History assigment

MANISHA PANDEY
Partition of india
• The Partition of India of 1947 was the division of British
India into two independent dominion states, the Union of
India and the Dominion of Pakistan.
• The Union of India is today the Republic of India; the
Dominion of Pakistan is today the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan and the People's Republic of Bangladesh.
• The partition involved the division of two provinces, Bengal
and Punjab, based on district-wise non-Muslim or Muslim
majorities.
• The partition was outlined in the Indian Independence Act
1947 and resulted in the dissolution of the British Raj, or
Crown rule in India. The two self-governing countries of
India and Pakistan legally came into existence at midnight
on 15 August 1947
• After british handed over self governance to india on
August 14,1947,the plan for the partition was put into
action.
The Mountbatten plan is what India was divided accorting to. The
plan was written by Cyril Radcliffe, who wrote it based on a
British commissioned report on India.
The plan was finalized on July 18,1947 and was put into action a
month later.
India was formed out of the mostly hindu regions and pakistaan
was formed out of the mainly Muslim regions . Pakistan was
formed in two dominions- East Pakistan and West Pakistan,
which were separated geographically
 Communalism
• Communalism, as we understand it in our country is blind loyalty to
one’s own religious group. It is described as a tool to mobilize people
for or against by raising an appeal on communal lines.
• Communalism is associated with religious fundamentalism .

•Definition of communalism
• Ram Ahuja said “communalism is an ideology which states that
society is divided into religious communities whose interests differ
and are, at times, even opposed to each other”
• Abdul Ahmed says “ communalism is a social phenomen characterized
by the religiou of two communities, often leading to acrimony, tension
and even ripting between them”

• Prabha Dixit says “communalism is a political doctrine which makes

use of religious and cultural difference to achieve political ends “.

CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMUNALISM
1. Communalism is an ideological concept
2. It has a broader base which encompasses social ,economic and
political aspects for its manifestation ;
• Minorities fails to be intermingled in the national mainstream .most of them
do not participate in the secular nationalistic politics and insist on
maintaining for separate identity of their religion . They fails to generate the
appropriate national ethos.
• The orthodox members of minorities feel that they have a distinct entity
with their own cultural pattern ,personal law and thought . Such feelings
prevented them from accepting the concept of secularism and religious
tolerance .
• The British rule which produced the divide and rule policy ,separate people
on the basis of religion strengthen the basis of communalism in India and
Pakistan provided further an antagonistic feeling towards each other .
• Religion-based politics , religion-dominated political organisation,
canvassing in elections based on religious considerations , political
justification of communal violence and hated speech of political
leaders are important cause of communalism .
 COMMUNAL VIOLENCE IN INDIA
• Communal violence is a mass mobilization of one religious people
against other religion people . The movement are unpredictable ,
uncheckable and carry an emotional fury.
• Communal riot are more politically motivated
• Communal riots seems to be more common in northern India than in
southern India .
• Out of major 58 riots in India only 13 were in south east India .
Partition [politics]
• In politics, a partition is a change of political borders cutting through at least one territory
considered a homeland by some community.

• Common arguments for partitions include:

• historicist – that partition is inevitable, or already in progress[1]

• last resort – that partition should be pursued to avoid the worst outcomes (genocide or large-
scale ethnic expulsion), if all other means fail[1]
• cost–benefit – that partition offers a better prospect of conflict reduction than the if existing
borders are not changed[1]
• better tomorrow – that partition will reduce current violence and conflict, and that the new more
homogenized states will be more stable[1]
• rigorous end – heterogeneity leads to problems, hence homogeneous states should be the goal of
any policy[
Politics of communalism
• Giventhe history of patition violence,it was hoped that suchdeep and
bitter divisions over religiously motivated politics will not recur in
independent India.
• Quite contrary to that, communalism is entrebched in the body politic
of independent India.
• The term communalism gets a specific meaning in South Asian
context- it signifies political mobilization around religious and ethnic
identities in order to establish domination and incite violence.
• Many scholars have concerned themselves with the nature of
communal politics and the response to it in secularism.
• Bipin Chandra says that communalism is a phenomenon where
the majority and minority religious ideology and practices
confirms the notion of 'Our belief alone is true’ and ‘rest is
untrue or incomplete’
• In India, religion is the core weapon which creates the
communal ideology with different practices. Communalism is
seen as existing primarily between Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and
Christians
• In contemporary india,communalism designates not only the conflicts
between extremist religious communities,commentatorsfor long have
argued that politicians play an important role in creating communal
tension and provoking violence.
• Religion is deliberately used as a tool for mobilizing communal
passions and the spiritual element in religion is not given important
• Apart from the background of communal conflict during and before
partition,what fuels the present – day communal politics in india is
also the fact that groups that werw previously marginalized are
gaining social mobility and asserting themselves socially
• This seems to threaten the dominant position of the majority
community, which is Hindus in the case of india.
• communalism has been carried out at the level of political ideology.
• Its manifestations in social are many but among them, communal
violence is of our greatest concern.
• r
Riots politics: communal violence in India
• Riots, a manifestation of communal politics in a violent form, have
marked much of 20 and 21 century history of india.
• Conflagrations between religious groups which result in mob attacks
on life and property of people from different ethnic – religious
communities have occurred at varying scales.
• The months during which partition – related migration was underway,
riots hadbecome an everyday phenomenon.
• In independent india, riots in Meerut in 1982 and 1987,Bhagalpur in
1989, Bombay I 1992,Gujarat in 2002, Muzaffarnagar in 2013 are
among those that havr been reported widely because of the scale of
violence and loss of lives.
• Violence seems most likely in ares where there are politicians
supported by local networks of extremist organizations and individual
who specialize in creating and maintaining communal tensions.
• These networks according to brass are ‘institutionalized riots systems’