Book Review

Name of the Book : Communalism in India – Reach Ruse and Remedy
Edited by : Vatsala Shukla
Published by : Hope India publications, Gurgaon (2008)
Pages : 344; Price: Rs. 895/-


“Communalism” is a subject widely discussed in socio-political debates today. Though the objective is political, its reach is not limited to practical politics. Since its influence in party politics is comparatively visible, secular forces could explore its threat before the society does. The real threat of communalism lies in its intrusion into cultural areas. Being invisible to realize, the threat challenges attempts to counter.

Although there are a number of studies in this area, the vastness of the problem demands further studies. The book under review is an addition to the resources. The diversity of the areas discussed and the connection between the underlying ideas of the articles is the distinctiveness of this volume, which covers the reach, ruse and remedies of communalism in various socio-cultural areas.

The book is a collection of 15 articles by authors who are specialists in areas like history, mental health, gender, politics, media etc. The contributors are Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, Ram Puniyani, Irfan Ali Engineer, Harish Shetty, Shahiuz Zaman Ahmed, Vibhuti Patel, Vijay Marulkar, Bella Das, Harsh Mander, Subhash Shukla, Vineet Tiwari, Vatsala Shukla, Ravindra Katyayan and Nandini Chavan. The Book is divided in to four sections under the titles ‘Communalism and history’, ‘Communalism and Society’, ‘Communalism and Politics’ and ‘Communalism and Media’. Such thematic division helps the reader to have a logical analysis of the problems discussed in the book.

The first section examines when and how divisive forces take over an influential position in India’s political scenario. The word secularism itself has a different meaning in India as compared to that in Europe. Indian society is multi-religious, plural and tolerant. The age old Indian philosophy teaches respect for all religions. The Sufi and Bhakti movements had great influence among the masses and their tradition of respecting different religions was greatly admitted by the poorer and lower cast Hindu and Muslim communities. However the British policy of divide and rule distorted Indian History to portray Muslims as invaders and this was taught in British schools. It was the economic and political motive which leads to communal tensions and not religious interests. The very first article in the book chronologically examines how the divisive political forces emerged in India, posing a major threat to pluralism, co-existence and above all for the subsistence of democracy itself.

This is followed by an in-depth examination of the historical events that added fuel to communal sentiments between Muslims and Hindus in Assam. The ‘line system’ introduced by British government divided the entire Assamese community in to ‘Hindu camp’ and ‘Muslim camp’. The manipulation of the system by opportunity politics from both sides, people’s resistance etc all lead to the rise of communal politics in Assam. Communalism could be countered by exploring the historical events behind its origin. Thus these articles help one to raise the right questions like who really wanted Indians to be divided in to ‘we’ and ‘others’.

Communal conflicts and Communalism as an ideology have great impact on the society and need to be discussed and studied from various perspectives. Often the discussion on solution and reparation of losses due to communal violence are limited to the overlying effects alone, missing an in-depth analysis and assessment of impacts such as ‘the psychological effect of violence on victims’, ‘the effect on women in particular’ etc. The second section of the book discusses the issue from these perspectives. Mental health professional Harish Shetty stresses on the need for psychological interventions for both victims and peace activists. He introduces the concept of ‘dynamic neutrality’ in which he states that unequal response to violence causes more violence. Thus all violence, whether it is against Muslim victims of Gujarat or the Pundits of Kashmir, needs to be equally condemned and intervened.

Women, the major victims of the violence in any part of the world, always are at the receiving end. Hence a study of communalism and society cannot be complete without assessing the impact of communal violence on women. The book has three articles that focus on women and communalism. While two of them deal with the women as the victims of communalism, the third focuses on the position of women in RSS. Rashtra Sevika Samiti, the female wing of RSS treat women as lower to men, as the name itself indicates. While a woman is called a ‘Sevika,’ a man is referred to as ‘swayam sevak’ i.e., voluntary. This clearly indicates that women are not entitled to take their own decisions. Besides, the term ‘Samiti’ glorifies ancient Hindu womanhood in the conservatively revivalist manner.

The impact of communalism on the society could be observed from working class and Dalit perspective as well. Communal politics always safeguard the interests of the elite class and oppressing castes; protecting patriarchal and feudal values. Hence these forces wholeheartedly support communal politics from its origin itself, observes Irfan Ali Engineer. It creates dilemmas in co-existence in the society since minorities are intentionally portrayed as ‘anti-nationals’, ‘terrorists’ and ‘anti-social elements’. This creates problems for minorities in their day to day life as a member of the society.

Being an easiest tool, Religion is used by vested interests for political mobilization. As a result the political slogans contain religious words such as mosque, temple, ram etc, instead of the secular terms like employment, food, shelter etc. During elections and major discussions, issues are directly or indirectly related with religion. This is the success of communal politics in India. The basic necessities of the poor are never discussed. Religious or communal equations play the crucial role. The third section of the book, ‘Communalism and Politics’ explores the politics of communalism and the origin, development and establishment of communal forces in India. It critically examines how communal ideology attains an upper hand in day to day party power politics.

The feeling of discrimination is the result of imbalanced socio-economic development on account of unequal distribution of opportunities and resources. However, the elite of both Hindu and Muslim communities do not bother to rectify such imbalance, which leads to communal tensions, and a number of political parties gain out of this situation. It is the poor who suffer to the gain of political vested interests. As long as political slogans do not touch the real issues, the problem is going to worsens. This aspect is studied from its various perspectives under this section. Vatsala Shukla’s study of communal speeches examines how oratory could be used as tool to communal mobilization.

The casualness towards the sensitive problems such as communalism by the media, considered the fourth pillar of democracy, could make the situation worse Communal forces also make use of media to spread their ideology among the common masses. Both Press and Film media have a great influence in building public opinion, by influencing the mass psychology. Two studies in this book critically analyse the role of Hindi Cinema and Marathi news papers in communal politics. The authors observe that Hindi Cinema has a trend from the beginning to strengthen the spirit of secular democracy and could do much more in this regard. The inherent prejudices among the journalists result in biased reporting, often creating further tensions in the society.


Since the book examines a vast area in the field of communalism, it lacks a micro analysis of the problems. Also some of the issues and events are overlapped, for example the role of British in sowing the seeds of communalism has been repeated in more than three articles. This may be inevitable for different authors to reach to their focus area. Hence the repetition of some key issues is part of this kind of collection, unless extra effort in editing could be done.

The theme that the book deals with is not only contemporarily significant but also is informative and helpful in providing an insight in to the widespread areas where communalism has reached. The selection and thematic arrangement of articles helps one to refer for further studies on the topic. The annexure ‘constitutional provisions to safeguard secularism’ and ‘preventive measures to communalism’ are useful for those concerned with the challenges of communalism. The range of areas covered makes this book an inevitable resource for further study in this area.


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