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Communalism: Is There Any End To It? - Harsh Baweja,

Updated: Nov 24, 2021

“Don’t create communalism, But do create a world of humanity”- Angelina Subba




When the literal meaning of the word – Communalism is impugned, the actual meaning we get is a term associated “to denote attempts between people identified as different communities and to stimulate communal violence between these groups. It derives relevance from history, differences in beliefs, and tensions between the communities.”

In the Contemporary world, where people are believed to be enjoying more equality , liberty, a plethora of ethnicities are becoming victims of Communal violence and darker shades of Communalism. Sometimes it is more dangerous in comparison to terrorism because most of the people’s reactions are biased towards their sect, religion, or culture, at that moment the rationality and reasoning clutch on deaf ears. towards the Seeing back the history with a glance we get to know that communities were divided due to there own ethnic and cultural practices, which later started to integrate. These small cultural or ethnic groups then became societies, then a city and then a nation. A nation that guarantees equality to always gives a “peace factor” associated with it. But seeing today’s India these factors are repeatedly impugned due to the augmenting cases of Communal Violence in India. E.g. Since the Post Partition times, the communal riots between Hindu and Muslim have been aggravating and worsening.

India enjoys the world’s biggest ethnicities, with multiplicated religions, diversified cultures and ethnicities and umpteen linguistic variations. For a country like India, Communalism is just a vulnerable leap of faith. India has recorded the highest number of both: reported and non-reported Communal Violence. Let it be Godhra Kaand, Ram Mandir, Anti Sikh Riots, etc. It is quite evident to note that India has always been a hotspot for these kinds of Communal Riots. But is there any hiatus to it? In the contemporary world, there is no such Pause as we see it, even today when the world has chilled its spine due to the outbreak of such a pandemic, the prowess of which can extinguish millions, people are still busy with their Communal Politics.

It will be hardly a month ago when there came an unreported case, to which even Media was silent. The case was that of Bihar wherein amidst Corona, a Hindu boy was kidnapped by his Muslim friends, with the pretext of playing cricket, and then took him to a Mosque and sacrificed him with on account of making this sacrifice as the political strengthening of their community. Many of us do not even know the real news, because the pillars of democracy are selectively silent, and even social media could not propagate it properly. It was over social media for some time and India again became silent to such Violence.

The recent Dalit killing is one of the major contemporary and debatable issues. Lifting the lockdown was only to shun the darker economic impacts on the country, nobody envisaged that such Caste Hatred Crimes will get lateral entry to the Indian diaspora.

Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, June 2020, marked another quintessential event related to Communal violence. It is the month when within 10 days there took two Dalit killings on the pretext of “Caste Hatred”.


Firstly, “the killing of a 17-year-old boy at Domkhera in Uttar Pradesh”. The boy was simply offering pooja to God in a temple, or legally speaking enjoying his Fundamental Right to Religion. The offender, along with two, conspired to kill the boy under a tree. Secondly the recent case of Dalit Killing in Pune, where a Dalit boy (20) was killed by the family, which belonged to a higher caste, of the girl he loved. It was alleged that it was a planned killing due to caste hatred. Is there any end to it? The boy was a sole earner and looked after his mother, after his father passed away, when he was just 9- months old.

“Family of the girl has told the police that deceased youth was allegedly stalking and harassing her and that they had with him over the trouble he caused to the girl”

What kind of justice is this wherein people can take law in hands just to settle things without actually knowing their repercussions? Where are the Fundamental Rights gone? Are they fading away? Aren’t we all looking and isn’t somebody guarding them? Aren’t they made for all of us? The real answer to the question falls blank after seeing such communal riots in India. If India can stand united against a pandemic, Can’t it stand together to a pandemic that has been intrinsic to our society for a prolonged period? Where is the India, we envisaged prior to independence? Growing communal violence makes India weaker internally. It jeopardizes the humanity that we have learnt through ages, inculcated through our own culture for no books, no religion , no ethnicity purports the killing or depriving others of enjoyment of their rights.


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