Causes of communalism

• Historical factors like Islamic invasions.
• Social factors like traditional differences in religious practices
• Psychological factors like extremist and fanatical thinking
• Foreign entities creating internal security threats on a religious basis like terrorism
• Misinformation spread through media

Medieval India witnessed the arrival of Islam which is when occurrences of violence based on religion started to take place. Mahmud Ghazni’s destruction of Hindu temples and Mahmud of Ghori’s attack on Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists are well documented in history books.

Till then religion was an important part of people’s lives but there was no communal ideology or communal politics based on violence. The Indian society was more concentrated on the caste-based divide than religion-based.

Islamic rulers like Akbar and Sher Shah Suri followed a tolerant religious policy towards different cultures and traditions practised across the country.

But some sectarian rulers like Aurangzeb were among the least tolerant towards other religious practices and destroyed various places of worship and took lives in the name of religion.

In modern India, communalism grew due to British colonial impact and their poor understanding of Indian social strata. But they very well took advantage of the religious diversity of the country and used the policy of divide and rule. It is true to say that the base of today’s communal problems in India was laid down by inhumane British rule.

Major incidents of communalism in India were

• 1947: The partition of India witnessed mass bloodshed and violence that continued up to 1949.
• 1961: The Jabalpur riots took place due to economic competition between a Hindu and a Muslim bidi manufacturer.
• 1964-67: A series of riots broke out particularly in the eastern part of India (Rourkela, Jamshedpur, and Ranchi) in places where Hindu refugees from the then East Pakistan were being settled.
• 1969: Ahmedabad riots due to the Jan Sangh passing a resolution on Indianisation of Muslims to show its intense opposition to Indira Gandhi’s leftward thrust.
• 1983: The violence took place in Nellie after the decision to hold the controversial state elections amidst the Assam Agitation, after Indira Gandhi’s decision to give 4 million immigrants from Bangladesh the right to vote. It has been described as one of the worst pogroms since World War II.
• 1984: The anti-Sikh riots broke out after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, where more than 4000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and other parts of India.
• 1985: The Shah Bano controversy and the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi controversy became powerful tools for intensifying communalism.
• 1992: The Babri Masjid was demolished by right-wing parties. This was followed by the worst riots of post-independence India – in Mumbai, Surat, Ahmadabad, Kanpur, Delhi, and other places.
• 2002: Gujarat witnessed communal riots when violence was triggered by the burning of a train in Godhra.
• 2006: Riots occurred in Vadodara due to the municipal council’s decision to remove the dargah of Syed Chishti Rashiduddin, a medieval Sufi saint.
• 2013: Uttar Pradesh witnessed the worst violence in recent history with clashes between the Hindu and Muslim communities in the Muzaffarnagar district.