Root Causes for the Rise of Communalism in India and prevention measurements
Today, I am trying to give an impartial review and reply of the above mentioned question.
Communalism arises among the society when a particular religious or sub-religious group tries to promote its own interests at the expense of others. In simple terms, it can be defined as to distinguish people on the basis of religion. There is an article written by Dr. Ram Puniyani “Preachers of hatred in the guise of religion with shadow of development” has stated that
“Everyone knows Mehmood Ghaznavi as the man who had demolished the Somnath Temple. But how many of us know that en rout to Gujarat, the same Mehmood Ghaznavi had also razed the Jama Masjid of Multan while in a war with a Muslim ruler?”, Dr. Ram Puniyani said attempting to draw his point. “We all know Rana Pratap Singh fought with Emperor Akbar at Haldighat. But how many of us know that when the two rival forces fought with each other, Rana Pratap had Hakim Khan Sur as his commander in chief and Raja Man Singh was leading the Akbar’s forces with Prince Salim as his deputy?”
“It was the British who in order to give dimension to their divide-and-rule policy initially fiddled with the history and gave it a different colour that unfortunately is still prevailing in our country”, Dr. Ram Puniyani added.
As my small brain has collected or summarized the root causes such as these following are the factors responsible for the growth of Communalism in India:
(I) Divide and Rule Policy of the British:
The British rulers adopted the policy of ‘Divide and Rule’ to strengthen their roots while living in India. They divided the people of various communities of India and spread the feeling of distrust among them and hence they sowed the seeds of communalism in India.
(ii) Political Organisations:
Different communal organisations are found in India which have created hatred among the people of various religious communities by propagating, and hence they are the root cause of communalism.
(iii) Inertia indifferent Government:
When the government does not take proper action at the proper time, communalism spreads among the subjects. Sometimes the government favours on the religion and leave others which create differences.
(iv) Ineffective Handling of Communal Riots:
Sometimes the state governments have been proved ineffective to curb the communal riots in their respective states. It also results in spreading the communalism.
As the result of the above factors, communalism is raising its ugly face in India after the Independence and also creating great problems even in the working of Indian political system.
Remedies for cure (in my view):
The remedy of constitutional safeguards to root out the chronic malaise of communalism and casteism shall not have desired effect unless it is tackled by society itself.
Efforts should be made by the enlightened citizens to discourage the communal and caste based forces from the social, political and electoral process in order to make these forces irrelevant. They are to be opposed not to be appeased.
Communal carnage and caste wars should be dealt strictly with new strategies.
To usher an era of social equity and Sarva Dharma Sambhava the people of India should not mix religion and caste with politics to attain the goal of common brotherhood for the unity and integrity of the nation.
Allow the government to run without the interference on the basis of religion. The religion should be made completely a personal thing to follow. No religion should be encouraged or otherwise in any government establishment or public places. Let everyone flourish according to his merit. No reservation for religion or caste or creed. Then only India would flourish and will be ready to take any developed country which does n’t need any religion.