Question

What is communalism? What from can it take in politics?

Answer 1

Communalism is a political philosophy which advocates followers of a particular religion to have political allegiance to their own religious community. But, in the context of Indian sub-continent, the term communalism is associated with tensions between various religious communities.

There are many different forms of communalism in politics and they are as follows:

1. The common form of communalism are practiced on everyday customarily beliefs. It can be in the form of religious prejudices, stereotypes of religions communities, supremacy of one religion over the other religions. These beliefs are so common that we often fail to detect even when we believe in it.

2. It leads to a search for political dominance of religious community over others. It takes the form of majoritarian dominance for majority community, for minority community, it can take form of a desire to form a separate political unit.

3. The most frequent form of communalism is political enlistment on the religious guidelines. It involves the usage of sacred symbols, religions leaders, emotional appeal and creating fear in order to accumulate followers of one religious community in the political arena. It is materialized to gain advantage in electoral politics.

4. It often takes the form of communal violence, riots and massacre.