Communalism

What the official syllabus says

UPSC Civil Services (Main) Examination, Paper II: General Studies I.

Social empowerment, communalism, regionalism & secularism.

This page covers communalism.

Topics in detail

Meaning

• Communalism as an ideology: religion as the basis of political identity and interest
• Stages and forms of communal ideology
• Communalism, religiosity and fundamentalism compared

Historical roots

• Colonial policy (divide and rule, separate electorates from 1909)
• Communal organisations in the colonial period; the two-nation theory
• Partition and its violence

Communalism after independence

• Major episodes of communal violence and their causes
• Political mobilisation on religious lines
• Role of rumours, media and social media
• Economic and social causes: competition for resources, segregation, poor policing

Consequences

• Loss of life and property; displacement and ghettoisation
• Threat to national unity, secularism and the rule of law

Remedies

• Constitutional values and the rule of law; impartial and trained police
• Laws against hate speech and promoting enmity (sections of the criminal law on these offences)
• Value education and inter-community contact
• Responsible media; countering fake news
• Inclusive development; the National Integration Council
• Studies of minority deprivation (the Sachar Committee, 2006) and measures that followed
• Peace committees, civil society and community leaders; early warning and community policing
• Lessons from commissions of inquiry into riots

Overlaps

• Internal security aspects are in General Studies III; values of tolerance in General Studies IV.