COMMUNALISM: Promoting Solidarity or Creating Divide

1. What is Communalism?

• It is a feeling of belonging to one's own community. In technical terms, it is an ideology which believes that the secular interests of the members of a community are common. It also implies that different communities have different secular interests. These communities can be based on religion, caste, region, etc.
• It is healthier if it is in moderate form. It means that every community is focused on its own interests without any regard to the interests of other community. In moderate form it promotes the solidarity among the members of its community.
• But, it is divisive in the extreme form.It means that the secular interests of communities are not only different but in conflict with each other. Therefore, if community A wants to fulfill its interests then it will jeopardize the interests of community B. But, community B is determined to fulfill its own interests and doing so will jeopardize the interests of community a. This will finally lead to communal clashes.

2. It is generally said that communalism is predominantly an urban phenomenon and mostly the cities are the breeding grounds of communal tensions. What do you think about this observation?

• Yes, it is true that urban areas are hotbeds of communal clashes. Various reasons can be cited for this observation
• People come to urban areas in search of jobs but when they are unable to find the job the frustration keeps in. Most of them end up working in informal sector and living in slum like conditions. Though there are opportunities but equality of opportunities is not there. this further increases the frustration. Somewhere the skewed pattern of economic development is also responsible for the rise of comunalism.
• People in cities come from diverse backgrounds. As caste and region can't be the basis of solidarity the religion is an easy way to organize people and thus communalism becomes an ideology of protest.

3. What is the role of leaders and political parties in fuming communal sentiments?

• Leaders of the community play a major role in articulating and generating the communal sentiments.
• They take advantage of misery of people and project that the reason of their miserable situation is another community.
• These leaders are not interested in religion or religious sentiments but make use of them for their political gains.
• Political parties too find it easy to organize people on the basis of religion as a wider vote base can be achieved by appealing to the religious sentiments of people. In the process, they neglect the real issues of tackling unemployment, poverty and health and focus on imaginary interests of religion.
• Also, the undue concessions given by the governments to appease certain communities also leads to communal tensions. For e.g. Rajiv Gandhi overruled the Supreme Court judgement by amending the constitution in Shah Bano case.

4. How can we tackle this menace of communalism present in Indian society?

• Short term solution lies with the political leaders and the administration. Many experts believe that in 99% of cases the communal clashes are predictable. But, the administration doesn't act because of either its incapacity or collusion.
• Also, the support of politicians to the communal forces must go down. The politicians must focus on the real issues which are affecting the people and not the imagined interests. 
• In long term, the process of secularization must happen. It means that the religion should become a private affair and it should not affect the public life of people. For this to happen we need to provide secular and utilitarian education to the people so that they get employment and don't fall prey to political opportunism. 

 5. How far can be the recent communal violence bill be able to handle the problem of    
     communalism?

• Laws always have certain limitation to bring about large scale changes. Certainly, this bill will not completely stop the communal violence in the country.
• But, it can certainly minimize and prevent the communal clashes. How?
• It fixes the accountability on the part of administration. So, it will be difficult for the political parties to manipulate the administration because there will be fear of punishment on the district officers.
• It also takes into account of the rehabilitation and compensation given to the victims of communal violence. Till now, the compensation given was very less in comparison to the actual loss occurred.
• Nevertheless, it is a positive step to tackle the menace of communalism in our country.

IN SHORT, IT IS THE MIXING OF RELIGION WITH POLITICS WHICH HAS CREATED  THIS PROBLEM. SO, THE RELIGION MUST NOT BE MIXED WITH POLITICS AT ALL