Politics of Separatism, Communalism and the Politics of Partition- 1 | History Optional for UPSC (Notes) PDF Download

Communalism and Politics

• The communal ideology suggests that Indian people can only protect their interests as members of their religious communities, each led by its own leaders.
• In a multi-religious society like India, the communalists believe that the social, cultural, economic, and political interests of one religion are different and conflicting from those of another.
• The ideology progresses to the point where the interests of different religious communities are seen as incompatible and hostile towards each other.
• Communalism, at its core, is an ideology that underpins communal politics, with communal violence being a result of this ideology.
• The first stage of communal ideology can trap even nationalists, leading them to see themselves as Nationalist Hindus, Muslims, or Sikhs, rather than simply nationalists.
• The second stage, known as liberal or moderate communalism, acknowledges distinct religious communities with separate interests but believes these interests can be harmonized within the broader national interest.
• Many communalists before 1937, such as the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League, operated within this liberal communal framework.

The Third Stage of Communalism

• Extreme communalism emerged as the final stage of communalism, operating within a framework reminiscent of fascism.
• This stage was marked by fear, hatred, and a propensity for violence , both in language and actions, against political adversaries.
• Communalists at this stage proclaimed that Muslim and Hindu identities, cultures, and religions were under threat of suppression and extermination.
• The idea that Muslims and Hindus were distinct nations with an eternal, irreconcilable conflict gained prominence.
• Organizations like the Muslim League, Hindu Mahasabha, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) began to adopt extreme or fascistic communalist ideologies post-1937.

Interaction of the Three Stages:

• The three stages of communalism, while distinct, interacted and created a continuum.
• The first stage nourished both liberal and extreme communalism, making it challenging to combat them.
• Similarly, the liberal communalist found it hard to prevent the ideological shift towards extreme communalism.

Illusion of Community Interests:

• Communalists claimed to defend their community’s interests , but in reality, no such interests existed outside the realm of religion.
• The economic and political interests of Hindus, Muslims, and others were essentially the same, indicating that they did not constitute separate communities.
• Divisions among Hindus and Muslims were based on region, language, culture, class, caste, social status, and social practices , rather than religion.
• For instance, an upper-class Muslim shared more cultural similarities with an upper-class Hindu than with a lower-class Muslim.
• Likewise, a Punjabi Hindu had more in common with a Punjabi Muslim than with a Bengali Hindu , and the same applied to Bengali Muslims in relation to Bengali Hindus and Punjabi Muslims.

Obscuring Real Divisions:

• The fabricated communal division obscured the genuine divisions among the Indian populace based on linguistic-cultural regions and social classes .
• It also masked the emerging and growing unity of the Indian people into a cohesive nation , transcending religious boundaries.

Fundamentalism is not a sectional or one-sided view of social reality:

• Communalism is wrong and unscientific if communal interests do not exist.
• Communalist cannot represent his community's interests if no such interests exist.
• Communalist either deceives others or unconsciously deceives himself by serving interests other than his own community.
• Fundamentalism is not just about narrow-mindedness but involves serving some other interests under the guise of serving one's community.

Communalism is a modern phenomenon:

• Communalism is sometimes thought to be an old idea from the past, especially from the medieval period.
• However, while it incorporates elements from ancient and medieval beliefs, communalism is fundamentally a modern political and social trend.
• It reflects the social needs and political requirements of contemporary groups and classes.
• The roots of communalism, along with its social, political, and economic goals, are firmly grounded in modern Indian history.
• It was created and sustained by the current socio-economic structure of the time.

Emergence of Communalism:

• Communalism emerged with modern politics, marking a shift from ancient and medieval politics.
• It, along with nationalism and socialism, could only develop after politics involving popular participation and public opinion became prevalent.
• Pre-modern politics either ignored people or forced them to rebel, with successful leaders eventually absorbed into the old ruling classes.
• Jawaharlal Nehru acknowledged in 1936 that communalism in India was a recent phenomenon.
• Communalism was not unique to India; it was a response to conditions similar to those that produced Fascism, anti-Semitism, racism, and religious conflicts in other countries.

Transformation of Indian Society:

• Communal consciousness arose from the transformation of Indian society under colonialism and the need to resist it.
• The growing economic, political, and administrative unification of India, the contradiction between colonialism and the Indian people, and the formation of modern social classes necessitated new ways of understanding common interests.
• This period required broader links and loyalties among people and the formation of new identities, driven by the politicization and mobilization of more Indians in the late 19th century.

Gradual Process of Change:

• Understanding the new political and social reality and adopting new uniting principles was a gradual and challenging process.
• It involved the spread of modern ideas like nationalism, cultural-linguistic development, and class struggle.
• Where these ideas developed slowly, people relied on familiar pre-modern categories of self-identity such as caste, locality, region, race, religion, sect, and occupation to navigate the new reality.
• In some parts of India, religious consciousness evolved into communal consciousness due to specific local factors and the needs of certain social and political groups.

The question is why did communalism succeed in growing during the 20th century? What aspects of the Indian situation favoured this process? Which social classes and political forces did it serve? Why did it become such a pervasive pan of Indian reality?

Background:

• It was a by-product of the colonial character of the Indian economy and its underdevelopment .
• The economic stagnation and its impact on people's lives, especially the middle classes, created conditions for division and antagonism in society.

Economic Conditions:

• Throughout the 20th century, India faced acute unemployment , particularly affecting the educated middle and lower middle classes.
• The Great Depression after 1928 worsened economic opportunities, leading to large-scale unemployment.

Nationalist Movements:

• Nationalist and popular movements aimed for the overthrow of colonialism and radical social transformation .
• The middle classes were crucial to the militant national movement and left-wing parties.

Middle Class Struggles:

• Economic stagnation led to intense competition among individuals for government jobs and professional opportunities.
• Individuals competed for limited economic opportunities using various means, including educational qualifications , personal merit , nepotism , and bribery .

Emergence of Communalism:

• Some middle-class individuals resorted to communalism to enhance their competitive capacity and secure job opportunities.
• This gave communal politics a semblance of validity, as it resonated with the short-term interests of some middle-class individuals.

Rural-Urban Migration:

• The spread of education to well-off peasants and small landlords extended the job-seeking middle class to rural areas.
• Newly educated rural youth, unable to sustain themselves through land due to stagnant agriculture, migrated to towns and cities seeking government jobs and professional opportunities.

Ideological Divide:

• The crisis of the colonial economy generated opposing ideologies among the middle classes.
• During anti-imperialist revolutions and social change, the middle classes joined national and popular movements, advocating for the cause of the entire society.

Middle-Class Politics and Anti-Imperialism:

• Initially, the middle class was aligned with anti-imperialist struggles, seeing their social interests as part of a broader movement for social development.
• However, when the possibility of revolutionary change diminished and the anti-imperialist struggle became less active, many in the middle class shifted their focus to short-term solutions for personal problems, embracing politics based on communalism and similar ideologies.

Shift to Self-Interest:

• Middle class acted as a narrow self-interest group.
• They accepted the sociopolitical status quo and inadvertently supported colonialism.
• This shift demonstrated how large segments of the middle class oscillated between anti-imperialist sentiments and communal politics.
• Their stance depended on the socio-political climate.

Roots of Communalism:

• Communalism was deeply embedded in the interests and aspirations of the middle class, arising from a social situation where opportunities were severely limited.
• It became a middle-class issue, with its main appeal and social base among this group.

Intellectuals and Secularism:

• Despite the rise of communalism, many middle-class individuals, especially intellectuals from Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh backgrounds, remained secular and broadly left-wing during the 1930s and 1940s.
• These intellectuals typically rejected communalist ideologies, contributing to a more secular discourse.

Colonial Economy and Employment:

• The colonial economy, lacking opportunities in industry, commerce, education, and other sectors, made government service the primary avenue of employment for the middle class.
• Professions such as teaching, medicine, and engineering were also largely under government control.
• For instance, in 1951, while 1.2 million people were employed under the Factory Acts, 3.3 million worked in government service.

Communal Politics and Job Reservations:

• Communal politics emerged as a means to pressure the government for job reservations and allocations based on communal and caste lines.
• This form of politics focused on securing government jobs, educational concessions, and political positions that provided control over economic opportunities.

Focus of Communalists

• Although communalists claimed to represent their “communities,” the reservations and rights they demanded were primarily related to government jobs and educational opportunities.
• They did not address issues of concern to the broader masses, limiting their focus to specific economic opportunities.
• Misinterpretation of Class Conflict: Communalism often misinterpreted social tension and class conflict between exploiters and the exploited of different religions as communal conflict.
• Distorted Expression: Due to backward political consciousness, genuine discontent and clash of interests found a distorted expression in communal conflict, even though the causes were non-religious.
• Role of Communal Propaganda: Under communal propaganda, the masses failed to identify the real causes of their exploitation and suffering, imagining a fictitious communal source for their problems.
• Coinciding Distinctions: In several parts of India, religious distinction coincided with social and class distinctions, facilitating communal distortion.
• Exploiting Sections: Often, upper-caste Hindus were the exploiting sections (landlords, merchants, moneylenders), while the poor and exploited were Muslims or lower-caste Hindus.
• Misrepresentation of Conflicts: Struggles like tenant-landlord conflicts were portrayed as communal conflicts, distorting the real issues at stake.
• Case Studies: Examples from Punjab, East Bengal, and Malabar illustrate how communalists misrepresented class struggles as communal ones.
• Peasant Struggles: Peasant struggles for emancipation were inevitable, but communalists and colonial administrators emphasized communal aspects over class aspects of exploitation.
• Post-Facto Communal Explanations: In some cases, communal explanations for social conflicts were provided by observers, officials, and historians, reflecting their own biases.
• Historical Context: Agrarian conflicts did not take on a communal colour until the 20th century with the rise of communalism in most cases.
• Early Agrarian Struggles: Early agrarian struggles, such as the Pabna riots of 1873, were not communal in nature, with Hindu and Muslim tenants fighting together against zamindars.
• Secular Movements: Peasants, workers, and radical intelligentsia succeeded in creating powerful secular movements and organizations, contributing to the anti-imperialist struggle.
• Economic Dominance of Hindus: Hindu zamindars and businessmen in Bengal gained control over land and economic dominance not because of their religion but due to historical processes and their roles in the colonial system of exploitation.
• Role of British Rule: Under British rule, the dominance of Hindu merchant-moneylenders in rural society was a result of their economic role in the colonial system, not their religious identity.
• Communalism as Elite Struggle: Communalism also represented a struggle between different upper classes or strata for power and economic gains, using communal identities to mobilize popular support.

Communalism as a Tool of Reactionary Forces:

• Communalism emerged as a tool for socially and politically reactionary classes, including semi-feudal landlords, ex-bureaucrats (referred to as jagirdari classes by Dr. K.M. Ashraf), merchants, moneylenders, and the colonial state.
• Communal leaders and parties often aligned with these reactionary forces.

Objectives of Communalism:

• Communalism was encouraged because it could distort and divert popular struggles.
• It prevented the masses from understanding the socio-economic and political forces behind their conditions.
• It hindered unity on national and class lines.
• Communalism redirected people away from their real national and socio-economic interests and issues.

Upper Classes and Colonial Rulers:

• Communalism allowed upper classes and colonial rulers to unite with sections of the middle classes.
• This alliance enabled the upper classes and colonial rulers to use middle-class politics for their own purposes.

British Rule and Communalism:

• British rule in India, with its policy of Divide and Rule , played a significant role in the growth of communalism. However, this policy was successful only because of the existing social and political conditions in India.
• The colonial state had the power to promote either national integration or divisive forces. Unfortunately, it chose to promote divisiveness by using communalism to weaken the national movement and the unification of the Indian people.

Colonial Rulers and Communalism:

• Colonial rulers portrayed communalism as a problem of protecting minorities.
• They justified their rule by emphasizing the need to prevent Hindu-Muslim disunity and protect minorities from majority domination.
• This became a key argument for maintaining British rule, especially as other justifications like the civilizing mission and white man’s burden lost credibility.
• Communalism was not the only aspect of the Divide and Rule policy.
• The colonial state encouraged every existing division in Indian society to prevent the emerging unity of the Indian people.
• The colonial authorities set different regions, provinces, castes, languages, and social groups against each other.
• They created divisions to weaken the national movement.

Rise of Communalism:

• Communalism was a key part of the Divide and Rule policy.
• It could not have developed to such an extent without the support of the colonial state.
• Communalism became a channel through which the politics of the middle classes were aligned with colonialism and the interests of the jagirdari classes.
• Through communalism, colonialism expanded its social base to include sections of workers, peasants, middle classes, and bourgeoisie whose interests were otherwise in conflict with colonial rule.

What were the different ways and policies, or acts of omission and commission, through which the British encouraged and nurtured communalism?

The Role of British Colonial Rule in the Growth of Communalism in India:

• The British colonial rule in India played a significant role in the growth of communalism by treating Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs as separate and conflicting communities.
• They did not see India as a united nation but as a collection of antagonistic religious groups.
• The British showed favoritism to communalists, allowing them to become the main representatives of their communities while ignoring nationalist leaders.
• The colonial government was tolerant of communal press and activities, while suppressing nationalist voices.
• Communal demands were often accepted by the British, strengthening the hold of communal organizations over the people. For example, the Muslim League had its demands accepted quickly, while the Congress faced rejection.
• The Communal Award of 1932 recognized major communal demands, further entrenching communal divisions.
• During World War II , the British gave Muslim communalists a veto power over political advancements, reinforcing their influence.
• Separate electorates introduced by the British became a tool for the growth of communal politics.
• The colonial government’s policy of non-action against communalism, along with rewarding communal leaders, encouraged the spread of communal ideologies.
• In contrast, the nationalist press and movements were frequently suppressed, highlighting the biased approach of the colonial administration.
• The British also handled communal riots with relative inactivity, failing to take preventive measures, which further allowed communal tensions to escalate.
• In summary, the support of the colonial state for communalism made it difficult to address the communal problem. The overthrow of colonial rule was necessary but not sufficient for a successful struggle against communalism.

Factors Contributing to the Growth of Communalism:

• Early 20th-century nationalist thought often had a strong Hindu bias , which contributed to the rise of communalism.
• Extremist leaders introduced a strong Hindu religious element into nationalist thought, focusing on ancient Indian culture while excluding medieval Indian culture.
• This tendency to emphasize Hindu culture created a Hindu ideological basis for Indian nationalism.
• Tilak used the Ganesh Puja and the Shivaji Festival to promote nationalism, while the anti-partition agitation in Bengal was initiated with dips in the Ganges.
• Bankim Chandra Chatterjea and other writers often depicted Muslims as foreigners and associated nationalism with Hindus, portraying Muslim rulers as tyrants. This created resentment among literate Muslims and alienated them from the national movement.
• A vague Hindu aura pervaded nationalist agitation due to the use of Hindu symbols, idioms, and myths.
• Despite this, the nationalist movement remained largely secular , and leaders like Gandhi, C.R. Das, Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Dr. M.A. Ansari, Subhas Bose, Sardar Patel, and Rajendra Prasad strengthened its secularism.
• The Hindu tinge was not a cause of communalism but rather a factor that hindered the nationalist movement's ability to check its growth.
• It made it more challenging to win over Muslims to the national movement and allowed the government and Muslim communalists to create the perception that the movement would lead to 'Hindu supremacy' .
• This Hindu tinge also opened the door for Hindu communalism and made it difficult for the nationalist movement to eliminate Hindu communal elements within its ranks, while also fostering a Muslim tinge among Muslim nationalists.

Contribution of Communal History to the Rise of Communalism:

• A communal and distorted view of Indian history, particularly its ancient and medieval periods, played a significant role in spreading communal consciousness and forming the basis of communal ideology.
• Teaching Indian history from a communal perspective in schools and colleges contributed to the rise and growth of communalism. This distorted history was propagated by imperialist writers and later by others.
• Gandhiji emphasized that communal harmony could not be achieved as long as distorted versions of history were taught in schools and colleges.
• The communal view of history was spread through various means, including poetry, drama, historical novels, newspapers, and public platforms.
• James Mill, a British historian in the early 19th century, laid the groundwork for this distorted view by categorizing Indian history based on religion, describing the ancient period as the Hindu period and the medieval period as the Muslim period.
• Subsequent historians, both British and Indian, followed Mill’s lead, further entrenching this communal perspective.
• Communalists, both Hindu and Muslim, adopted and adapted these imperialist views to suit their narratives.
• Hindu communalists viewed medieval Muslim rulers as foreign oppressors, while Muslim communalists idealized the so-called Golden Age of Islamic achievement and defended all Muslim rulers, including controversial figures like Aurangzeb.
• The Hindu communal view also propagated the myth of a continuous decline from an ancient golden age due to Muslim rule, while the Muslim communalists perceived a decline of their community in the 19th century after losing political power.

Religiosity and Growth of Communalism:

• Some authors argue that religious pluralism in India was a major factor in the growth of communalism. However, this is not true. Communalism does not inevitably arise in a multi-religious society .

• Religion was not the underlying cause of communalism. Instead, communalism is based on differences in religion, which are used to mask social needs and conflicts that arise in non-religious areas.
• There is a distinction between religion as a personal belief system and the ideology of a religion-based socio-political identity, known as communalism.
• K.M. Ashraf described communalism as “Mazhab ki siyasi dukadari” , meaning political trade in religion. Religion was not the inspiration for communalism, nor was it the object of communal politics; rather, it was used as a mobilizing factor.
• Communalism became a popular movement after 1939, especially during 1945-47, when it adopted the inflammatory cry of “religion in danger.”
• Religiosity , defined as intense emotional commitment to religion and the tendency to let religious matters intrude into non-religious areas of life, was a major contributory factor to communalism.
• Secularization meant reducing religiosity and narrowing the sphere of religion to the private life of individuals, rather than removing religion altogether.
• There was little communalism in India before the late 19th century. Hindus and Muslims fought together in the Revolt of 1857, and the notion of Hindu-Muslim distinction was largely absent in the press during the 1860s.
• Syed Ahmed Khan, an important figure of the 19th century, began his educational activities without communal bias, promoting the commonness of Hindus and Muslims until the founding of the Congress in 1885.
• Communalism in India initially started in the 1880s when Syed Ahmed Khan counterposed it to the national movement initiated by the National Congress.

Origins of the Idea of Muslim Community:

• Syed Ahmed Khan and his followers established the basic themes of communal ideology in the early 20th century.
• They believed that Hindus, as a majority, would dominate Muslims if representative government was introduced, threatening Muslim interests.
• Syed Ahmed argued that the British were necessary to protect Muslims as a minority and that Muslims should remain loyal to the British, opposing the National Congress.
• He introduced the idea of a permanent conflict between Hindu and Muslim interests, viewing the Congress as a Hindu organization working against Muslim interests.
• Syed Ahmed criticized the Congress for its principles of social equality and democratic elections, claiming these would disadvantage Muslims.
• He and his followers demanded safeguards for Muslims in government jobs, legislative councils, and district boards, ensuring their political significance.
• Despite their demands, Syed Ahmed and his followers did not create a rival political organization, as the British opposed politicizing Indians.
• They advocated for Muslims to adopt a politically passive stance, avoiding agitational politics to prevent suspicion from the rulers.
• The colonial rulers supported communalism and the theory of official protection for minorities, aligning with the logic of communalism.
• After Syed Ahmed's death, Muslim communalists remained loyal to the government, criticizing the Swadeshi Movement in Bengal and condemning Muslim supporters as traitors.