Communalism

The word communalism originated from the word “community”, which simply denotes a group of people organized along some common social markers with a certain degree of identity transferred into a sense of “wefeeling”. In this sense, social groupings along various social ascriptions and affiliations, such as caste groups, linguistic groups, sects and cults are also communities. However, in the South-Asian context, communalism manifests a consciously-shared religious heritage which becomes the dominant form of identity for a given segment of society. This narrowing of communalism to apply only to religious communities has been 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.

In this context, communalism is essentially an ideology which consists of interplay of three paradigms:

• It is the belief that people who follow the same religion have common secular interests, which is a common political, economic, social and cultural interest. These religious units are seen as the fundamental units of Indian society.
• Secular interests of one community are divergent and dissimilar to the interests of the followers of the community. The second stage is called liberal communalism. The liberal communalist was basically a believer in and practitioner of communal politics; but he still upheld certain liberal, democratic and nationalist values.
• The interests of different communities are seen as mutually incompatible, antagonistic and hostile

Historical account

Pre colonial

• In the pre-colonial period, consciousness of distinctness was limited, as the identities were apparent bond.
• Religious perception and hostilities were localized.
• As the means of communication were limited, the extension of the idea of homogeneous religious consciousness and its politicisation were limited. 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.
• As the concept of state was not crystalized, varieties of differences between groups of people, has the scope for confrontation as well as negotiation. Most of the times this resulted in assimilation of different ideologies.
• There were clashes, though sporadic, between cultic and sectarian groups in the precolonial period. There were at least two spheres of conflict in the precolonial period:
  • Conflict over political supremacy; and
  • Conflicts over the assertion of doctrinal and sectarian supremacy.

This sphere of conflict can be attributed to hegemonic condition, hegemony was both a matter of ideology as well as material gain”. This explains the tendency of large-scale violence in territorial conquest by the pre-colonial rulers.

Colonial Era

Crystallization of religious identities took place around specific issues and occasions at the local level in colonial India. This was further accentuated by British policy and with changing condition in socio-economic order. 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 classprimarily composed of upper-caste Hindus was emerging during this period and had its own stake in strengthening the British administration.

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.

British Policy: Divide and Rule

As is well known, British administration was interested in exploitation of India and not in its welfare. Reaction to this was emergence and growth of nationalism posing serious threat to continuation of colonial rule. The British, therefore, nurtured and promoted religious differences. They first projected social and cultural variations and then promoted political divisions by playing up rival social, economic and political claims of Hindus, Muslims, tribals and lower castes, (e.g. Partition of Bengal by Viceroy Curzon).

For the first time, explicit articulation of communal ideology surfaced during passage of Morley Minto reforms in 1909. It granted sanction to the idea of communal electorates. It implied that political interests which are secular interests of Hindus and Muslims differed and are shaped by respective religious beliefs. Apart from these communal award, recognition of communal demands etc., can be taken as examples of this policy.

The secular resource character of communalism:

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. 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. Consequently, a new class – the educated middle class – primarily composed of upper-caste Hindus emerged during this period and had its own stake in strengthening the British administration. By the end of the 19th century, the Hindu elites consolidated their position while Muslims became marginalised and the Muslim threat to British power completely faded. To overcome this, with the formation of Muslim League, a new identity among Muslim emerged, which was pitted against Hindu for electoral and secular gains.

Indian Freedom Struggle

Unfortunately nationalism and national movement could not counter the British policy of divide and rule. Rather, in some ways it also became instrumental, though unconsciously, in consolidation of communal identities by adopting methods for mobilizing people. For example:

1. The Ganapati festival started by Tilak to mobilize masses against the colonial rulers was not intended against Muslims. But they alienated themselves as Muslims could not take an active part in these festivals.
2. Khilafat Movement, in an attempt for Hindu-Muslim unity, indirectly encouraged communalism. However, Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha remained weak organizationally till 1936. In 1937 elections, Muslim League performed poorly. It was only after 1942 that Muslim League emerged as a strong political party.
3. The national leaders adopted the policy of bringing unity from above. In issues concerning religion, only the top leaders were consulted who were not necessarily representatives of communities.
4. National leaders thought every community in India was homogenous and well-knit and the communal leadership was the authentic one.
5. Masses were never taken into confidence. This encouraged communal leaders to keep their communities in belligerent mood and use it to protect their own vested interests.

Therefore, both the policies of British colonial administration and failure of national movement to counter that on a firm social and secular basis helped consolidation of communal identities. Two nation theory and Partition of India were the consequences.

Reasons for Continuance

Communalism in the Post-Independence Period:

The roots of communalism deepened in contemporary political and economic structures, as most of the Muslims were marginalized, owing to mass scale poverty and illiteracy prevalent among Muslims which caused secular conflict over resources. However, it is clear that in independent India, communalism draws energy not merely from religious sources, but from every aspect of social living, manifested in the fact that generally the site of communal violence had high economic participation by Muslim population. Further, the slow rate of growth and of economic development, along with the political mobilization of communities, also contributed to growth of communalism.

At the time of independence the prevailing atmosphere was of insecurity which further narrowed the sectarian loyalties and identities. Framers of the constitution rightly decided India to establish as a secular State for the unity and integrity of the country , giving sense of security to all its citizens. It was expected that secular democratic set up of government and people would get involved in economic development collectively, thereby building a new Indian society. What was expected was a new political culture based on full respect for human liberty, justice and equality. The Constitution of India, gives certain Fundamental Rights to the citizens (i.e. individuals). But in case of minorities, the whole community has been given Fundamental Rights under Article 28, 29 and 30, according to which they are free to manage their educational institutions and have right to conserve their own culture. But these rights are being used, above the individual rights by the personal law boards guided by their own community laws. As it was seen in Shah Bano case.

There is also resentment against such personal laws and clamour is increasing for Uniform civil code, which is also mentioned under Article 44 in Directive principle for state’s policies of Indian constitution. This will help in narrowing the religious cleavages.

In absence of a Uniform civil code, there is a perception that all communities have divergent and contradictory interests. Consequently, community based pressure groups bargain for their own community. At political level these communities compete for power and resources. This competition, in turn, escalates to major conflicts. Politicians try to turn these communities into vote banks and different communities become watertight compartments.

Since Independence, India has been pursuing the ideal of nation-building based on secularism. Even after 70 years of independence, India is still burning under the fire of communalism. Though, there are various reasons responsible for this. Few of them have been discussed here, understanding the reasons which play role in continuation of communalism are: first one is religious, and the second one is political. Third one is socio-economic and the fourth one is international.

Politics of Religion

Religion continued to dominate the life and identity of the people even with the onset of Democracy, it is often argued that secularisation leads to democratization. However, in Indian sceniro the flaw was that India had democratization without secularization. Unfortunately this didn’t happen in India because:

• Political parties rather than strengthening democratic traditions of competing on the basis of programs and policies, resorting to Vote banks’ as easier way to mobilize people.
• Failure of planning, to fulfill socio-economic aspirations, alienated the people from the system. Political parties exploited this sense of alienation. Consequently, the use of religion in electoral politics and in nomination of candidates and campaigning accentuated the process of communalism.
• Although constitutional framework provides strong basis for the separation of democracy and religion, the actual practice revealed that political parties and government functionaries have not internalized the constitutional framework.
• Religious rituals are being used at State functions.
• Communal call given by a leadership also accelerates the process of polarization and increases potency for communal riots.

Failure of State Machinery

Below are the reasons for failure of state to contain spread of communal violence and furthering of communalism.

• The role of police is to arrest trouble makers, protect public property, prevent spread of rumors, and maintaining law and order. However, they can not perform role of enforcing law and order without active cooperation of politicians, bureaucrats, judiciary and people at large. People have minimal confidence in police.
• Communal and quasi-communal groups exploited the legal loopholes to emerge as political organizations. Inadequate powers with the Election Commission to curb them.
• Failure of the State to consolidate secularism and formulate policies of multiculturalism required in plural society.
• Delay in justice to victims in communal riots.
• Inept functioning of intelligence agencies.
• The press and media also sometimes contribute.

Economic Factor

Sense of relative deprivation is a cause behind the discontent. The economic substructure shapes the religious superstructure.

• Five Year Planning was introduced to maintain a balanced development. But the planning could not achieve the desired goals as a whole. As resources were limited, there emerged a competition for limited resources.
• Educated unemployed or underemployed youth, full of energy to act is particularly targeted to keep them busy based on and as diversion tactic. It is not coincidence that the decades of 1980s and 1990s have also been worst in terms of communal violence.
• Given the ubiquitous poverty in India, ruling classes found religion and religiosity most useful to reinforce their hegemony and social control.
• Non-expansion of economy, competitive market, nonabsorption of workers are contributing factors.
• Social dynamics of living in clusters, ghettoes prove conducive to the riot-prone situation. Ghettoisation and refugee problem is the other dimension of communalism induced violence, whether its inter country or intra country. Sudden increase in violence against any particular community causes mass exodus and which in turn kills number of people. For example, this was seen in the case of Bangalore in 2012, with respect to people from North eastern states, which was stimulated by a rumour.

Economic development and political stability contribute to the improvement of the communal situations.

Global Effect

State sponsored terrorism, clash of civilization induced communalism:

• State sponsored terrorism and fundamentalism are used as tools to further the interests in international politics. Issues of Kashmir, Palestine, Rohingya have ramifications across the world. Training and financial support from other countries to weaken India support to communal organizations.
• The American political scientist Samuel P. Hutington argued that post-Cold War, wars would be fought between cultural and religious identities. Thus communalism will be one of the aspect shaping the world politics. In this era of Globalisation, with spread of mass media and social media, no community can remain aloof from the contours of the global politics.

External Elements

External Elements have a role in worsening the problem of communalism, and making it serious. The main reasons for involvement of external elements or their role in riots are as follows:

• To create an atmosphere of instability, so that it becomes socially weak;
• To hope for gaining sympathy from minorities;
• To try to weaken the economic structure of a foreign country; and
• With the aim to conceal their own incompetence.

Contemporary Communalism

Contemporary communalism operates within the framework of an enhanced desire of majority communalism to control and manipulate the leverage of state power. This form of communalism became prominent in the 1990s as a result of a deep legitimacy crisis of the Indian state in the face of
economic liberalisation. Further, the nature of Communalism changed from the ‘daily-life viewpoint’ to dominance of a ‘transcendental viewpoint’ inherent in modern thinking. This can be attributed to the fall of communism as an ideology. With the fall of communism, the void of a medium of protest was overtaken by religion. Thus, pitting one religion in direct confrontation with other, accentuating communalism as well as fundamentalism.

Religiosity and Communalism

This is to highlight the difference between being religious and being communal. The very precept of being religious is to have faith in one’s religion without disregarding the others belief.

In this context, Indian constitution is very much clear about its principled distance from each religion as well as intacting the value of ‘Sarva Dharma Sambhavah’. Article 25 of the constitution gives all, the freedom to practice and profess any religion. The idea of secularism in India is distinct from European model on account of coexistence of multiple religions without showing any extra favour or disfavor rather embracing each one with equal measure. This very legitimate foundation has been engraved in Indian psyche about being religious but not offending others. The ‘Ganga Jamuna Tehzeeb’ and long tradition of composite culture make Indian society quite tolerant. Religion is a primordial identity, so people in ‘India like prismatic society’ are found to be quite religious but the very ethos and practices since eternal make them religiously righteous.

Yes, there has been also degeneration in this heavenly ethos now and then giving way for communalism and, hence looming fault lines in the Indian fabric on many occasion questioning the very idea of India. Nevertheless, India’s diversity on many accounts plus Hindu being a liberal and plural religion make overall ecology of religious practices quite moderate and, hence by and large a peaceful coexistence of all despite stark religious differences.

Communal Riots in India

Anti-Sikh Riots (1984): This is one of the bloodshed in India, where Sikhs in large number were massacred by anti- Sikh mob. This massacre took place in response to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her own Sikh body Guard in response to her actions authorising the military operation Bluestar.

Ethnic Cleansing of Kashmiri Hindu Pundits (1989): Kashmir is known as the heaven of India and was known for its Kashmiryat, i.e. the reflection of love, peace and harmony through brotherhood and unity of Hindu, Muslims and other communities living together . But, the brotherhood saw a serious blow due to Extremist Islamic terrorism in the Kashmir valley, which led to mass killing and large scale exodus of Kashmiri Pundits from the valley to the various regions and corners of the India, giving them the status of refugee in their own country. Since then, the valley is under the grip of communal violence and the ongoing unrest has become a problem for the development of the people. Babri Masjid Demolition (1992): According to Hindu mythology, Ayodhaya is birth place of Lord Rama and therefore it is sacred place for Hindu religion. But in medieval period Mughal general Mir Baqi, built a mosque, named after Mughal ruler Babur. There were disputes since then and riots also took place. But in 1990, due to some political mobilisation, there was atmosphere of protest by Hindu religious groups and in large scale ‘kar sevak’ visited Ayodhya from all parts of India, in support of demolishing Babri Masjid and building Ram temple there. These movements caused huge amount of bloodshed and since then it is a disputed matter.

Mumbai Riots (1992): It was mere escalation of Babri mosque demolition. Justice B.N. Srikrishna commission was formed to investigate but the recommendations were not enacted. These riots were followed by the retaliatory Bombay Bombings in March 1993.

Godhra Violence (2002): Godhra incident took place in 2002, when ‘kar sevak’ returning from Ayodhya in a Sabarmati Express were killed by fire in the coaches of train. This act was followed by the extended communal violence in Gujarat. That violence is like black spot in the history of the Gujarat and nation too, as people were killed without any mercy. Hindu and Muslim community became antagonist to each other. Till now people are fighting for justice in Supreme Court, with a ray hope from the Indian Judiciary.

Two member commission with justice K. G. Shah and Justice Nanavati was set up to look into the incident. Best Bakery case, Bilkis Bano case, Naroda Patiya massacre case are related to the Godhra incident.

Assam Communal Violence (2012): North eastern states are known for their distinguished tribal population and ethnic diversity and large scale Bangladeshi immigration has changed the demography of North eastern states, which often becomes reason for clashes. In 2012, there were ethnic clashes between Bodos (Tribal, Christian and Hindu faith) and Muslims. Ethnic tensions between Bodos and Bengali-speaking Muslims escalated into a riot in Kokrajhar in July 2012, when unidentified miscreants killed four Bodo youths at Joypur.

Muzaffarnagar Violence (2013): The cause of this ethnic clash between Jat and Muslim community is very much disputed and has many versions. According to few, it was started after some suspicious post on Social media platform Facebook Let the reasons be unknown, but what matters is, the nature and scale of loss to the country with respect to human resource and peace.

Steps to Curb Communalism

Legislative

The Indian law defines communal violence as, “any act or series of acts, whether spontaneous or planned, resulting in injury or harm to the person and or property, knowingly directed against any person by virtue of his or her membership of any religious or linguistic minority. National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in India fights for the causes of rights of the victims, but its recommendations are advisory in nature, which doesn’t gives significant outcome.

Sachar committee, appointed in 2005, recommended to set up Equal opportunity commission (EOC) in 2010. EOC was to set up a grievance redressal mechanism for all individual cases of discriminations- religion, caste, gender and physical ability among others.

The Ranganath Misra Commission was entrusted by the Government of India to suggest practical measures for the upliftment of the socially and economically backward sections among religious and linguistic minorities and to include the modalities of implementation for the same. The report of the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, headed by former Chief Justice of India Rangnath Mishra, says that 10% should be reserved for Muslims and 5% for other minorities in central and state government jobs in all cadre and grades.

Other than provisions under IPC and CrPC, there is no firm law to punish the originators of communal violence, no clear policy for relief and rehabilitation of victims. There are no regulations for security of witnesses and for accountability of public servants, etc.

‘Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparations) Bill, 2011’ lapsed in the parliament. The bill provided for a seven-member National authority for communal harmony, justice and reparations. It attempted to safeguard the minority sections. It had provisions for ensuring accountability of the district administration. This has already been recommended by the Sachar committee and Raganath Mishra Commission. There are specialized battalions of Rapid Action force in India, which is a wing of CRPF, to deal with riots, riot like situations, crowd control, rescue and relief operations, and related unrest.

Judicial

The Supreme Court expressed its views on the secular nature of the Constitution for the first time in Sardar Taheruddin Syedna Saheb vs State of Bombay.

In Keshvananda Bharati case Supreme Court named ‘secular character’ as one of the basic features of the Constitution. In S. R. Bommai vs Union of India, the Court however once again confirmed secularism as part of the Constitution.

In I. R. Coelho vs State of Tamil Nadu, which was preceded by M. Nagaraj vs Union of India where the court used secularism to balance the equality claims for reservation under Article 15, it expanded the ambit of secularism from being a mere religious concept to a right under Articles 14, 15 and 21.

The Court had in 2014 referred its Hindutva judgments to a Constitutional bench comprising seven judges. Undoubtedly, Hinduism is an ancient and tolerant faith, but so too are other religions.

Recently Supreme Court has taken measures to expedite Babri Demolition case.

Media

Nowadays social media has become notorious for spread of communal hatred. It provides almost instant transfer of provoking material on which our government has no control. It has become potent tool in hands of religious bigots to spread hatred towards other religions.

It is true that, Fundamental Rights, under article 19(1), gives citizens freedom of expression. But proviso to this article also empowers government to impose reasonable restrictions to guard unity and integrity of the country. Further, under Fundamental Duties Article 51A of the constitution provides – “(e) to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women”.

This needs to be enforced by state by controlling social media. In olden days, whenever any provocative print media came government invoked its powers and imposed restriction, but yet government has no strong/effective policy towards social media.

Lot of movies have been made on the above mentioned communal violence, which can give us understanding about the damages and harm, done by these violence: ‘Bombay’ and ‘Black Friday’ based on 1992 attacks. Train to Pakistan’ based on the novel of Khuswant Singh about partition of India, 1947. ‘Gandhi’ is portrayal of Direct Action Day and partition of India. ‘Hawayein’ based on 1984 Sikh riots and ‘Machis’ about Punjab terrorism.

Civil Society

Each of us, has to make a balance between our own religious community and national interests, we have to unite with nationalism, and then should move forward. The teachings of a religious community may be great, but the followers of the community concerned should understand that nationalism is greater.

We have to be rational while making decisions. Each and every religious community has been founded on the basis of certain values that were best and necessary for circumstances of the country and times. Leaders of all communities, by knowing it, must come forward for an atmosphere surcharged with harmony, in which lies their welfare too. The religious teachers should promote rational and practical things through religion promoting peace and security.

Policies like appeasement, fun and frolic with the sentiments of people for individual and party interests, and selection of candidates on the basis of religious community or sect by keeping aside the qualifications, one, certainly, does the things against national interest or nationalism; are reflections of lower national thinking. That is why; these kinds of acts should be stopped at government level and also at the level of political parties.

There is a great need to work towards eradicating the problem of unemployment among the youths, illiteracy and poverty and that too with honesty and without any discrimination. This will help in solving many problems, and will create awakening. The result will be check on communalism to a great extent. Media, movies and other cultural platforms can be influential in promoting peace and harmony. Though all such practises in India are common, but there is still scope for improvement in this direction.

Other Measures

The formation of political parties on communal lines should not be encouraged. Political parties should either evolve a code of conduct not to use religion for electioneering or let the Election Commission or Parliament enact such a code. We need State machinery which is efficient, strong and impartial enough to put down communalism and communal violence and ensure safety to all section of the society. Political, religious or other compulsions should not be allowed to come in the way of this.

Educational system must be reconstructed to emphasize the composite nature of our culture and inculcate secular and scientific temper among young students. We have to realize that communalism hinders social and economic change, which is so essential for all of us. Ban of communal parties in country. Promotion of secular world view by restructuring education system and Text Books. Healthy public opinion. Interreligious marriage.

Communal Violence: A Global Picture

Communal violence is common nowadays throughout the world. They are known by various alternative names, as in China, the communal violence in Xinjiang province is called ethnic violence. Communal violence and riots have also been called non-State conflict, violent civil or minorities unrest, mass racial violence, social or inter-communal violence and ethno-religious violence. Violence between Buddhists and the Muslim Rohingya, inhabit Rakhine state (formerly Arakan province) which stretches along most of Myanmar’s coast up to the Bay of Bengal and borders the Chittagong province of Bangladesh, erupted in 2013. Such violence in neighbouring countries like Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Pakistan causes violence in retaliation in India also. It also catalyses the problem of refuges, as in case of Pakistani Hindus, etc. Sri Lanka is also facing international critics and United Nations related to ethnic clashes and action of government against minority Tamilians, which has direct bearing on India and Sri Lanka
relations and India’s internal security. Increasing diversity, due to influx of populations from all corners of world in western countries like USA, UK , Canada, Australia, etc. is posing the challenge of ethnic clashes and violence in their respective societies.

Religious Fundamentalism

It is an extreme form of religious revivalism which is sometimes linked to violence, particularly terrorism. It is a conservative religious doctrine that opposes intellectualism, and worldly accommodation in favour of restoring traditional other worldly religion in response to what they see as the growing influence of science and the weakening of the conventional family.

T.N. Madan highlights the salient feature:

• The religious fundamentalists ground themselves in tradition
• Fundamentalist movements use the past to criticize the lifestyle of the present
• Fundamentalist movement claim to derive their legitimacy from scriptures like Bible, Kuran etc. which are considered as infallible. They go for literalist interpretation of the holy book
• Movement is totalitarian, coercive in character, intolerant in dissent e.g Taliban against women
• People are interested in political power especially capture of state power without which they believe their objective cannot be achieved.

Fundamentalism and Communalism: A Comparison

Similarity

• Both attack the concept of separation of religion from politics and state.
• Both oppose the concept of equal truth in all religion or the unity of different religion or the unity of different religion.
• Both advocate control over education by dominant religious group.
• Both believe in restoration of the past values rather than in progress towards the unknown so that greatness and progress lie in the future.
• Both share the notion that their societies had achieved near-human perfections in the early centuries.
• Both oppose secularism.

Differences in Perception

• In a multi religious society, a fundamentalist tend to be communal, while communalists are quite often not fundamentalist e.g RSS is communalist but not fundamentalist.
• Fundamentalists seriously urge the actual revival of pristine past. Communalist may appeal to past as ideology or nostalgia but whose gaze is clearly fixed on modern world.
• Fundamentalists are deeply religious , their entire ideology relates to religion and want to base the state, society and daily life of the individual on religion. While communalists has hardly much to do with religion, except that they base their politics on religious identity and thus use religion for the purpose of struggle for political power. For example- Jinnah was a communalist and avery religious person, while, savarkar was a fundamentalist and atheist. Communal state is not necessarily a theocratic state e.g Pakistan and Bangladesh.
• Fundamentalists wants to fundamentalize (Christianize or Islamize or hinduize) the whole world. While, communalists want to communalize only their own society.
• Fundamentalists target the fellow believers who do not agree with them. While communalists targets other religious communities.

Conclusion

The need of the hour is to face this challenge to democracy, development and social harmony in a united way. The conscious, educated and concerned citizens should take the lead and teach the people. Those who are exploiting ordinary people’s emotions, their religious beliefs and ignorance need to be exposed. Since religion teaches respect for others and tolerance. It never teaches violence. Existence of different religions, therefore, does not lead to communalism. It is fundamentalism and communalism which is distorting it.

If political process is not decommunalised then our democracy itself is likely to perish. Alternative to democracy is fascism or dictatorship. The history of many countries is a proof that Fascism and dictatorship are good neither for majority nor for minorities.

Thus, in order to get rid of the problem of communalism in India, there is a need for collective efforts. All will have to discharge their duties. If we do so, definitely harmony will prevail. Everybody will prosper. This must be done; this was the dream of Mahatma Gandhi for a free India. Communalism can be combated with the help of globalisation as a tool. In the globalised world, all countries are becoming integrated and dependent on each other. Movement of people from one place to other is becoming very easy, in such conditions to avoid such potential violence, governments are already promoting cultural exchanges through shows, programs, heritage walk, cultural visit by students and parliamentarians. Promotion of learning of each other’s local language for easy exchange of ideas.