured since as early as 1905-
1906, by the Muslim elite was now forcefully articulated. In 1930, Mohammad Iqbal as Leagues‟
president proposed carving out centralized territory of Islam in India out of four states of Punjab,
north-West Frontier provinces, Sind and Baluchistan. This was further refined in 1933, by Rahmat Ali
as he demanded „Pakistan‟ carved out of the four Muslim majority provinces and Kashmir. However,
it was at the Karachi meeting of the League presided over by Jinnah that the demand for “political
self determination of the two nations, Known as the Hindus, and the Muslims” was passed and the
Muslim League resolved to work for its realization. Finally, the Lahore resolution of the Muslim
League in 1940 proclaimed the Muslims as a nation without however, mentioning partition or
Pakistan. It simply declared independent state to be constituted of the Muslim majority provinces
without giving any timeline for such formation. The Hindu Mahasabha Unlike the Muslim League the
Hindu Communal organizations were not separatists. Their aim simply was to align Indian
nationalism to the interest of the majority community. It thus Institute of Lifelong Learning,
University of Delhi 26 reproduced communalism surreptitiously through the secular nationalist
forms. However, more often than not, they explicitly generated communal fervors. While the Hindu
Mahasabha was formed in 1914 to uphold the interest of the Hindus in the wake of developments
like the granting of the separate electorate to the Muslims, its leaders were active through various
forums like the Hindu Sabha and the Indian National Congress. Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya and
Lala Lajpat Rai were its early members. The anti British militant trend in the Indian nationalism, it has
been argued was induced by the sympathizers of the Hindu sabha. In fact, the very basis of Indian
nationalism was protecting its sovereignty in the inner cultural domain. It is here that the contest
emerged as the early nationalists strongly resisted the colonial intervention in remolding the cultural
practices. Bal Gangadhar Tilak‟s act of resistance to raise the age of consent by two years- from 10 to
12 for girls‟ marriage is looked upon as the site of nationalist resistance. The issues like cow
protection, (re) conversions of people from Islam and Christianity through sudhhi campaigns, etc.
were first promoted by the Mahasabha to unify the Hindu community against the Muslims. The
Hindu Mahasbha had considerable influence over the Congress policy and programme. The Hindu
Mahasabha also took up the battle for political leadership inside the Congress. In fact, until late into
1930s, there was no prohibition of Congress members simultaneously having the membership of the
Hindu Mahasabha. It was, however, in the 1920s that the Mahasabha emerged as a discreetly
political actor with its focus on the suddhi and the sangathan campaign. While the suddhi movement
was for reconverting the Muslims, the sangathan campaign was articulated as the means of
consolidating the Hindu society, of unifying Hinduism in face of perceived unity of the Indian Muslims
argues John Zavos. 54 It is noteworthy how even leaders like Gandhi could be undermined at will by
the Mahasabha and its leadership when he went to Punjab to promote communal harmony in 1924