Communalism

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Introduction Communalism has been commonly understood in the literature as conflicts over secular issues between religious communities, particularly between Hindus and Muslims. I Deliberations around communalism have, to a large extent, linked it with the colonial period in India and with particular religious communities, such that the concept has acquired a definite and definitive association. It is true that there were struggles in the precolonial period, but they cannot be said to have taken the form of full-blown communalism. Communalism may be said to be rooted in power relations between communities, histories of togetherness and a disposition to dominate others. Communalism's political, economic, social and other associations are linked to assertions for community identity that trigger communities to seek or to resist domination. Communalism may be seen as a process of the competitive aspirations of communities to dominate and/or resist domination of others over perceived as well as real threats, grievances, insecurities and distrust. This aspiration to dominate others took a concrete form during the colonial period but it has been spreading, bringing new issues and new groups into its ambit. Communities have been drawing contentious boundaries differentiating others, adding sources of "marginalisation", selectively constructing histories, recalling "humiliations" and "defeats", remembering "violent times" and unleashing all kinds of violence. The origins and causes of communalism have been explored at several levels in the literature, which the rest of this essay surveys. We have reviewed journal articles, books, dissertations, seminar and conference reports, films, documentaries, novels and editorials in major dailies published in post-Independence India. From the literature on communalism, we would like to point out certain important aspects that are worth noting. First, arbitrary
definitions and explanations, often due to the development of opposing schools of thought, have created vagueness around the phenomenon of communalism and its associations with the concept of community.2 Second, most of the writings on communalism are not on communalism per se. They are on Hindu communalism, Muslim communalism and Hindu fundamentalism and, as said already, the connection between communalism and communities is not addressed properly. Third, features of religious communalism — a presumed homogeneous community identity and community consciousness — are also exhibited by sects, cults, castes and linguistic and regional communities. Such communities and their politics are not seen as part of the restricted idea of communalism. This is why the use of the idea of the "ethnic" is considered more appropriate, for it can bring under its consideration the full range of such expressions. Fourth, occurrences of communal violence in southern Indian states, its spread to rural and hill areas where tribals and dalits are either involved or attacked, and a range of new subjects for contestation in contemporary times show that communalism is not a peculiar north Indian and urban phenomenon. Community and Communalism To begin a discussion on communalism, it is necessary to see how it has been defined and explained, and how it has been associated with the term "community". In a crude way, a group of people with some common bonds or notion of common identity can be treated as a community. Apparently, the association of communalism with community looks simplistic. An analysis of the characteristic features of communalism shows that the complex relationship between communalism and community has largely been overlooked. Jones defines "communalism as consciously- shared religious heritage which becomes the dominant form of identity for a given segment of society" (1968: 39) 3
Community, or Gemeinschaft, denotes a group of people o- rganised along some common social markers with a certain degree of identity transferred into a sense of "we-feeling". In this sense, social groupings along various social ascriptions and a- ffiliations, such as caste groups, linguistic groups, sects and cults are also communities. Writings on communalism, even while highly analytical, consider community in terms of religion. This narrowing of communalism to apply only to religious communities has been uncritically inherited from colonial understandings of communities in India. "Under colonialism, the religious definition of community has become so predominant that in common discourse communalism has become more or less synonymous with communalism of the religious variety" (Kooiman 1995: 2123). Pandey clarifies that "specification of communal with religious communities is not derived from the community but from the tension between religious communities" (1990: 9). However, the same applies to other communitarian groupings as well. Whenever a community forms, tension forms along with it. Though scholars have debated this issue, it has not been given adequate attention in the literature. There are fragmented debates on communalism's association with the term community. Pandey (1990) recognises significant flexibility in the term communalism and argues that it could be applied to any form of community that displays an antagonistic stance towards another community based on the same kind of signifier. For a few scholars, antagonism is not important. For example, Mukhia argues that "community should constitute a continuum as an operative category rather than being diametrically opposed to another community" (quoted in Srimanjari 1990: 59). Scholars have also argued over the inclusion of other types of communities under communalism and the usefulness of communalism as a conceptual and analytical category. For e-
xample, Vanaik (1997) argues for the consideration of only religious communities under communalism. For him, incorporating other communities under communalism would lead to a loss of focus and, then, communalism as a conceptual category becomes too broad to be useful. On the other hand, Zavos says that "this flexibility strips the concept down to the level of a framework, narrowing rather than broadening its possibilities" (1999: 2270). Jones (1968) refers to a few other ways of defining communalism. For instance, he uses the term "social communalism" for the non-brahminical movement in Tamil Nadu. He asserts that by incorporating other identities under its purview, "communalism then would become a broader concept applicable to a wider variety of social and historical processes" (1968: 39). While scholars have argued for incorporating other varieties of communities under the concept of communalism, it is essentially the Hindu-Muslim relationship that forms the core of the debate on communalism in the literature. It is not essential to the concept of religious communalism or ethnocentricity in other parts of the world; for example, the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans was a conflict between Christians and Muslims. Communalism has been defined and explained from a variety of theoretical perspectives — essentialism, instrumentalism, constructivism and institutionalism' Essentialism or primordialism is the perspective that believes Hindus and Muslims have formed monolithic communities since the time Muslims arrived in India, and the two communities have always been at odds with each other. Such a position is generally taken by Hindu communalists. Scholars, such as Dumont, also believe in "primordial conflict" between the Hindus and the Muslims. This perspective ignores the symbiosis between communities and highlights only animosities. It tries to draw up a picture of monolithic communities, particularly that of the Hindu community as something that has remained unchanged since antiquity.
For constructivists, on the other hand, communalism is not merely a reflection of a pre-existing community but the will to create a bounded community in which groups play down internal divisions to create the broadest possible unity against the group defined as the "other" (Pandey 1990; Thapar 1989). This theoretical strand mainly focuses on colonial policies that resulted in the hardening of religious identity and the formation of community consciousness. With the British taking over India, new elements entered into the administrative system. During the colonial period, new areas — in political and economic institutions — opened that were previously available to only a very limited section of society. The domain of conflict extended from the religious to the secular sphere. For Hasan (1979) and Chandra (1 984), communalism is not a religious phenomenon, but a secular one. Similarly, for Engineer, communalism is "an attempt to achieve secular goals through religious means" (1997: 703). In the colonial period, the old contentions were strengthened by new elements. Communalism was "modified during the 19th century by the dual influences of modernisation and Westernisation" (Jones 1968: 39). It has been argued that communalism is a modern phenomenon (Chandra 1 984; Mukhia 1972). The roles of ideology and ideologues have also been given importance. Bipan Chandra (1990) understands communalism as an ideology. For him, communalism is a belief system through which society, economy and polity are viewed; a way of looking at society and politics. Similarly, Ram says, "One needs to understand different levels, layers and mechanisms through which an ideology gets actualised through the actions of an individual" (1996: 2266). For institutionalists, communal conflict/violence is structured in economic and political institutions. They locate economic hardships, slow economic development and paucity of resources as the reasons for communalism. "Increasing social tensions are
not only a function of ideology, they are no less a function of hard economic realities on the ground" (EPW 1998: 686). Communalism has also been described as an aberration that retards the economic growth of the country. "If religion today in India acts predominantly...much is to be attributed to the character of economic development and the social relations that it has generated" (Bharadwaj 1990: 67). For instrumentalists, communal conflict/violence is seen as a consequence of the vested interests of political leaders, elites and the middle class. Communalism has been seen as "perversion of religion from a moral order to temporal arrangement of contemporary convenience, from a faith into a constituency, from a strategy of living into tactics of politics, from an end into a means" (Khan 1989: 138). Scholars such as Engineer (1984a) and Gupta (1991) have argued that communal tensions are the creation of vested political interests. Similarly, Mukhia says, "The ruling class itself is seldom communal in its own economic or even political behaviour, but it spreads the ideology of communalism in the classes which are its adversaries" (1 972: 53). Political parties and extra-political organisations create propaganda of the injustices apparently experienced by their community. However, a few scholars argue that communalism is "group solidarity" (Bhaskar quoted in Oommen 1995: 544). Thus, we can see that communalism has been understood from various perspectives, which indicates that communal tensions are not located within any particular institution. The vastness and spread of communalism makes it difficult to arrive at a coherent understanding of it. In India, communities form along a variety of affiliations and social ascriptions such as caste, class, region, language and religion. Often an individual affiliates himself or herself to many groups. "Having more than one set of identities, an individual can belong to several communities at the same time and may be mobilised
along different, mutually exclusive lines of communal identity" (Alavi and Harriss 1989: 223; Shah 1994: 1133 quoted in Kooiman 1995: 2123). Mahmood asserts, "While scholars working in other parts of the world argue over whether particular movements are linguistic, ethnic, religious, regional or any other wide variety of adjectives, Indians have solved the problem nicely by thinking in terms of 'communities' whose identity may be defined in diverse ways" (1993: 722). Perhaps Mahmood (1993) overstates the situation. Scholars in India have designated specific concepts for community formations and conflicts between caste, region and language as casteism, regionalism and lingualism, respectively. In fact, a few scholars have designated very specific terms even for caste movements — for example, "social communalism" (Jones 1968) and "social revolution" (Omvedt 1972). However, if the literature makes a distinction between communalism, on the one hand, and lingualism, regionalism and casteism, on the other, it would be interesting if future researchers could expound on how community formation at a religious level is different from caste, region or language. What set of questions differentiate religious communalism from clashes of other social ascriptions? Precolonial Period Communalism, in the current discourse, includes distinct religious consciousness and expansion of an understanding of a homogeneous religious identity. It has been argued that homogeneous religious identity, as we find it today, was not present in the precolonial period. As Thapar asserts, "In the precolonial period the recognition of a religious community was more limited since language, ethnicity, caste and region are more apparent bonds. Religious perceptions and hostilities were more localised" (1990: 17-18). The extension of the idea of homo- geneous religious consciousness and its politicisation has grown over a period of time and depends on available means of
communication; for example, print technology was in considerable use by the Arya Samaj in the later decades of the 19th century. The involvement of technology increases the process of h- omogenisation among Hindus. The current possibility of the politicisation of the global Hindu community that draws support from Hindus across the globe was not present 50 years ago. It has largely been achievable because of the internet and digital technology. Localised communities may have had distinct identities but technology and politicisation have connected and homogenised the discrete and localised identities. Politicisation and connection are possible only when similar situations are faced by various similar communities. Religious identity in the precolonial period was differentiated along territorial, ethnic, sectarian and cultic identities. Chattopadhyaya (2005) looks at the notions of "other" and "others" and how these were constructed and understood at the time people from west and central Asia started arriving in the Indian subcontinent. Chattopadhyaya (2005) tells of many differentiations at various levels. The "other", as we see in contemporary times, was not marked. Rather, there were many "others". The presence of many "others" "opens up the possibility of viewing the components of a culture and society in terms of...many identities. The many identities, implying varieties of difference rather than 'big otherness' have a space for confrontation as well, but at the same time, of varieties of negotiation" (Chattopadhyaya 2005: 195). There were clashes, though sporadic, between cultic and sectarian groups in the precolonial period (Bayly 1 985; Hasan 1 982; Thapar 1990; von Stietencron 2007). Taking a cue from writings on the first millennium, it appears that identities were based more on territorial demarcations or caste differences rather than religious differences (for instance, see Chattopadhyaya 2005). However, Lorenzen (2005) contests the absence of
religious categories in the precolonial period and argues that by the turn of 1200 AD, there were clear differentiations among religious groups. Here we are not concerned with the existence or non-existence of religious categories. Rather our concern is that people had sectarian, cultic, ethnic and regional consciousness and this consciousness differentiated them from others. These cults and sects were more homogeneous, maintained an exclusive nature and fought over the division of political and economic power and royal patronage (von Stietencron 2007: 52). According to Chattopadhyaya, there were at least two spheres of conflict in the precolonial period — (i) conflict over political supremacy; and (ii) conflicts over the assertion of doctrinal and sectarian supremacy. "In the Indian world of 1000 AD, political hegemony was both a matter of ideology as well as material gain" (2005: 198). As Thapar (1990) has also shown, rival kingdoms were perpetually engaged in fights for territorial supremacy. Rather "assertions of doctrinal supremacy were socially more pervasive" (Chattopadhyaya 2005: 199). As Mukhia asserts, "The exclusiveness in the distant past was confined generally to the sphere of religion and some religious ceremonies" (1972: 46). Wherever possible, communities fought over available resources; for example, the land wars during the Mughal period. "In the Punjab there are cases of the obliteration of the old Muslim towns and their replacement by totally new semi-urban settlements under the complete control of the local Sikh warrior lineages" (Bayly 1985: 192). Bayly asserts these land wars were the result of the Mughal policy of land grant, madad-i-maash, to Muslims or Islamised Hindus and these groups were locally competed against by Hindu agricultural castes such as Jats, Bhumihars or Rajputs (1 985: 192). He further argues that communal conflict, though mediated by religious symbols, was rooted in contestations around land or over political authority.
On the other hand, some scholars have argued that there were instances of communal strife in the precolonial period that display many features of communal conflicts of more recent times. For example, Rizvi notes, "In the riot at Ahmedabad in the second year of Farruksiyar's reign [1 714, as Farruksiyar reigned between 1 713 and 171 9], for instance, when rioting broke out against Muslim cow-slaughter, it was Afghan soldiers of the Mughal governor [brought from outside] of the city who took a leading part in the attack on the Hindu quarters of the city" (quoted in Bayly 1 985: 194). Some of the important aspects of communalism that are seen today can be traced in this narrative. First, the cow was a religious symbol and the issue of cow slaughter agonised Hindus. Thus, the cow protection movement in north India in the late 19th century could have had its roots in the precolonial Hindu-Muslim relationship. It indicates that distinct and unified religious consciousness might have been present. In this case, Islam in India itself divided into various regional/ethnic groups; Afghan soldiers participated in attacking Hindu quarters in Ahmedabad. Second, localities of one religious group were attacked by the other. Third, state apparatuses were used in riots against specific communities. The governor called soldiers from outside and they were used in the riot. Fourth, thekazis (chief registrars) and the kotwals (chief executive officers) played a leading role in the religious violence. So the role of the elite in creating the violence was also present. The well-documented events of the late 1 9th century could begin to look more and more like a continuation of these trends rather than as harbingers of a completely new era of communal identity (Bayly 1 985: 194). Crystallisation among Specific Issues It has been shown that the crystallisation of religious identities took place around specific issues and occasions at the local level in colonial India. Freitag (1990) and Bayly (1985) view communalism in terms of new arenas of local power in which local
social conflicts could be played out. Freitag (1990) looked at the conflicts and cultural innovations and showed how a sense of community and communalism in the late 19th and early 20th century north India grew around the cow protection movement. She brings to the discussion how people divided by caste and occupational backgrounds came together around the cow riots. "But Freitag is unable to offer a convincing reason why some lower castes (shudras) and Untouchables (the latter often consumers of beef) consented to join up. For her, it is simply enough that they participated in such communal movements" (Tejani 2007a: 227). Van der Veer (1994) draws attention to factors of the "longue duree" in the construction and clash of communal identities. He emphasises the importance of precolonial modes of religious communication, such as saintly networks, rituals and pilgrimages. It has been argued by scholars that the nature and form of religious strife changed immensely during and after the colonial period. All these theories rest to some extent on assumptions about the nature of, often the absence of, communal conflict b- efore 1860. It is true that communal violence did not operate on a massive scale in precolonial times. Conflicts were localised in their production as well as execution. However, it can be convincingly argued that there were several local and regional conflicts that provided fertile grounds to various agents to unify various localised feelings. The point that may be brought out is not of the presence or absence of conflict in the precolonial period but of how the idea of domination has spread from local regions and religious domains to other areas of social living. If one focuses on how one community differentiates and constructs the other community and why they are involved in violent acts, perhaps one can arrive at a convincing answer to the sustained presence of communalism and fundamentalism in India. With the advent of British rule in India, localised conflicts enlarged and new areas of contestation emerged.
The Colonial Period Economic and Political Contestation (A) As it has been commonly understood, Hindu-Muslim communalism originated during the last decades of the 1 9th century and grew alongside the national movement. Perhaps even more specifically it could be said that it was structured during the colonial period. What emerges as the spread of full- blown communalism is the bringing of all the discrete, unstructured, localised issues under one homogeneous category. Communalism has been analysed in great detail and various theories have been put forth. The "divide and rule" policy of the British government was the most convenient idea prevalent among the nationalist leaders to subdue communal forces and create a sense of unity for the nationalist movement. Accordingly, it was understood that the British policies were motivated by divisions of the people and the consolidation of their own positions (for a detailed discussion, see Mehta and Patwardhan 1942). Bipan Chandra argues that the construction of a timeless image of perennial conflict created a "false consciousness" and there is no fundamental difference between Hindus and Muslims. Similarly, Vanaik et al (1996) hold that the idea of a religion-based community is a myth. The "nativist" theory of the symbiosis of Hindu and Muslim cultures and evolution of a new composite culture was forwarded in opposition to the idea of primordial conflicts between the two religious communities. Though the symbiosis theory argues for greater unity, for the most part the understanding of this symbiosis was limited to the fields of art, music, architecture, literature and, to some extent, religion (Sufi and Bhakti cults). Another theory that looks at the historical emergence of conflict (Bayly 1985; Chakravarty 1 994; Krishna 1985) also contests the symbiosis theory. For instance, Lorenzen asserts that the notion
of different religious communities had already been established by 1200 AD (Nicholson 2010). However, Embree reconciles both the theories and concludes that they are "true in that they reflect the available historical realities for constructing a past to explain and justify the present" (1992: 81). The theory of divide and rule should be critically analysed in relation to changes in economic and political institutions; the changing socio-economic positions of Muslims and Hindus; religious reform movements; and British policies. These are a few areas that indicate that communalism is an outcome of the competitive aspirations of domination and counter-domination. Many of the British policies had direct implications such as separate electorates and many others produced sources for communal divisions such as census enumeration, colonial knowledge of India and the creation of written records (Pandey 1990). Colonial knowledge and the British construction of India in terms of communities had an impact on the construction of actual communal divisions. "Lord Ronaldshay, Governor of Bengal from 1917-22 observed, the divisions are not only those due to religious belief and practice, but to a profoundly different outlook on life resulting in social systems which are the very antithesis of one another" (quoted in Hasan 1982: 26). Similarly, James Mills' division of Indian history into three phases — ancient, medieval and modern — became a framework for communalists, from which they could construct their past and their identities. The idea of the 'glorious past" and the separateness of communities emanates from such constructions (Thapar 1990; Sharma 1990). Orientalist knowledge provoked Indian scholars to contest such constructions and much of the history writing in the 20th century tried to prove the superiority of indigenous institutions and culture. Such writings provided a solid base for Hindu nationalists; for example, Nilakanta Sastri's importance to brahmin supremacy
became a source of inspiration for Hindu communalists (Sharma 1990). The colonial record-making and colonialists' knowledge was another source for the production of communal consciousness (Pandey 1990). The census was not used only for counting the population, but also became a source of numerical comparison (Gupta 2004), which Kooiman (1995) calls the "tyranny of the numerical order". Many scholars have attested that communalism is a conflict over secular issues. Before the advent of the British, there were very few fields for competition and contestations but these were "modified during the 19th century by the dual influences of modernisation and westernisation" (Jones 1968: 39). New fields of employment and economic activities opened more areas for competition. Communities adopted various new instruments to improve and consolidate their position in the changing political and economic spheres. English education was taken as an important tool for upward mobility by upper-caste Hindus. Muslims resisted taking up instruments for upward mobility; for example, Persian was given importance over English. Muslims were viewed as the main opponents by the British. Their expectation of regaining political power someday deteriorated their socio-economic position. The official views of the revolt of 1857 and later the Wahabi Movement's challenge to the British made them see Muslims as their main opponents. The British deliberately repressed and systematically kept them out from various fields of activity. A new class — the educated middle class — primarily composed of upper-caste Hindus was emerging during this period and had its own stake in strengthening the British administration. In Mahatma Gandhi's view, communal tension was also to a certain extent the product of rivalries between the Hindu and Muslim middle classes for government jobs and seats in elected bodies such as municipal corporations and legislatures (Chandra 2004).
By the end of the 1 9th century, the Hindu elites consolidated their position while Muslims became marginalised and the Muslim threat to British power completely faded. "What is clear is that the Hindu elite was getting depoliticised while the Muslim elite's obsession with political power was complete" (Shakir 1979: 470). The British were faced with new challenges from the Indian National Congress (INC). The members of the INC mobilised around the deteriorating economic and social conditions of Indian society, questions of representation and the determination of rights. Various policy documents (for instance, Sarkar 1 973; Tejani 2007b)5 of the British government have been discussed by scholars that show how the British systematically played off one community against the other. But the communities were already showing signs of rift, which made it easy for the British to use such policies. Apparently, Muslim appeasement during the British period began in response to the growing popularity of the Congress, particularly its militant wing. But the Muslim community had already lost its socio-economic and political base, and was trying to find new opportunities to consolidate its own position. "Muslims had a clear sense of themselves, in their myriad sects, as being distinctly Muslim" (Tejani 2008: 113). Syed Ahmad Khan, from the beginning of the formation of the INC, kept the Muslim community out from Congress activities. "Islam had been an unbroken thread of Muslim politics whether it was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan's Aligarh Movement, Ameer Ali's Muslim Association, Mohammad Ali's Khilafat Movement, Moplah, Fairazi or Pakistan" (Shakir 1979: 471). Further, the formation of the Muslim League in 1906, the demand for separate electorates, and the acceptance of this demand in the Morley-Minto Reforms of 1909 all constituted a distinct identity for the Muslim community and consolidated its political power. The 1909 Act not only approved separate electorates, it also
accorded Muslim representation in excess of the Muslim population. The income qualification for Muslim voters was also kept lower than that for Hindus. "The Morley-Minto reforms of 1 909...instituted representative politics in terms of Hindu and Muslim identities" (Zavos 1999: 2269; also see Hasan 1982; Shakir 1979). Similarly, the Montagu-Chelmsford Reform of 1919 instituted Sikh communal identity when it extended separate electorates to Sikhs and other communities. Later on, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)6 channelised Sikh communalism in the Punjab from 1925 till Independence when it joined with the INC (Bal 1988). The Khalsa Diwan, Singh Sabha and educated Sikh men contributed to creating an exclusive identity among the Sikhs. The Central Sikh League, founded in 1917-18, generated communal feelings among influential sections of Sikhs. The divisive policy of the British was further extended to the low castes in McDonald's Communal Award. Though there were strong anti-brahmin movements in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, the Communal Award failed because of various factors — the low castes were not in a dominant position to assert themselves unlike other communities; their socio-economic and political condition was weak; the consciousness of a separate identity (as in the case of Muslims and Sikhs) was not strong because of the absence of an exclusive political party and lack of leaders from the community; and Gandhi's insistence on the Poona Pact and B R Ambedkar's acceptance of it. In the initial years of the formation of the Congress, there were conscious efforts to dispel minority fears. Later on, the Congress' role in addressing minority questions remained out of discussion forums. The Muslim intelligentsia considered the Congress a party of Hindus, which was strengthened by a distinct Hindu nationalist tinge in nationalist politics. It was also "due to a large extent to the deep suspicion that under a national government the
existence of the Muslim culture will be imperiled" (Zakir Hussain quoted in Dixit 1969: 1754).7 Muslim alienation from the national movement has also been seen in relation to the Hinduised nature of the national movement such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak's Ganapati pooja and the Shivaji festival, Aurobindo's Aryanised India (Heehs 1997, 2006), the idea of Ram Rajya, dips in the Ganges, Hindu methods of oaths, vows, worship and the greater incorporation of Hindu gods and goddesses. The Hinduised practices created suspicion among Muslims and were perceived as a threat to Muslim cultural identity. Muslims were also agitated as well as alienated because of the work of cow protection societies, the propaganda of linguistic groups such as the Nagiri Pracharini Sabha, and the Arya Samaj's shuddhi programme. Though British policies divided the communities, the communities were also internally divided on various fronts and each section tried to push forward its own cause and tried to dominate others. Hindu communal elements within the Congress put pressure internally in support of the agenda of the Hindu Mahasabha and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Muslim intellectuals played a critical role in reckoning a separate identity and politics for Muslims. "The Muslims cannot divorce their religion from their politics. In Islam, religious and political beliefs are not separated from each other. Religion and politics are inseparably associated in the minds and thoughts of all Muslims" (Shakir 1979: 471). The proponents of Pakistan ideology were opposed to the idea of Akhand Bharat, propagated by Hindu political forces. These groups tried to counter each other through various means. The distinction between communalism and nationalism cannot be made in the ideas of Pakistan as well as Akhand Bharat because in both the cases nationalism and communalism are interwoven. Bal (1988) has discussed how Sikh communalism is intertwined with religion and nationality. Religious and Reform Movements (B)
A critical role was played by the self-fashioned modernising religious movements. The role of key actors in religious reform and nationalist and popular movements during the latter half of the 1 9th and the first half of the 20th centuries in furthering communalism has been examined by various scholars. According to Thapar (1 990), the contemporary form of Hinduism is the result of the Orientalist construction of indigenous knowledge, emerging as Orientalists attempted to integrate various religious beliefs and practices into a coherent religion — Hinduism. Such constructions had a great influence on the socio-religious reform movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Reform movements such as the Wahabi, Ahmadiya and the Arya Samaj's Shuddhi with their militant overtones made the role of religion more vulnerable to communalism (Jones 1968). The reform movements tried to insulate one community from the influence of other religious communities. Religious conversion and perceived attacks on religious symbols and the activities of other religious groups were the main points of contention; for example, the Arya Samaj in Punjab took up three major causes — cow protection, advocacy of Hindi as a medium of instruction in government schools and anti-Ahmadiya propaganda (Jones 1968). The 18th and 19th century reform movements were vitalised by the spread of different modes of communication (Hardy 1972). Religious movements provided a contentious political perspective; for example, to the Wahabi Movement, India was Dar-ul-Harb and needed to be converted to Dar-ul- Islam. Similarly, the Deoband leaders and later the Jamaat-ul- Ulema provided political and intellectual content. In the Moplah and Faraizi Movements, religious militancy enmeshed with conflicts between the peasantry and their landlords. These religious movements furthered the interests of a very small number of people but created fissures that affected the masses. The Princely States (C)
The British policy of divide and rule certainly played a role through separate electorates and census counts, but cases of communal conflicts in princely states could raise other issues for understanding the trajectory of communalism. Communal situations in princely states were not very different except that they were lower in intensity and lower in terms of the degree of conflicts; these increased from the early 1930s. As Copland (1988) says, most of the time, there was a foreign hand in the communal disturbances in the princely states. But they were internally not insulated from communal disturbances. The princely states of Hyderabad, Kashmir, Travancore, Baroda, Junagadh and many others experienced communal seizures. In his detailed study on communalism in the princely state of Hyderabad, Copland says, "There are good grounds for thinking that the Nizam's rule affected Hindus more adversely than Muslims" (1 988: 787). The Arya Samaj, in Hyderabad, followed a moderate policy of reconversion but became aggressive during the 1930s. This brought them into direct conflict with the Ittehadul- Muslimeen, which was also aggressive in converting the untouchables. Copland (1988) asserts that a smaller industrial base and low politicisation were the main reasons for the low intensity of communal violence in the Hyderabad princely state. In his analysis of Hyderabad, he explores the connection between economic development, political mobilisation and religious tension. Oommen (1995) examines the origin and growth of communalism in Kerala, which he traces from the 16th century when the Portuguese made their appearance in Malabar and replaced Arab traders. During the 18th and 19th centuries these tensions escalated into full-scale religious conflict but many of them had a tinge of economic reasoning. Kooiman (1995) in his study of communalism in the princely states of Travancore and Baroda argues that the colonial policy of separate electorates for religious
minorities had less influence on the formation of communal identities than has generally been assumed. Tensions were built on the basis of representation in administration, economic activities and changes in the composition of the population. However, what Mayaram (1997) has to say about the princely state in eastern Rajasthan in relation to the Meos is worth recording here. She reminds us that the state was modern. It had superior technology and the capacity to monitor, control and even annihilate huge populations. It was both Hinduised and nationalistic; in some ways, there is mimesis here, structurally, of the model of the colonial/postcolonial state. In the eyes of such a state, the Meos, despite their proud Rajput legacy, were Muslim, and as Muslims they were expendable. In any case, one can conclude that the various political strategies of communities, religious reform movements, British policies and laws, and the ideologies and actions of different princely states provided multiple bases for communal politics in India before Independence. Communities searched for their identities, questioned existing sociopolitical structures and constructed different ideas of a nation. It was this competitive aspiration that seeped into independent India. Communalism in the Post-Independence Period As scholars argue, many new elements emerged that disturbed communal relations in independent India. Pakistan was created as a Muslim-majority state but many Muslims chose to remain in India. Those left were reduced in strength, both numerically as well as politically. In response to the creation of Pakistan and the killings that followed Partition, "demands were made by many leaders within the Congress to declare India the defender of the interests of India's Hindu majority" (Khilnani 1997: 31). Muslims were considered less than citizens and gradually displaced from government jobs and services. In the midst of various political contingencies, the Indian state was created. But its creation and
later consolidation involved the practical adjustment of ideologies with political contingencies (Khilnani 1997). The roots of communalism deepened in contemporary political and economic structures. During the first decade after Independence, there was no large-scale intercommunity violence. Possibly, the migration of Muslim leaders and the ban on Hindu communalists prevented communal violence, but unresolved tensions between communities since the time of Partition began to resurface with the beginning of the 1960s. The 1960s and 1970s After the Jabalpur riot of 1 961 , there were a series of communal riots in different parts of the country. In 1967, in Ranchi, 155 people were butchered. On 9 June 1968, a communal riot broke out in Nagpur "between Hindu scheduled castes, now converts to Buddhism, and Muslims" (EPW 1968: 918). In 1969, after a communal holocaust in Ahmedabad, the violence spread to other towns — Meerut, Firozabad, Aligarh and Malegaon. North Indian cities were vulnerable to communal violence, particularly Meerut, Moradabad and Aligarh. The 1987 riots in Meerut and the 1989 riots in Bhagalpur sent shock waves through India, making Muslims feel terribly insecure (Mistry 2005). Usually, cities with a sizeable Muslim population or with Muslim-owned prosperous businesses (Aligarh, Firozabad) were sites of violence. A high incidence of communal violence was also recorded in centres of Islamic learning and those with an Islamic seminary, or with publishing houses bringing out religious books, leaflets and pamphlets, such as Malegaon. Often, as the literature shows, a relatively small issue became the spark setting off violence. The Sadar Bazar communal riot in 1974 in Delhi started with the supposed eve-teasing of a Hindu girl by a few Muslim boys (Krishna 1985). In Malegaon in 1983, fire crackers burst in front of the Jama Masjid were the starting point; on another occasion, there was a controversy around a memorial
called the Shahid Smarak on Kidwai road in Malegoan. In 1978, in Hyderabad, violence erupted over the rape of Rameeza Bee by a Hindu sub-inspector and two Muslim constables and the subsequent murder of her husband. In 1981 , in Meenakshipuram, religious conversion provided the spark, while in other cases it was marriages between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy. On the basis of such incidents, it is clear that communalism draws energy not merely from religious sources, but from every aspect of social living. Any such issue can be communalised and politicised. Communalism feeds into and is fed by competitive politics, which is not located only in the formal political sphere. In independent India, Muslims have been reduced on all fronts and have a low political, economic and social status. However, images of Muslims created during the colonial times, the experiences of Partition and contradictions in the political system supplied energy in the creation of new reasons for communalism in independent India. In the colonial period, Muslims were economically marginalised and did not gain much from the modernisation process. "Their hardship was caused by the general decline of feudalism, the decay of traditional crafts, and steady erosion in their landed status. ...Besides, the very basis of landed status was continuously eroded by the rise of the powerful commercial classes (mostly Hindus) who besides achieving status were buying up their land" (Hasan 1982: 29-30). In independent India, many of the privileges that Muslims had benefited from during the colonial period, including separate electorates, reservation in services and weightage for both employment and election, were dismantled (Engineer 1984b: 753). There were deliberate efforts by the administration to displace Muslims from opportunities that were available in i- ndependent India. M S Sathyu's film Garm Hava (Scorching Wind) shows how the economic and social conditions of a Muslim family deteriorate in independent India following Partition. Cultural
elements of the Muslims also do not get much recognition; for instance, Urdu is spoken in many states but it is not an official language in any state (Engineer 1984b). Nevertheless, Muslims are still considered the most powerful opponents of Hindus and a "fifth column" in the Indian nation. This image of the powerful opponent is drawn from various developments in the political and economic spheres in post-Independence India. In independent India, the slow rate of growth and of economic development, along with the political mobilisation of communities, has been seen as reasons for communalism. Muslim communalism has been on the decline since the Partition (Ram 1996). In the contemporary phase, communal politics has increased in leaps and bounds and poses challenges to constitutional provisions; for example, the demand for the a- bolition of Muslim Personal Law or Article 370 on Jammu and Kashmir. There are interconnected issues around which commu- nalism has developed. The rise in the economic power of the Muslim community due to migration to Arabian Gulf countries, mobilisation by political parties, and a new political leadership among Muslims are a few other reasons around which communalism has grown in contemporary India. The Muslims felt alienated and insecure after a chain of riots broke out in the 1960s. The Majlis-e-Mushawarat, a consultative body of various Muslim groups and political parties, began a debate about the plight of Muslims in independent India but could not succeed in bringing peace (Engineer 1992). Regional parties such as the Majilis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen (MIM), founded in 1 927, were propagating the idea of an Islamic polity in the wake of the frightening prospect of a Hindu upheaval and majority rule. During the integration of Hyderabad into the Indian Union, the Razakars played an aggressive role, committing arson and loot against Hindus, which fed the aggressive politics of the Sangh parivar8 (Bakshi 1984). The Muslim community, virtually
leaderless till the 1 960s, saw the emergence of a few aggressive leaders in the early 1980s, such as Syed Shahabuddin and Salman Khurshid, after the Moradabad riot of 1980 and the Biharsharif violence of 1981. From the 1980s Syed Shahabuddin achieved prominence in the early 1980s when he made a few aggressive statements on the Bihar Sharif riots and also on the issue of conversion of dalits to Islam, popularly known as the Meenakshipuram conversions (Engineer 1992). The Meenakshipuram issue was highly politicised by the Sangh parivar. "It was this leadership which led two major movements, that is, the Shah Bano case and the Babri Masjid movement in an aggressive manner which made the average Hindu hostile towards Muslims. The aggressive stance assumed by the new Muslim leadership had a very adverse effect on the Hindu psyche" (Engineer 1992: 1784). Issues such as marriages between a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy could become highly politicised. The impetus for such politicisation is derived from debates on demographic quotients, which first emerged during colonial rule. The issues of refugees who came from erstwhile East Pakistan and the plight faced by Hindus in Islamic countries was enough for the Sangh parivar to unleash a renewed movement against Muslims in India. Irrespective of nation state boundaries, religion has the power to forge associations on a wide scale. Transnational connections and affiliations came to the fore when Buddha statues were desecrated in Afghanistan. This gave another reason to the Hindu communalist to assault Muslims in India. Similarly, after the destruction of the Babri Masjid, the RSS mouthpiece, Organiser, published a photograph of the Pakistan flag flying at half mast at the High Commission in Delhi (Raychaudhari 2000: 262). "On this reasoning, transnational affinities of Christians and Muslims were supposed to dilute their
loyalty to the country. The Sikh urge for a distinct identity and some of its militant manifestations arouse similar apprehensions of Hindus about the patriotic credentials of the community" (Puri 1 987: 1133). So, the range of issues and the extent of the issues stretch not only back into history but also across national boundaries. Several scholars argue that political mobilisation and vote-bank politics are the primary bases on which communalism has grown in independent India. It is said that the Muslim vote block has been opportunistically used by almost all political parties. The aggressive stances of the Sangh parivar have also compelled Muslims to vote en masse. Their underrepresentation in politics and insecurities are a few reasons for their voting behaviour. Lieten (1994) studied voting behaviour in Uttar Pradesh that rotates around casteism and communalism. Similarly, Chhachhi and others look at fascist Hindutva and its implications and expose two aspects — secular farce and vote-bank politics (1 993: 778). Like Ahmad (1 969), Wilkinson (2004) also finds the cause of communal tension in the policies adopted by many political parties. Desai (1984) and Khatkhate (1990) find that the Congress is to blame for communal movements and argue that it has betrayed secularism. The numerical strength of the Muslim population gained further political significance from the early 1980s onwards. Political parties tried to capture this vote block and conceded religious demands such as preserving Muslim Personal Law. The failure of the democratic process and the politicisation of religion in India have intensified communalism. In the 1980s, the Congress frequently played the "Hindu card" in the states of Punjab, Kashmir and elsewhere (in Gujarat, KHAM — kshatriya, harijan, adivasi and Muslim) and communalised "the state apparatus on an unprecedented scale through the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 and the subsequent cover-up of the guilty" (Barsted and Khan
2002: 373; also see Shani 2007). The Anandpur Sahib resolution was the beginning of the communalisation of Punjab. The most remarkable outcome was the publicised willingness of the Congress (l) to constitute a separate Sikh code bill. This would involve amendment to Article 25 of the Constitution (Gupta 1 985: 1187). Oommen (1995) looked at how apart from its unique social structure and geographic composition, the opportunism of major political parties has intensified communalism in Kerala. For Desai (1 984), Hindu communalism does not rest with the RSS and the BJP; leaders from other political parties are profoundly communal and casteist. He finds the source of Hindu communalism to lie in contemporary religious guru organisations. Hindu and Muslim Groups The Sangh parivar and its political branch, the BJP, have been responsible for creating a fanatic political atmosphere since the 1980s. The communal atmosphere changed after the Sangh parivar launched the Ram Janmabhoomi/Babri Masjid movement. This movement had all kinds of support and was not located only in the political realm. Hindus were emotionally charged and wanted to replace the mosque with a Ram temple (Raychaudhuri 2000). Raychaudhuri writes, "The Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi controversy is not a symptom of religious revivalism or any spontaneous resurgence of Hindu concern for the honour of their ancient faith" (2000: 260). It was in effect the successful end result of a sustained organisational and propaganda campaign launched by the Sangh parivar (Raychaudhuri 2000: 260). For the BJP, electoral success is envisaged as the end product of the social acceptance of its cultural and ideological hegemony (Pannikar 1993: 24). Riots in India are often "incited through religious discourses" (Lobo 1995). Or, to quote Nandy (1 995), in using religious symbols, politicians, land developers and bootleggers make "dispassionate use of passions" (quoted in Bock 1997: 18). "The danger of Hindu
communalism is far broader than the influence of the RSS, which no doubt is the arch villain of the piece" (Desai 1984: 1196). The liberalisation of the Indian market, the growth of opportunities and the subsequent growth in the size of the middle class have aggravated the communal situation in contemporary India. The Ram Janmabhoomi movement resulted in a series of communal riots in various parts of India, including Bombay, Surat, Ahmedabad, Kanpur and Delhi. Rajagopal has argued that "Hindu communalism could and did serve... as an ideology reinforcing economic liberalisation and its accompanying consumerist ethos" (1 996: 341). He holds that there was an overlap between the narratives of communal and consumer identity formation. It is not only the Sangh parivar that exploits religious sentiments for political gain and the establishment of cultural hegemony. If the parivar has made its slogan garv se kaho hum Hindu hain (say with pride we are Hindu), Islamic groups have asserted their cultural purity and have appealed to people to go "Back to Islam", the original Islam followed by the Prophet, and in Mecca. Religious sentiments are exploited and the appeal to follow Muslim Personal Law is always made. Madrasas are seen as sources of growing Islamisation. There may be formal schooling in religious texts, and often the maulana and mulla socialise students into Islamic traditions. Islamisation and political communalism is engineered by the religious groups and exploited by the political elites. Within the Muslim community, various orthodox groups such as the Jama'at-e-lslami and Tablighi Jama'at and terrorist outfits such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen invoke different religious interpretations that may or may not have direct political aims. Similarly, for groups such as the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Islam is a complete world view and ideology that governs every aspect of a Muslim's personal as well as collective life. For it, it is not the Constitution of India but Islam
that lays down a complete code of conduct. Unfortunately, its activities stereotype the entire Muslim population in India. As scholars point out, they have also established close links with various Islamist groups in several other countries (Mayaram 2004; Sikand 2001). For them, democracy and secularism are un- Islamic. "In SIMI discourse, Hinduism is painted in the most lurid colours, and as an inveterate foe of Islam and its followers. The only way to salvation, then, is by converting to Islam" (Sikand 2001 : 3804). Communal controversies emerged from the mid-1980s around the issues of Shah Bano, Roop Kunwar, the opening of the lock at Babri Mosque and later its demolition. These controversial decisions of the government did have political ramifications but they were politicised largely on the issues of minority consciousness and pseudo-secularism. A minority consciousness does not emanate only from low numerical strength of a community or the ethnic history of a community. Gupta (1985) drawing from the case of Sikhs during the 1980s, says the new phenomenon of minority consciousness should be read jointly with the alienation of minorities from the contemporary Indian political system and the judiciary. Much of the strength for communalism comes from the idea of minority consciousness. Let us take the case of the Hindus, particularly the upper caste and middle class, and how they are sometimes able to construct themselves as a minority. The development of a minority consciousness within the majority has been a characteristic of several south Asian countries, not only India, in recent times (Pfaff-Czarnecka et al 1999). The reversal of the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Shah Bano increased the minority consciousness among Hindus because there were already problems with a certain percentage of reservation in government jobs for Muslims in Gujarat. This was followed by the Mandal Commission recommendations.
Class and Communal Consciousness Generally, studies on communal consciousness have focused on the elites to point to the source, as it were, of communal consciousness. At the same time, it is generally accepted in the literature that the actual violence is committed by others — the working classes, the slum-dwellers, the lumpenproletariat. This view was to be sharply disturbed when in Gujarat in 2002 there was documented evidence of the middle classes, including women, participating in looting and violence. This will be discussed later. Returning to the point under discussion, we find that the section of the population largely seen to participate in the violence during the colonial period is the working class. The phenomenon of migration and the presence of migrants in riot- prone cities have also been included in analyses of communalism and communal conflict in modern times. Communal consciousness among peasants and agricultural workers has also been explored. This has generally been discussed in relation to land politics. Instances of Hindu-Muslim communalism in north India in the colonial period go back to the early 19th century (Pandey 1983: PE20). The Julaha of Banaras were called "bigots" by Robinson (1974) because many of them were involved in communal clashes that took place in the 19th century in several north Indian towns. Severe dislocations in the social and economic spheres during the colonial period contributed to widespread communal tensions. The subaltern school of scholars began exploring the field of community consciousness and the impact of communal politics on peasants and on workers. These studies are focused, for instance, on millworkers in colonial India who migrated to urban areas for work. Chakrabarty (1981) explains important aspects of politics among peasants and millworkers in Calcutta. Instead of "class consciousness of labour", the worker in the mills
exhibited community consciousness and participated in communal clashes. Upadhyay (1989) looking at the Bombay workers asserts that though workers participated in communal riots, communal consciousness did not develop. For him, participation in communal riots by workers was more about personal rivalries and the desire to settle scores. Ghosh (1990) argues that colonialism was the biggest determinant and the workers in the jute mills displayed two selves — the self of the peasant and the self of the worker — as many migrated from rural Bihar and had close a- ssociations with the middlemen who recruited them — the "Jobbers". Banu (1994) talks about the migration of entrepreneurs and asserts that the decision-making power of migrant entrepreneurs and competition with members of the receiving society can develop into communal animosity. More elaborately, migrant labour participates in communal rioting to settle scores with the local community. Presenting the case of communal violence in Surat, Breman (1993) says it is immigrant labour that is largely responsible for creating violence among Hindus and Muslims. It is observable from the above discussion on communalism and its various trajectories that it emerges from the competition to maximise resources to dominate the other community. Apart from direct sources, there are various indirect sources that communities may take as reasons to claim their own marginalisation, and thereby seek greater assertion or promote conflict. As the literature demonstrates, communalism serves the interests of the dominant classes in various ways. In the colonial period, communalism helped the feudal class and the middle class because it strengthened their position both in the administration and in the polity (Bal 1988). Several scholars have written on how the elite and the middle classes were a contributing factor in communalism in independent India as well. Desai notes, "Hindu
communalism and Muslim communalism, with all their never- ending feuds, meet in pro-imperialism, anti-communism and anti- Sovietism. Further, both of them are defenders of landlordism and free 'enterprise' in India" (1 984: 1196). Chhachhi et al (1993) says that communal violence in India seems to hold in its grip the middle-class Hindu psyche as the Hindus view themselves as the victims of the state, a state which by its policies of "pseudo- secularism" and "appeasement of minorities" has frustrated their genuine aspirations and diminished their position. Similarly, Kothari (2002) writes on the role of the middle classes during the Gujarat riot in 2002 (also see Parthasarathy 2002). In independent India, as mentioned earlier, slow economic growth, scarce opportunities and rising unemployment heightened competition among segments of the petty bourgeoisie. "The urban petty bourgeois — shopkeepers, clerks, lower level professionals and the like — are highly politicised by now and they share the multiple aspirations of their more fortunate fellow citizens" (Raychaudhuri 2000: 271 ). Economic stagnation and rising unemployment heighten competition among segments of the petty bourgeoisie for scarce opportunities and political parties benefit by claiming to represent these interests. The majority community homogenises the socio-economic conditions of the Muslims. For the majority community, the reference point for comparison with their own position is the affluent Muslims who have collected political and economic clout and can compete with Hindus. In such a situation, any attempt by the state to make special provisions for Muslims is seen as Muslim appeasement, pandering to the Muslim vote bank and pseudo-secularism. For Hindus, Muslims are in a better-off condition because there are Muslim entrepreneurs who engage in business with the Gulf countries. Muslim migration to the Gulf countries and remittances make the Hindus more insecure and competitive. For Hindus, what they perceive as the inflow of "Arab
money" is one of the reasons for increased mosque construction and the financing of terrorism in India (Ahmad 1984). The flow of Arab money formed a core issue for Hindus and, accordingly, it was construed that the Muslim Jamaats were well-funded through Arab money (Thapar 1980). Bakshi notes that by the 1970s "a sizeable section of the poor Muslims and Hindus were reaping the benefits of Gulf money. The new wealth brought with it a greater self-confidence and a wish to translate it into other spheres as well such as reaffirmation of their religion through building of mosques and elaborate ceremonies" (1984: 2152). As a result of growing economic muscle, the political asser- tiveness of Muslims increased, which translated into cultural and social visibility and a triumph of their community. The economic changes and thereby political, social and cultural visibility aroused a number of latent fears among Hindus, which were frequently voiced at the time of the Moradabad riots (Ahmad 1984). Hasan (1982: 33) discusses the case of the Muslim businessmen of Moradabad, which was the cause of much antagonism in the city. In the brassware trade, in particular, Muslims received extensive orders from West Asia which provided an impetus to their trade and industry, attracting workers from the neighbouring districts. They now had sufficient capital to purchase sophisticated tools, to own property, to spend on education, and to initiate new ventures. All this generated hostility among Hindu traders who faced the cheerless prospect of losing out to their counterparts among Muslims. The spectre of Muslim dominance, facilitated by Arab money, was raised. Fears were also expressed regarding the creation of a 'Pakistan in the heartland of Rohilkhand'. The leads and lags of communities in the Indian economic system have been seen as part of the reasons for the rise in communalism (Dutta 1972). "The theory of Muslim backwardness... regards communalism as the result of tensions between poor Muslim cultivators and Hindu landlords, or of
competition for government posts between ill-educated Muslims and better-educated Hindus" (Heehs 1997:101). Similarly, Shakir asserts, "The Muslim elite in India has been indulging in the practice of articulating its grievances, for communicating with the Muslim masses, for framing its political strategies and for maintaining a separate political status for the community" (1979: 469). Shakir's observations of political leaders could be correct but the socio-economic condition of Muslims in India is generally poor. The Sachar Committee (2005) makes some important observations on the socio-economic situation of Muslims in contemporary India. Its examination of the social, economic and political place of Muslims in modern India shows that the community is largely backward and deprived in terms of access to education, financial services and resources and employment. Similar observations were made earlier as well, though without the support of the wealth of data the Sachar report provides. For instance, during a convention in 1986 referred to as "The Call", it was emphasised that "there was no inherent resistance to modern education among the Muslims but that severe economic, cultural and social discrimination had crippled the community" (Raman 1987: 175). Nationalisms, Communalisms and Secularisms Is India a secular nation? Can secularism survive in India? Can India grow with secular ideals in the midst of communal and partisan politics? These questions are not new but come to the fore after any communal event. Views abound on the nature, form and credentials of India as a multicultural, secular nation state. However, this debate regarding secularism, nationalism and communalism has, to a large extent, to do with community formations in the colonial period. "Colonialism was the major force in producing religion-inflected nationalism as a form of anti- colonial resistance in colonies" (Needham and Rajan 2007: 7). As has been shown in this paper, one of the principal causes of
communalism lay in colonial policies. However, one also has to look at cultural formations in precolonial and colonial India and their evolution in independent India, as well as the changes in the dynamics of community relations, to find answers for the problem of communalism and its relationship with nationalism and secularism. There are good reasons to argue why communities may have resorted to communalism, how they imagined the nation, why communities believed in the superiority of their form of nationalism, how communal practices effected secular nationalism, and how conflicts between the Hindu Mahasabha, the Muslim League and the Congress resulted in the Partition. In the pre-Independence era, debates on nationalism projected an opposition between the secular nationalism of the INC and the communal practices of the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha. Political groups used "communal" as a negative attribute to malign the practices of other parties. In the process, Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs formed their own communal spaces and contended for self-determination. The Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League mixed their nationalism with communalism. In independent India this debate has expanded and now revolves not only around communal practices but also, critically, the Indian Constitution and practices of secularism. Secular nationalism during the pre-Independence period involved attempts to take up the interests of all communities, while versions of Muslim nationalism or Hindu nationalism were specifically looking out for the interests of their respective communities. Mukhia argues, "The Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha of the pre- Independence India are the king examples of such communal organisations" (1972: 46). The Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha both threatened and hindered the growth of a national movement. "The propaganda of the Muslim League and the Hindu Mahasabha...produced communal feeling and a tendency among the middle class to criticise the Congress for not
supporting the Hindu cause as against the Muslim League" (Pandey 1987: 984). These groups were involved not only in creating schisms in secular nationalism but also in creating cultural nationalisms. The Hindu Mahasabha blamed the Congress for its mild attitude to Muslim aggression and for Muslim appeasement. Singh (1990) argues that nationalism and communalism need not always be considered antithetical, they come together in religious nationalism. For example, the Hindu Mahasabha insisted on the idea of the Hindu Rashtra. Savarkar termed India as Bharat and used the concept of Punyabhumi for the Indian land. Savarkar's and the Sangh parivar's idea of the nation is defined by religion. In the case of Hindu as well as Muslim, communalism and nationalism are same. "Both communalisms started parallel to each other. Both communalisms did begin together, in response to secular nationalism and both hated 'secular nationalism' (Gandhi-Nehru), both boosted each other, both were aloof from the freedom struggle and both created 'fear' of the other, within their own constituency" (Ram 1996: 2266). Three Versions of Nationalism and Secularism This resulted in the emergence of at least three versions of nationalism and secularism. The INC pushed for a secular form of statehood where citizenship would be based on equal representation of all irrespective of social ascriptions. The Hindu Mahasabha visualised a Hindu Rashtra, while the Muslim League advocated the formation of Pakistan (Mahajan 2000). Scholars have argued that these three visions on the nature of the post- Independence state were "primarily reactions to the process of colonisation and desire to be free from alien rule" (Das 2010). But it is necessary to perceive that these visions originated keeping in view the others and to understand what these visions have produced in independent India. Zavos argues that the "development of Hindu nationalism as an ideology needs to be
identified autonomous of Hindu communalism which emerged in the 1920s as a historical condition channelling ideological forces of Hindu nationalism towards particular objectives" (1999: 2269). However, Zavos misses the ideological links of Hindu nationalism to propaganda and movements that began much before the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha were established. "One can very well supplement a big list of Hindu communal actions even before the formation of RSS" (Ram 19962266). The contemporary ideas of Hindu nationalism are not different from the founding ideas of nationalism of the Hindu Mahasabha. In fact, these are supplemented with more additions of a similar kind. Along with this, many other elements have developed. The colonialist construction of history produced Muslims as alien on Indian soil. This vision of the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS was boosted by the Muslim League's demand for a separate state for Muslims and thereby the Partition. The demand for partition and separate statehood made Muslims an enemy of united India orAkhanda Bharat. The separatist image of the Muslims has been reproduced in almost all the propaganda of the Sangh parivar in the post-Independence period. A separate Muslim identity, the apparent "growth" of the Muslim population, and the alleged affiliation of Muslims to west Asia and Pakistan have all become part of the commonsense of Hindu nationalist ideology. Secular nationalism that largely rests on equal rights, citizenship and the separation of the state from religion has been questioned both by academics and political actors in independent India. Communities question the constitutional ideal of secularism. Concessions to minority communities are considered as curbs on the freedoms and rights of the majority community. Partisan politics that began in the late 1960s have produced communal politics. Parties align with particular communities to achieve political power; for example, the Hindu card played by Indira Gandhi, the Hindutva card of the BJP. "Parliamentary parties
have talked of equal respect to all religions, but in practice have fostered communal vote banks of different religions, deepening and expanding communal tension" (Wantoo et al 2002). At the same time, scholars argue that secular nationalism and the idea of democracy have also found acceptance in India (for instance, see Khilnani 1997). As Archer points out, "The anti-secularists are right when they say that India has a political culture which is deeply influenced by religious traditions. But they are wrong when they say that India does not have a secular political culture" (1 999: 891). Communal violence should be understood within the larger context of the struggle and debate over secularism in the postcolonial Indian state (for perspectives on secularism in India, see Bhargava 1998). The Constitution promises that the state shall have no religion of its own. However, in practice, many of the elements of national culture are highly brahminical. Ahmad (1969) asserts that the national culture has a heavy content of Hinduism. "Brahmanical features of Hinduism were deliberately selected, promoted and projected at the national level in a manner that, for all practical purposes, blurs the distinction between Hindu nationalism and Nehruvian secular composite nationalism" (Alam quoted in Singh 2005: 916). One can find that most of the time the nomenclature of tanks and missiles in India has been derived from Hindu gods and symbols — agni, nag, trishul, and so on. This has been in vogue for a very long time in Indian defence policy. Hence, it does not appeal to Muslims. For Ahmad (1 969), "the choice of secularism as a principle of a state policy constituted a radical breach from India's past historical traditions". Dixit questions Ahmad's approach to secularism and calls Muslim non-adherence to secular norms as "Communal Secularism" or "Compartmentalised Secularism" (1969: 1752). When the state accedes to the pressure of minority demands, the majority group feels threatened. At the same time, the idea of
secularism in India involves recognising the religious minorities and allowing them to act according to secular principles in politics and society without giving up their distinct religio-cultural identities. However, the "assimilative", "tolerant" nature of Hinduism creates dilemmas for other communities. Saraswati vandana, lightening of the lamp, classical music, and festivals and celebrations with Hindu elements marginalise the cultural elements of other religious groups. "An emphasis on the adoption of symbols such as Dharma Chakra, popularisation of festivals as Ramlila, broadcasting of Bhajans and devotional songs in the early morning programme of All India Radio, extension of the governmental patronage to the Sadhu Samaj, etc, betray a strong Hindu bias in the approach of the new rulers" (Shakir 1979:471). Singh (2005) discusses Hindi-Hindu biases in the Indian Constitution. He demonstrates flawed aspects of the Constitution such as the insertion of the term Bharat in Article 1, which reflects the power of the Hindutva-minded sections (also see Shakir 1979). Similarly, Article 25 (2) (b) fundamentally undermines the secular character of the state in favour of Hindus.9 Article 48 of the Constitution, part of the Directive Principles of State Policy, enjoins upon the state that it "shall endeavour to organise agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and shall, in particular, take steps for preserving and improving the breeds, and prohibiting the slaughter, of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle". Singh (2005) considers this an unmistakable reflection of the religious preferences and powers of the dominant upper-caste Hindus among the Constitution makers. Articles 343 and 351 urge the state to promote Hindi (of a Sanskritised kind) as the "all-India" language and to strengthen the Hindi language and Devanagari script, which again reflects a Hindi-Hindu bias in the Constitution. Several scholars have discussed how the privileging of Hindi has led to the
marginalisation and inhibition of other languages (Brass 1974; Rai 2000; Singh 2005). On these fronts, minorities feel that the Hindus have been recognised by the state, which empowers them and allows them to hegemonise other groups. While on the practical level, when minorities are recognised and empowered through amendments and verdicts, the majority community looks at it as minority appeasement. Philosophy and Practice of Secularism In the academic sphere, scholars have debated and discussed the complex relationships that emerge in the philosophy and practice of secularism in independent India. Tejani notes that "there are four strands to the debate on secularism in India: classical, soft Hindu position, hard Hindu position and attempts to move beyond the oppositions of religion and secularism in which the current debates have been mired" (2007b: 64). The classical secularists look at secularism more in terms of modernity and the emergence of secularised individuals who would leave aside primordial identities and participate in the modernist project. Jawaharlal Nehru "imposed Enlightenment values in a religious society" (Archer 1999: 889). Similarly, "Akeel Bilgrami calls Nehruvian secularism as 'Archimedean', that is, legislated a priori from above and beyond the sociopolitical fray, rather than the outcome of negotiations and debate within civil society among various religious and other communitarian groups" (Bilgrami quoted in Krishna 2002: 209). The attachment to religious identity and its display in the public sphere make Madan assert that secularism is a social myth (1 987: 749). Madan (1997) has also argued elsewhere that in India a secular state cannot survive because the recognition of secularism as a social and political value is limited. Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhi advocated communal harmony but had ambivalent stands. Tagore in his novel The Home and the World sees the 1906-07 communal riot in East Bengal as the result of "the tragic consequence of Hindu-
dominated movement, and perhaps the immediate cause of the decline of this phase of nationalism" (Chakrabarti 2004:41) but elsewhere in the novel he indicates the role of maulvis in instigating communal schism. He saw the schism as threatening to the national movement. Similarly, Gandhi saw communalism as a threat to the national movement as well as unity. But one can find that the idiom of nationalism for Tagore as well as Gandhi was highly Hinduised, if not brahminical. "Tagore construes a broad national religious ideology with different strands, ranging from utterly individualistic religious experience to broad concepts of unitary Indian nation whose predominant flavour is humanist r- eligious and spiritual" (van Bijlert undated). The problem of secularism and announcements such as "Secularism is Dead" (Nandy 2007) refer both to the philosophy of secularism as well as the gap between its theory and practice. Theoretically, for some, secularism is non-partisan and non- religious, but in actual practice its alignment with communities creates a problem. Puri (1987) says communalism implies identity based on religious community, while secularism makes sense only as an adjective. Thus, for him, all non-religious identities such as nation, region, language, tribe, caste, profession and class are secular identities. However, Puri forgets that none of these sub-national identities are non-religious; for example, languages are attached to religions, such as Urdu-Muslim and Hindi-Hindu. Probably, this acute problem of secularism lies in the difference between theory and practice. In India, secularism is not viewed as a separation of religion and politics but as giving equal status (sarva dharma sambhava) and acting in a non-partisan way (dharmanirapeksha) towards all religions. Bharucha rightly says, "It is now widely accepted that there can be no secularism without a process of secularisation, but the challenge of actualising it through concrete social, political, economic and educational measures is an enormous task" (1994b: 2925).
What should be the language of secularism? Does the idea of the secular recognise the individual or the community? What should be deleted and added so that communities do not feel alienated? How can a secular state be achieved? And, is it even a possibility in India? From a rational-ideal perspective, secularism can be achieved when people leave their "primordial identities" and narrow communitarian groupings and attach themselves to the ideals of the nation. As Dixit (1969) asserts, secularism prevails when people cross the boundaries of the communal and start imagining the nation in non-religious terms and symbols. While such an idea of the nation is not absent, it is seriously contested in contemporary India — in part, the Hindu nationalist allegation of "pseudo-secularism" is a reflection of this. The conceptual framework with which all such groups operate must be seriously questioned (Dixit 1969). It is argued that the intelligentsia, instead of devoting time to the questions of personal laws and interpreting secular elements in religious texts, should have placed an emphasis on a uniform civil code (EPW 1972: 132). "It is not surprising that organisations like Jamaat-e-lslami, the Majlis-e- Mushawarat and the Muslim League oppose such attempts; basically, they are opposed to the very ideas of secularism and democracy" (Shah 1972: 491). It is very difficult to differentiate between communalism, fundamentalism and nationalism. As Pandey (1987) says, Nationalism and communalism have got intertwined in the course of our history and recent debates". Van der Veer argues that communalism and nationalism are radical and moderate tendencies within the same ideology of nationalism (1 994:22-23). For Dipankar Gupta (1 991 fundamentalism is politically salient and socially transmutable and attempts to establish hegemonic control over others, while communalism largely stays in the realm of the political. For him, fundamentalism is more perverse and grander in its ethnic scope. Similarly, for Vanaik, Hindu nationalism is a form of contemporary communalism which is a
"deeper and wider phenomenon" (1997: 204). The only difference may be of intensity and degree; all the three are woven in the same network of meanings and have deeply complicated and intertwined histories. Communal Consciousness, Textbooks, Census and Stereotypes The "communalism virus is injected much more effectively through a distortion of history, philosophy and culture" (Mohd Hasan quoted in Engineer 1984b: 754). Communal consciousness rejects interconnecting links with other communities and pushes forward narrow communitarian bonds. Tapesh Roy Chaudhary (1990) discusses Bengali religious literature — the manga/ kavya (auspicious poetry) between the 1 5th and 18th centuries — and asserts that there were times when Hindu and Muslim literatures rejected each other, but later in the 1 6th century the Hindu perception of Muslims was included as an important element of Bengali society and Muslims accepted Bengali (discussed in Srimanjari 1990: 64). There was, to some extent, a synthesis till the 18th century, which has also been agreed on by the symbiosis theory. Since the colonial period, language and textbooks, particularly history books, have been communalised. The project of history textbook rewriting, that is, the saffronisation of history that was initiated by the BJP, did not begin automatically.10 Such attempts have been made for a very long time. Since the last days of the Raj, both the communities were fighting over their representation in language and textbooks. In 1982, in Malegaon, communal conflict was precipitated around the word palayan (implying desertion or decampment) used in a history textbook in reference to the Prophet. Humiliated by this, Muslims went in a procession but when Hindus refused to close their shops, they were looted (Engineer 1983). However, there are issues involved in building a formal syllabus that systematically deals with communalism without encouraging
particular ideas and communalising education. Vajpeyi (2002) suggests that the content of a syllabus should be made in such a way that it remains of no use for institutions of religious education — mathas, madrasas, or missions — which become the proponents of political ideologies and breeding grounds of communally- minded subjects. Communal-minded groups such as the Tarikh-i- Urdu and the Nagari Pracharini Sabha facilitated the process of community creation through language and education. Such - institutions reproduced communal self-identity through school socialisation and bred communalism. Krishna Kumar (1991) looks at how Hindi and Urdu facilitated the process of community creation in the United Provinces. The use of Urdu and Hindi were essentially for the establishment of Muslim and Hindu identity respectively. Acharya (1989) looks in detail at the relationship between curriculum formation, educational development and communal politics during the 1930s and 1940s through the Bengal Secondary Education Bill, 1940. He finds clear reflections of Hindu moorings and Hindu cultural identity in the discussions over the Bill. Muslims rejected the dobhasi(dual language) literature and refused to accept Sanskritised or Hinduised Bengali. The Hindu bias in the development of language and educational textbooks alienated Muslims. "The Bengali Muslims identified three major problems of education: language problem, problem of religious education and Hindu bias in the system" (1989: PE81). Mihir Bhattacharya takes the example of poor Muslims in Calcutta to explain this phenomenon. "The crisis of Bengali Moslems can be traced back to the 19th century when modern Bengali language, literature and system of education were being shaped by the stalwarts of the caste Hindu community" (quoted in Acharya 1989: PE81). Jeffrey et al (2004) discuss the educational marginalisation of Muslims because of religious communalisation of the formal curricula. Madrasas are seen by Hindu groups as sites of hatred production. However, Alam (2008) stresses that madrasas are internally d-
ivided and each of them is primarily concerned with the ideological reproduction of its ownmas/ak (school of thought). The repulsion between the communities over language and education might be the result of the communalisation of society as a whole during the 19th and 20th centuries. The efforts of nationalists to make Hindi a common language marginalised many other languages. Alok Rai observes that there was a deep terminological confusion about the use of the terms Hindi, Urdu, Khadi Boli, and so on. The question of language was not separate from the question of power. In Bengal, there were the problems of representation of community that got aggravated by developments in the nationalist movement whereby Hindu and Indian became synonymous, and Bengali Muslims gradually took recourse to pan-Islamism. Similarly, a lot of discussion has taken place on 19th and 20th century literature, in particular on Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Anandmath (Sarkar 2003) and on Bhartendu Harishchandra (Dalmia 1999). Pandey (1984) notes that these works comprehended the Hindu-Muslim relation in complex ways. These ranged from a dismissal of the Hindu- Muslim rift as "false consciousness" created by vested political interests (for example, Bhisham Sahni's Tamas) to a belief that historically and culturally the two communities were divided by a gulf that could not be bridged. According to Pandey, "Smriti ka pujari by Premchand has a pronounced bias against Islam" (1984: 1664). The debates on language, education, communalism and power have gathered strength due to recent developments. As Barsted and Khan (2002) assert, an exclusionist interpretation of history was not encouraged till after the BJP came to power; it thereafter tried to stereotype not only Pakistan but also the minorities. In the new history books, Muslims and Christians are shown as "hostile invaders". "The climax of such cultural indoctrination, accelerated in recent years by state patronage and fiat (notably, a 'rewriting' of
school history textbooks), was manifested in Gujarat in early 2002, the one state where the BJP has had an absolute majority for more than a decade" (Sarkar 2005: 307). This competitive communalism is not limited to national boundaries. As Krishna Kumar in his book Mera Desh, Tumhara Desh (in English, Prejudice and Pride) writes, such projections are becoming transnational. In Pakistan, Urdu is seen as a variant of Arabic and as the language of Islam. Similarly, on this side of the border, the BJP proposed to "make Sanskrit, the ancient language of the Vedas, compulsory for every Indian schoolchild" (Carla Power quoted in Brasted and Khan 2002: 375). The colonial enterprise of population enumeration had a far- reaching impact on the development of communal ideologies. In fact, census data is crucial to the construction of communalism. As Bhagat says, "A census is not a passive account of statistical tables, but also engages in re-shaping the world through categories and their definitions" (2001 : 4352). It had a far- reaching impact on the creation of various imaginations — communal, national, caste, gender — as well as several stereotypes about Muslims. Census data has not been an instru- ment just for enumeration, but also for comparison (Appadurai; Cohn; Jones referred in Gupta 2004: 4302). "From the 1870s the decennial census operations reinforced existing social divisions by creating a countable Hindu majority and Muslim minority" (Kooiman 1995: 2123). Since the early 20th century, census data have been immensely politicised. The idea of the demographic decline of Hindus and demographic rise of Muslims is an extremely powerful device employed in communal discourses. In the wake of the fear of a declining Hindu population, a variety of literature was produced around census data in the early 20th century in the form of pamphlets, booklets and newspaper articles. Hinduon ke Saath Viswasghaat(Treachery with Hindus); Hinduon ka Bhayankar Haas (Terrible Mockery of
Hindus); and Humara Bhishan Haas (Our Terrible Mockery) dealt with the declining Hindu population.ll These literatures provided material that fed the construction of a single Hindu identity; for example, U N Mukherji's Hindus— A Dying Race. From such discourses, gendered figures emerged to urge men and women to save the Hindu nation. Such discourses produced several stereotypes about Muslims. Muslim men are represented as lusty, lecherous, seductive rapists, while Muslim women are represented as over-fertile, promiscuous, prostitutes and so on. "The Muslim, in the hate literature circulating around his unclean body, polygamy, and lasciviousness, is often equated with a circumcised penis; indeed, in actual acts of terrorism inflicted on minorities, it provides the ultimate evidence of Muslim identity" (Bharucha 2006:473). The Orientalist construction of India created the figure of the Indian male as effeminate, emasculated, passive and inferior (Banerjee 2005). The census data on the declining Hindu population attested such stereotypes of the Hindu male. The apparitions of the eradication of Hindus and the victory of Muslims, another Partition of India, virile Muslim men, over-fertile Muslim women and so on are located within the discourse of census. "Innocent" Hindu females are seen as being in imminent danger (Gupta 2001) requiring an aggressive Hindu male saviour. As Bacchetta points out, "The counterpart to the chaste Hindu male is the Muslim male polygamist or rapist, and to the chaste motherly Hindu woman is the Muslim woman as prostitute or potential wife" (2004: 101). Viswanathan discusses how the "census reports between 1872 to 1 901 tried to prove that Indian Muslims were not an autonomous 'other' but a version of the Hindu" (2001: 156). The census also allowed the creation of a range of other stereotypes such as dress, food habits, living style, family relationship and bodies. In the images produced on communal harmony, communities are
shown in typical dress such as Muslims in lungi with a cap and fine cut beard, Sikhs with turbans, Christians with neck-ties and Hindu males in dhoti-kurta (Amin 2005; Uberoi 2006). It is thought that Muslims have high fertility because of their food habits. In the Hindu understanding of food, non-vegetarian food istamasic (aphrodisiac), which is also understood as responsible for a high sexual drive. The issue of religious conversion raised by the Arya Samaj and now followed by the Sangh parivar lies in the Hindu fear of numerical decline. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) took a much more militant stance on the issue of Muslim population growth (Mistry 2005). Mistry (2005) argues, indeed, there were forced conversions but these were isolated instances; many of these conversions took place due to the preaching of Sufi saints. The VHP launched an aggressive movement against the conversion of Hindus to Islam in 1981 when a few dalit families converted to Islam in Meenakshipuram. Based on statistical data, various stories are created and popularised. Chowdary (2002) in an article argues that the average number of children of Muslim parents is far greater than that of the Hindus and shows that the proportion of Muslims in India between 1947 and 1991 has gone up from about 7% to more than 12%. The popular slogan Hum do, Hamare do (We Two, Our Two) circulated in the wake of family planning was parodied and rewritten by Hindu communalists asHum Paanch, Hamare Pachees (We Five, Our Twenty-Five) to depict the apparent population explosion of Muslims. Women and Communalism Gender issues in communalism literature have focused on various aspects of patriarchy, nation, community, honour and so on. Writers such as Ismat Chugtai, Amrita Pritam, Krishna Sobti and many others have written of the experiences of women during and after riots. The debate on fictional and non-fictional (here ethnography) writing remains open and could be discussed in
other researches. A detailed discussion on women, Partition violence, patriarchy and the experiences of women can be seen in Veena Das (1 990), Uma Chakravarti and Nandita Haksar (1 987), Gyanendra Pandey (1 991 , 2004), Basu and Jeffery (1 997), Menon and Bhasin (1 998), Chanana (1993), Butalia (1993) and Sarkar and Butalia (1995). Women have been represented as mother, chaste and synonymous with purity in Hindu communal literature. However, in the guise of such representations, they have been treated as objects embodying the honour of community or nation. For the colonial period, connections have been traced between women, domesticity, and a particular understanding of community and nation, a trajectory that has had ominous implications for an understanding of the contemporary politics of religion. We saw above how the census data allowed the construction of a particular understanding of Muslim and Hindu masculinity, femininity and sexuality. Typically, the Hindu nationalist vision has been one of a female nation, the Bharat Mata, protected by a new aggressive Hindu community of males. This patriarchal-militaristic vision feeds, for instance, the BJP's security policy and its efforts to work towards the aggressive nuclearisation of the country's arsenal. Das interrogates the "relationship between cultural patriarchy, its quest for Hindu nationalism and gender and the ways in which patriarchy has both used and (ab)used the images of Hindu women to establish Islam/Pakistan as a threat to the supposedly Hindu India, and justify a nuclear policy for India" (2006: 370). The literature has raised serious questions regarding the insertion and assertion of women in the Hindu right's project of cultural nationalism. The effect of religious fundamentalism on the freedoms of women has also been the focus of sustained analysis (Sarkar 2003; Sarkar and Butalia 1995). In the context of the Shah Bano controversy, a lot of the literature looked at the status
of women and women's rights under Islamic law in the 1980s in India (Z Hasan 1989; Pathak and Sunder Rajan 1989; Engineer 1987a, 1987b). This was certainly a critical moment in Hindu- Muslim relations in the post-Independence period. There was violence over the Shah Bano issue and the BJP raised the question of why the state did not implement the Directive Principle regarding the formulation of a uniform civil code. This posed difficulties for feminists who did not want to be seen to support the Hindu right but who also promoted the idea of the uniform civil code on grounds of gender justice (Agnes 1994). The gendered character of violence has been emphasised in the literature, particularly with regard to Partition violence, as well as in the context of Gujarat in 2002. Sarkar (2002) analyses the "semiotics of terror" in 2002 in Gujarat. She shows how there is a morbid manipulation of bodies in the battle to sacrilege every aspect of difference. In particular, the female body is the site of this sacrilege (2002: 2875-76). As she argues, in the dishonour of women lies the dishonour of the community they come from; the rape of women and the destruction of the vagina and womb signified the destruction of future generations, indeed, the future of Muslims themselves. Anand (2005) has argued that sexual humiliation was not confined to women, but might have also extended to the real and symbolic humiliation of the male body. Verbal reference was often made to Hindu sexual victory over both men and women. As he argues, the Gujarat violence was an exercise in the masculinisation of the Hindus. Hindu men in the rioting mobs exposed their penises to show that they were "real" (not circumcised) men and Narendra Modi was praised as an "As/i mard' (real man) for protecting the honour of Hindus. Robinson (2008, 2010) draws attention to women in the aftermath of violence. The increasing ghettoisation of Muslims confines women survivors and their families to certain spaces and specific
neighbourhoods. Women need to access state support and find new avenues of livelihood to support their families. At this very juncture, they feel the weight of community norms more sharply. The demands of family and community contradict each other, and women have to tread a cautious path to survive and retrieve a life for themselves and their children. State, Civil Society and Communalism The secular credentials of the state come under question when the state itself becomes a perpetrator of violence. Our focus here is on the role of the state in controlling communal violence, especially Hindu-Muslim conflict. How does the state use its instruments and apparatuses to contain the further spread of communal violence? As we have discussed in earlier sections, the role of the state was suspect even in precolonial days. Nevertheless, the nature of the state in independent India and its incumbent responsibilities in securing and protecting the lives of its citizens is different from precolonial as well as colonial India. Scholars have reflected on the partisan/lax role of the state during several communal incidents after Independence (Bhambhari 1990). During the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, the government machinery openly permitted the communal violence. This was not the first time in the history of independent India that the state machinery participated in communal violence. In 1982, during communal violence in Meerut, the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) jawans killed 29 people in Firoze Building (Brass 2004). In certain cases, the state itself represented a community and became involved in communal violence with certain sections of society. In the early 1980s, in Moradabad, the clash began between the PAC and some Muslims, which later included others. In April 1987, more than a dozen incidents of communal violence occurred in Meerut after the opening of the doors of the Babri Mosque for Hindu worship. Again on 23 May
1 987, in Maliana, Meerut the role of the PAC was brutal (EPW 1987). When government functionaries adopt a communal stance, the state is also seen to be biased and partisan. The participation of government functionaries in communal violence renders the minorities more vulnerable. Usually, the police contribute to communal violence by either being directly involved or by showing callousness in taking action against the perpetrators of violence. It has been established by many inquiry reports that the police and the PAC not only aid communal propaganda, but also participate in atrocities against Muslims in many cities; for example, Brass (1997) notes how Muslims are harassed by the police in north India. To combat Sikh communalism in the early 1980s, the state used all of its apparatuses — police, military and even media. "It is no secret that All India Radio and Doordarshan became the mouthpiece of the government during Sikh extremism in Punjab" (Chauhan 1984: 1810). The Sikh demand around the Anandpur Sahib resolution was interpreted as Sikh separatism. It was clubbed with the Khalistan Movement and there was a perception that "India is going for another partition." The assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards garnered a lot of sympathy for the Congress (l). "The volume, consistency and intensity of government misinformation and disinformation on Punjab tightly interwove with the popular perceptions of the Sikhs among the Hindus to give the Congress (I) an unprecedented number of seats in the Lok Sabha elections of 1984" (Gupta 1985: 1188). Similarly, many of the laws on anti-terrorism such as the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987 (TADA) and the Prevention of Terrorism Activities Act, 2002 (POT A) become instruments to prosecute minorities. Minorities are often at the risk of threats, police harassment, unlawful arrest, and encounter- cum-murder. It became common during the 1980s to address a
Sikh as atankvadi (terrorist). Jeffrey et al say, "Muslims...often become prey to flawed police actions such as on 16 Oct 2001 the Bijnor Superintendent of Police instigated police shootings that killed three Muslim young men" (2004: 974). Anti-terrorist laws such as POTA and their misuse by the police force have stereotyped the entire Muslim community as terrorists. Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, has asserted, "All Muslims are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims" (quoted in Bharucha 2006:473). Role of Media Similarly, the print and electronic media play their part in instigating communal violence. Kuldip Nayar calls the media unsecular as religious programmes are aired on Doordarshan and All India Radio. The press and electronic media has been accused by many scholars as lacking objectivity, being value- laden, biased, unethical and prone to false reporting (Engineer 1984b; Srimanjari 1990). The social background of the reporters and writers comes to the fore while reporting any event (Murlidharan 1990); for example, the BJP's position on the Mandal issue was nullified by over-reporting on the mandir issue. There are clear identifications on communal lines of some of the reports and editorials appearing in newspapers such as Jansatta, Navbharat Times and Times of India (Rajendra Sharma quoted in Srimanjari 1990: 70). Media houses are financed by big business groups and they report in a fragmented and distorted manner. Communal groups have their own newspapers and their circulation is often higher than that of major dailies; for example, the Shiv Sena's Saamna. Though there are efforts from civil society members to contain communalism, their role is very limited. For Brass, it is futile to invest resources in promoting civic engagements as they cannot withstand the power of political movements and forces that seek to create communal violence. Rather resources should be used to
uncover communal elements, systems, processes and producers of communal riots. However, for Varshney (2002), even though civil societies fail at times, it does not mean that such societies should not be encouraged. In this context, two opposing views have emerged — instruments of communal peace and instruments of communal conflict. Brass (2003) argues that it is the riot systems in cities that are responsible for spreading and executing communal violence. Contrary to Brass, Varshney argues for the peace system and how its presence in certain towns has helped in controlling communal riots. As we have discussed in previous sections, there have always been cultural exchanges between Hindus and Muslims but these are limited to only a few fields — art, music, architecture and, to an extent, literature and films. Till now, we have seen the failure of secular slogans that try to integrate diverse cultures and people. Slogans such as Ram-Rahim ek hain (Rama and Rahim are one) or Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-Esai, aapas mein sab bhai-bhai (Hindu- Muslim-Sikh-Christian, are together brothers) or Hum Sab Ek Hain (We all are one) have failed to give legitimacy to a national secular culture that integrates all religious groups. Civic engagement groups such as the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust (SAHMAT) have failed to contain communal riots. In fact, these groups are co-opted or sometimes coerced by communal groups as well as the police. As Deshpande (1 996: 1589) narrates about SAHMAT, When SAHMAT decided...to go to Ayodhya and stage an event ...that would seek to highlight and recover the rich syncretic and secular traditions..., it became an event as controversial as it was brilliantly conceived... The Sangh Parivar objected to the exhibition of 'Hum Sab Ayodhya' (We All Ayodhya)... They used every possible method: judicial intervention, parliamentary debate, intimidation, malicious rumour-mongering and physical attack.
An overemphasis on the oneness of religions also does not help, as minorities perceive in this a threat to their identity and tend to reassert it (Puri 1987: 1133). Returning to Varshney's insistence that cities which have civic engagement groups see fewer riots, it appears that his dependence and good faith in civil society stops him from looking at communal phenomena in India. In a normal period (when there is no open conflict), Hindus and Muslims meet and greet each other, visit places, befriend and often eat together. They meet at public places, discuss local and political issues, chew pan, share tea and participate in a number of activities. In many situations, Varshney's "civic engagement" is present. But the moment communal clashes erupt, these civic engagement groups polarise. Further, if we see recent accounts of communal violence in India, it has become more systematic, planned, organised and longer in duration. As Brass argues, most riots are far from random, unplanned and spontaneous events. Taking the case of Meerut, Brass (2004) argues that an Institutionalised Riot System (IRS) has been created since Independence, which activates during elections. The IRS is prepared, calculated, deliberate and rehearsed at times before the actual event. Serious riots occurred in Meerut before Independence (1 939, 1946) and after it (1 961 , 1968, 1973, 1982, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990). Since the 1990s, there has been no serious riot in Meerut but the IRS continues to function and could be activated in future. In contrast to Brass, for Kakar, communal tensions are the reflections of group psychology. "Kakar sees the riot as 'a battle, an outbreak of hostilities in a long simmering war', or as 'the bursting of a boil, the eruption of pus', of 'bad blood' between Hindus and Muslims which has accumulated over a few days or even weeks in a particular location" (quoted in Wirsing 2007: 38). Hindutva's Cultural Politics and Fundamentalism
For the last three decades or so, Hindu communalism has been deepening and growing. In fact, it has transformed into fundamentalism. Since the early 1 980s, various new elements, particularly cultural, are entering into the realm of Hindu communalism, helping in its expansion and legitimisation. The political appeal of the Sangh parivar lies in that it has used all sorts of religious and cultural signs and symbols to reach out to the maximum number of people. The number of seats that the BJP has occupied in the Lok Sabha since the 1980s tells a big part of the story. In 1984 the BJP had two seats in the Lok Sabha; in 1989 it had 85 and two years later it was the main opposition party with 120 seats. By 1996, the BJP could come to power as a minority government, if only for a few days. In 1998, it came to power again with over 1 80 seats, but could not sustain the minority government beyond some months. It finally emerged as the lead- party in the government after the next elections, at the head of an alliance of parties termed the National Democratic Alliance (Robinson 2005: 25). This rise in the number of seats might have fulfilled the political ambitions of the BJP but it also indicates that Hindus voted for the BJP en masse. It is true that the Sangh parivar mobilised people around the Hindutva issue but this was achieved because of certain developments in the so-called secular sphere during the 1980s. Hindus, particularly the upper castes, were estranged by the developments taking place in the political sphere. One may say that the decade of the 1980s was a critical period for the development of Hindu fundamentalism. In the early years of the 1980s, as we have discussed, communal violence in various north Indian towns erupted because of the growing political and economic power of the Muslims. During the same time, the inflow of Arab money was seen as financing Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. The Congress government was
accused of appeasing Muslims. The question of the uniform civil code came up when orthodox Muslims put pressure on the government to revert the Supreme Court verdict in the Shah Bano case. Policies for minorities and verdicts, such as in the case of Shah Bano, were seen as "pseudo-secularism" From 1986, the Sangh parivar took its aggressive agenda of a Hindu Rashtra through the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign, leading to the demolition of the Babri Mosque and post-demolition communal violence in various towns (Raychaudhari 2000). The assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, the emergence of Sikh "terrorism" and their demand for Khalistan was seen as another partition of India. The adoption of the Mandal Commission recommendations threatened the domination of Hindus. These events, needless to say, were empowering communities other than the upper castes. These developments compounded the apprehension among Hindus of a possible decline of Hindu hegemony in India. In a letter to the Economic & Political Weekly on 13 April 1991 , S Amre asks, "What type of democratic polity is it where the majority has always to pamper the others? Instead of spewing venom against the Hindu ethos it would be better to pose the problem and think about where we have gone wrong." Anand asserts, "Their [BJP] rhetoric of democracy, rights and nation is based on a simplistic majoritarian principle and runs along the following lines: since Hindus are the majority, it is 'natural' and 'democratic' that their 'rights' should be promoted by the Indian state which hitherto has been 'pseudo-secular' because of its appeasement of minorities" (2005: 204). The obvious reaction was to launch an aggressive assault on all other communities. The minorities were challenging the building of a pan-Hindu culture and there was conflict with Christians in Kerala and Sikhs in Punjab. The Sikh massacre of 1984 or the turning of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), scheduled castes
and scheduled tribes against Muslims in the Ahmedabad riot of 1985 can be seen as an expression of the uneasiness of the upper castes. The balance was sought to be retrieved by waging war against the minority community and weaker sections. In between, a few other developments facilitated the spread of Hindutva ideology more aggressively. The opening of the Babri Masjid for puja was a seen a victory of the Hindutva forces. The spirit of the Hindutva ideologues was high and it was further boosted by the serialisation of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana. Its impact was so deep that everyday greetings such as "hello" and "namaste" were replaced by "Jai Shri Ram". As Pannikar (1993) points out, culture is crucial for Hindu communalism both as a means for mobilisation and as central to its political goal. Hindu communalism has experimented with many cultural symbols drawn from the Hindu religion and tradition. Raychaudhari (2000) says that the core doctrine of the RSS movement today can be summed up succinctly in the slogan the cadres shout every morning at the shakha (branch) meetings, "Hindustan Hindu ka, nahin kisi ke baap ka" (Hindustan belongs to the Hindus, not to anybody else's father). Around the late 1980s, BJP leader L K Advani began his rath yatra to mobilise people around the Ram Janmabhoomi issue and various slogans were floated publicly — Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan; garv se kaho hum Hindu hain; Ram/a/a hum aayenge, mandir wahin banaenge; tel laga 10 dabur ka, naam mita do Babar ka. A year before the demolition of the disputed mosque some kar sevaks were shot dead in Ayodhya. The anger of people resulted in the formation of the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh and the demolition of the Babri Mosque on 6 December 1992. The Bombay riot of 1993 and Godhra pogrom of 2002 are examples of how violence was calculatedly performed, justified and legitimised. The Gujarat state government supported the rioters
and the police and paramilitary forces allowed the rioters to act out their vengeance on Muslims, especially Muslim women. There was this pregnant woman. I slit her open, sisterf**r, showed them what's what, what kind of revenge we can take if our people are killed. I am not a feeble vegetarian. We didn't spare anyone. They shouldn't even be allowed to breed. I say that even today. Whoever they are — women, children, whoever — nothing to be done to them but cut them down, thrash them, slash them, burn the bastards (Tejpal 2007 quoted in Murphy 201 0: 89). Tambiah (1997) visualised the Ayodhya dispute as an extremely condensed symbol of a range of criticisms and complaints held against the Congress by those out of power or in the opposition. The temple issue is for him the main dispute in the 1990s but it is also "an immense umbrella" that covers many other matters. It was the upper castes and middle class who supported the BJP's propaganda. From various figures released by government agencies and researches, upper-caste Hindus hold power at all levels — bureaucratic, administrative and economic. The aspiration for a party of their own was fulfilled by electing BJP governments in various states and at the centre. Let us see the events of this period from a different angle. The events of the 1980s — affirmative action, rising political and economic power of Muslims, and secessionist movements in Assam, Punjab and Kashmir — were perceived as an attack on the domination of the upper castes. These were an attack on the ability of the upper castes to dictate to others. In Varshney's (2002: 30) terms, "An increase in the rights and power of one group often means a diminution in the ability of some other group or groups to dictate terms, or it may mean a sharing of power and status between groups where no such sharing earlier existed". During the same period, the economy was opening up, which created various opportunities for the dominant classes and
castes. A gift of this economic shift to the Hindutva movement was technology, which changed the entire game of violence. Technology was used to mobilise people around the Ayodhya issue. Though banned, audio cassettes of Sadhvi Rithambara's speeches played all around in north Indian Hindu homes. Similarly, the transmission ofRamayana on national television was "more than accomplishing merely any mechanical function of transmission" (Rajagopal 1996: 341). Since 1991 , government control over the broadcast of programmes has diminished and there has been a rapid expansion of independent satellite channels (Mehta 2008). "Much like India's 'newspaper revolution' (Jeffrey 2003: xi) that started in the 1970s, and the 'cassette culture' (Manuel 2001) of the 1980s, the availability of privately produced satellite television has meant that people discovered new ways to think about themselves and to participate in politics that would have been unthinkable a generation before" (Mehta 2008: 2). "The broadcast of the Hindu epic in serial form across the country suddenly made Hindu gods, Hindu symbols and Hindu values and beliefs available, accessible and legitimate. Where there had once been a veil over the public discussion of religion, now Hinduism was out there in the public space" (Upadhyay and Robinson 2011: 159- 79). In the past, the spread of communal ideologies had a more intermittent and sporadic quality; riots erupted and ebbed. The packaging of ideology through modern systems of communication and technology (audio cassettes, video cassettes, compact discs) and their more continuous spread through television and media and through public celebrations and speeches has altered its reach exponentially. The work of communal organisations has spread and become more continuous and sustained. It is often fed by funds from particular communities of NRI Hindus (Robinson 2005: 21-22).
The Hindutva movement has spread exponentially in the last two decades. Marginalised groups such as the tribals have also been involved in communal riots. Lobo (2002) reports that most of the tribals in south Gujarat who have been Hinduised are now being Hindutvised. For him, Hinduisation is a natural process of acculturation, while Hindutvisation is the spread of the ideology of political Hindutva. Lobo (1990) records that as a result of Hindutvisation, communal conflicts were first recorded in Dediapada and Sagbara of Bharuch district in 1990. Before the 1990s, there were a few attacks on Christians in India. With the success of Hindutva forces in many quarters, many more attacks on Christians have also been waged. "An Australian born Christian missionary Graham Staines was burnt alive along with his two children. Dara Singh, a VHP activist, took a leading role in this ghastly killing" (Engineer 2000: 245). Most of the attacks on adivasi Christians are being perpetrated because of the perceived process of forced conversion to Christianity. "Conversions are not the only response of backward-class Hindus to exploitation; the strengthening of religious identity, according to one view, is a defense mechanism" (Bakshi 1984: 2153). Though religious conversions have their own complexities, the Sangh parivar despises conversion and looks at it as a foreign conspiracy to weaken Hinduism and India. "During 1997-1999 the Sangh Parivar relentlessly perpetrated atrocities on adivasi Christians of South Gujarat. Atrocities, such as burning of churches, prayer halls, beating up adivasi Christians, performing forcible shuddhikaran (purification) ceremony and other forms of harassments, are documented" (Lobo 2002: 182 ff). Similarly, the activities of the Sangh parivar are not limited to urban areas. They reach into the rural and tribal belts as well (Froerer 2005, 2007). The role of women in the Sangh parivar has increased now. They are responsible for organising Hindu women and spreading the ideology of the parivar (Menon 2011). During the Gujarat pogrom
of 2002, women participated in the violence by pelting stones and were involved in loot and arson (Parthasarathy 2002). Appropriating Local Heroes Local histories are transformed and dalits are mobilised by Hindu communal forces. The Sangh parivar has appropriated local heroes into its communal political agenda. The agenda of such communalisation is to mobilise the dalit vote bank. But more than that, it is to create stereotypes and enlarge the ambit of Hindu history. In a telling story of one such attempt, Badri Narayan (2006) narrates how a folk story of a fictional Pasi king, Maharaj Suhaldev, and his conflict with Gazi Mian (Salar Masood) has been used by Hindu communal forces. He says that Gazi Mian is referred to as an invader, while Suhaldev is a dharmarakshak. The Hindu political groups as well as non-political groups commemorate, memorialise, build statues, organise festivals and create history around such local heroes to co-opt dalits to their political agenda. This enters into the psyche of the community and becomes a part of its identity, leading to further communalisation (Narayan 2006). However, this is not a new phenomenon in the Hindutva political agenda. In colonial times, as Das (1990) discusses, the Mehtar and Domes were communalised by Hindu forces. Gooptu (2001 ) also argues that shudras (in the early 20th century) adopted a politics of militant Hinduism not because of any powerful commitment to a religious identity, but in their quest to carve out a more prominent position for themselves in urban society (Gooptu cited in Tejani 2007a: 238). Islamic groups and Christian missionaries are staunchly opposed by the Hindu communalists. One might ask: why has the Indian state failed to manage Hindu fundamentalism even though it is more widespread than Islamic fundamentalism? Alam (2007) says that India has not witnessed large-scale Islamic militancy despite internal and external
conditions that are conducive to it. Nevertheless, even if Islamic militancy is located in certain regions, the mere existence of such groups is enough for the Hindutva forces to vilify Islam. Similarly, aggressive religious conversion of adivasis by some Christian missionaries is a problem for the Sangh parivar. The aggressive stance of the Sangh parivar largely goes unquestioned and contributes to the increasing sense of insecurity among the minorities. More dangerous than the fundamentalist stance of the Sangh parivar, perhaps, is the slow, unquestioned circulation of Hinduised values and culture at the grass-roots level. The minorities' feelings of alienation are located in the frequent and widespread use of Hindu rituals in public spaces. Brahminical cultural elements are appropriated, transformed, transported and performed at most public functions. Classical music, dances and various sectarian philosophies are sought to be fused under the banner of a unified Hinduism. Similarly, the antiquity of science, mathematics, astronomy and spirituality is circulated without any hindrance. In all this, the minority cultural elements remain unrecognised as an "impure" form of culture. Bharucha (1994a: 1 10) writes about the flashing of 0m on the television screen, "l realised the power of the symbol, the power of the appropriation of the symbol and its conversion into a political sign, and the need to reappropriate that sign and endow it with a new meaning" For a long time, various inquiry commissions have been reporting the role of the Sangh parivar in communal violence; for instance, the report of the enquiry into the Tellicherry disturbances (1 971 ). "At least three commissions of inquiry — Reddy, Vythayathil and Venugopal — have found RSS inspiration behind anti-Muslim and anti-Christian riots, not so much as direct cadre participation, but through long-term and sustained communal propaganda" (Basu quoted in Ram 1996: 2266). Similarly, the National Human Rights Commission, National Minorities Commission and human rights
groups have highlighted the role of the RSS and its affiliates in anti-Christian violence (Ram 1999). The Vohra Committee Report tells us of the smuggler-bureaucrat-politician nexus in the wake of the Bombay blasts (Gupta 2001 ). The report of the Srikrishna Commission has not being implemented, though it indicts the right-wing communal parties in Bombay for perpetrating communal riots. In Conclusion The trends in the writing on communalism and ethnic violence have seen considerable shifts since the early period after Independence. If the first decades after Partition were relatively peaceful, this was also a period in which Partition itself was not ever discussed. The writings on communalism followed broadly Marxist, essentialist or instrumentalist perspectives. There was a lot of description of violent events, though almost nothing on the slow reconstruction of lives in the aftermath of violence. It is not surprising that after the 1980s with the rise of Hindu nationalism, the trend of writing on religion has been perceptively different. India and south Asia, in general, have seen very high levels of ethnic violence in recent decades. In India, collective violence has had its greatest impact on the minorities (particularly Sikhs and Muslims) in terms of lives and property lost. The curve of communal violence took an upward turn from the close of the 1970s onwards. More areas of the country began to see violence in the 1980s, including those that were earlier unaffected. Further, each spell of collective violence only confirmed the greater degree of organisation and planning that went into its creation and management. In the 1980s to 1990s, Hindu-Muslim hostility and collective violence began to take political centre stage. Against the backdrop of the growing forces of Hindu nationalism focusing particularly on the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi issue, attacks
on Muslims increased in ferocity and scale. The soaring violence of the 1980s and 1990s had particular features. As the literature began to point out, such violence was characterised by carefully executed attacks against Muslims that took place across different states, and involved increasingly heavier losses to Muslim life and property. Violence was preceded or sustained by vicious propaganda communicated through public speeches, audio and videotapes, pamphlets, leaflets and graffiti. The concerns of the previous two decades were emphasised again from 2002 onwards, particularly in the context of the Gujarat violence. The literature took up with increasing urgency the questions of religious and ethnic conflict, the role of the state, the relationship between "minority" and "majority" and between "globalisation" and religious fundamentalism, the place of secularism and other related themes. However, particular distinct areas of research have also now been carved out. Some of these relate to a specific focus on Muslims, an increased interest in the developmental profiles of different religious communities and a deeper attention to the micro-level processes of dislocation and disruption that affect men and women as a result of religious violence and strife. Through the voices and memories of individual subjects, the violence of Partition itself has begun to be more carefully explored, for its impact on self, family and community. The politics of the Hindu right and the use of Gujarat as a "laboratory" in which to experiment with the makings of a Hindu Rashtra have been examined in the literature. Social scientists have begun to mark and to understand the brutal and tragic reorganisations of the gendered self, the community, the material world and social and physical space that are the outcome of "communal" riots and other forms of violent group engagements. Scholars speak of the "vocabulary" of violence ritualised in humiliating attacks on body, property, place of worship and even
monuments. Thus, Gujarat 2002 remains a defining moment for any understanding of communal violence and minorities in contemporary India. Notes 1 On the other hand, scholars such as Robinson (2005) and Varshney (2002) now employ the more neutral and established sociological concept of the "ethnic". It could also be looked as an ethnocentrism based on an exclusive community identity, which is totalising and eventually finds expression is many kinds of antagonisms. See Pandey (1990) for how "communalism" was constructed by colonial authors to describe what in other parts of the world was seen as ethnic discontent. However, since a lot of the literature continues to employ the term communalism, we follow the practice in this article. 2 Heehs (1997) draws attention to the issue and calls for an interdisciplinary approach to reflect on communalism in India. 3 In most of the works, as has been remarked on above, communalism has been associated with religious communities. One influential author is Dumont (1970). 4 Varshney (2002) uses these four theoretical strands for understanding the debates around ethnic conflict. 5 See Sumit Sarkar's discussion on the Swadeshi Movement of 1905 and Shubnum Tejani's on the Government of India Act of 1909. 6 Most of the parts on Sikh communalism in this paper have been adopted from S S Bal (1988). 7 For views of Muslim leaders on Muslim cultural identity and its preservation, see A G Noorani (1 967), S Abid Hussain (1978).
8 Sangh parivar is a term commonly used to denote all the groups such as the BJP, the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, which together espouse the ideology of Hindu nationalism. 9 Article 25 Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion (1) Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. (2) Nothing in this article shall affect the operation of any existing law or prevent the State from making any law (a) regulating or restricting any economic, financial, political or other secular activity which may be associated with religious practice; (b) providing for social welfare and reform or the throwing open of Hindu religious institutions of a public character to all classes and sections of Hindus Explanation I The wearing and carrying of kirpans shall be deemed to be included in the profession of the Sikh religion Explanation Il in sub clause (b) of clause reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religion, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly.

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