Active and Passive phases of Communalism
Despite the violence seen during the Partition and subsequent separation of India on the basis of religion, Indian society accepted a secular fabric to the society. The communalists continued to remain a marginal force. This was due to the rejection of the One Nation – One Religion theory by congress and the subsequent fight against communalism by Nehru with the active support of leaders like Sardar Patel, Rajagopalchari, etc. The defeat of communal forces in consecutive elections till 1977 led people to believe that communalism had been vanquished from India. But this wasn’t so, communalism also has active and passive phases and the struggle against it should be continuous. As said earlier the communal ideology wasn’t fought only by communal violence and so the threat remained. Communal parties of all religions existed and continued to be active even outside politics.
The mid-1960s saw a revival of communalism as riots also increased and the people killed in them rose too. However, this number continued to remain small. The Crisis in 1962 and the Wars between India-Pakistan dealt a major blow to communalism and they were sidelined. Communal forces got a major victory when Indira Gandhi was defeated and RSS’s influence on the government increased. The communal violence had become widespread even existing in areas like Andhra Pradesh, and Kerela where it was believed that communalism was non-existent. Riots also started to take place in villages and now became more organized and lasted longer with higher damage. Interestingly when the emergency existed the communal incidents became negligible as major communal leaders were arrested and detained.
Characteristics of Communalism
Communalism got a breeding ground due to the social-economic and political discontent of the people. The post-independence phase saw a major economic expansion, rapid industrialization, and indigenization of services of government. This along with education opportunities created a system where the aspirations of the people increased. They now had a chance to move to higher levels of society. This also meant that communal ideology was marginalized in society. But later periods saw a clash of interests as competition increased and opportunities stagnated. The socio-economic development was uneven and led to the marginalization of classes. The growth on basis of capitalism also affected society and created income inequalities. The lag between aspirations and fulfillment increased and it was this period that saw a revival of communalism.
The old fabric of the society like village communities, joint family systems,s, etc were collapsing and being replaced by newer organizations working on capitalist lines. The old values that cement societies are disappearing and this had created a cultural vacuum that fueled the move toward communalism. The philosophy of winner takes all and let the devil take care of the rest led to many taking the shortcut toward political power by backing up communal forces and capitalizing on the siege mentality of the people. Another aspect that fueled communalism was the disappearance of the ideals of the freedom movement that had inspired the youth to take up secular ideals. The period after the 1970s saw no new radical social ideal that transformed the society and inspired it to have egalitarian values.
Long Term and Short Term causes
In a society where communal ideology has already spread even minor clashes like a religious tiff or teasing of a girl or fight between individuals of different communities create communal violence on a large scale. The main actors in such clashes are the urban poor and the marginalized. These have increased in numbers due to uneven social-economic development and large-scale migration to cities. This class of people has been easily lured to communal ideology and has found communal violence as an outlet for their frustrations created from living in misery. These people are the major participants and victims of such violence. Recently even political parties and gangs of criminals resort to communal violence to settle scores with their opponents.
The growth of communalism was also aided by the apathy of the law and order machinery of the state. The laxity in handling inflammatory communal propaganda and dealing with minor incidents effectively also encouraged communalism. The other major flaw is the perpetuation of communal ideology within the state apparatus as officers at some levels have overtly or covertly supported communal elements. Their partisan handling of the situation also has encouraged communalism.
Political parties in India are either secular or communal with the latter being a minority. But during the electoral season, it was seen that even the secular parties made alliances with communal forces to get the victory. Even communists didn’t remain far behind this trend. This was seen in Congress – Muslim League alliance in Kerela and the appeasement towards Sikh communalists in Punjab. The secular parties have however never waged an ideological war against communalism and have remained neutral in the initial phases when communalism grew. This led to disastrous consequences later. Even Leaders would be interested in giving political concessions based on religion to people to appease them and gain political mileage. However, as was seen these smaller gains increased the appetite of the communalists and they made bigger demands. There is no difference between a majority or minority communalism as both were equally dangerous and reinforced each other.
India was saved from falling into the hands of barbaric forces as most of the society wasn’t communal. Even the political parties cutting across ideologies remained committed to democracy and secularism. The communal forces in them were sidelined and remained of marginal value. Even when the Political parties like Jan Sangh and BJP came to power they didn’t use the State apparatus to reinforce communalism as it was done in Italy. It is seen that without the support of the State or even neutrality of the State communalism cant become dominant and so India didn’t go on the same line as Pakistan.
Communalism and its Aftermath
The Communal forces in Hindusim were less dominant than their other counterparts. This was because the Hindusim was the largest religion in India and the communalists weren’t able to convince the masses that their religion was in danger. The Hindus were not motivated by religious issues due to a history of religious tolerance. They had no strong set of beliefs towards one god or one set of texts and so attempts to polarize it was less as it wasn’t an organized religion. However, it was the RSS and its sister political parties that managed to evoke a communal response to the question of the Babri Masjid demolition. The secular forces had allowed this issue to fester without any firm action and so they couldn’t control it as it became a major issue. In a country with centuries of History, there were bound to be problems related to such issues as domination, and suppression of one religion over other. But current actions cant be used to sort past religious issues.
The political thought didn’t accept this and decided to set right this historical mistake. The Demolition of Babri Masjid and the riots that followed shook the country. The government at the center lost support and was defeated and a new party rose to power. Indian secularism was shaken and now minority communalists also rose. Terrorism was a result of this and the neighboring state now could successfully supply arms and ammunition to the minority communalists to foment violence. The Godhra massacre, similarly acts of violence were a result of the Babri Masjid incident.
Although these incidents have led critics to question the secular fabric of the country, India has continued to remain united and secular. This was because of the ideals of the National movement that secular fabric was woven. Leaders of Congress and the vast majority of people and political parties continued to believe in democracy. Even when communalists formed the government capitalizing on people’s fears they couldn’t succeed in making a lasting impression or changing the society’s fabric from secular to communal. Popular consciousness to has played an important role in acting as a barrier to the spread of communalism.
Communalism and State Power
It was the Babri Masjid Massacre that removed the mask of secularism from the face of Jan Sangh and exposed its communal ideology. Although it continued to increase its influence at the National level it reached its pinnacle in 1998 when the BJP was sworn to power. The party leadership had blamed the Ayodhya Mosque incident on extremist elements within the party claiming that the party leadership wasn’t responsible for the incident. The secular elements claimed that the communal elements shouldn’t get power as this would create the foundation for a fascist state. On the other hand, it was argued that political power mellows the extremist elements, strengthens the moderates, and mainstreams the party. The section of party leaders continued to promote the ideology of the RSS by communalizing education. The VHP, Bajrang Dal, and the RSS continued to foment communal sentiments by pursuing the policy of creating a Hindu Rashtra. The Godhra train massacre and the riots in Gujarat were due to this policy.
Education was communalized by the HRD Minister who wanted to appease his RSS mentors. State textbooks on History were modified on the lines of RSS-sponsored textbooks and now portrayed the minorities as foreigners and glorified Hindu Kingdoms. The attack on scientific and secular history and its communal portrayal attracted strong criticisms from the intelligentsia as well as the autonomous state institutions like NCERT.
The government had replaced the heads of these autonomous institutions with its own supporters. Thus the opposition to these institutions was brought under control. The textbooks were given a communal color and the protests of scientific and secular historians were deleted. The protests against such actions were made by Secular forces and the media. Even the Indian History Congress, a respected forum of historians was ignored. Writers with an ideology close to Sangh were nominated for writing textbooks. The National Curriculum Framework was drafted without creating a consensus on the issue and opinions were ignored. The long-term consequence of this was that Gujarat saw a massacre of minorities. The textbooks of the state were based on glorifying the Fascist and the Nazi philosophy. They encouraged the students to view minorities as foreigners.
A noncommunal incident of a train bogey containing volunteers returning from Ayodhya who had answered the VHP call for laying the foundations of Ram temple due to accidental reasons was portrayed as an attack on Hindus by Muslims. The result was a three-month-long genocide in Gujarat where thousands were killed and many were displaced. The reverberations of that incident continue to exist even today. Even the then PM Vajpayee called the Gujarat riots a “Dark day for India that had lowered India’s prestige before the World”.
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