Growth of communalism in colonial India

By: Daksh(21IAMH05)

Introduction:
India's history is like a gripping storybook, and in its pages, the term "communalism" takes
centre stage, stirring up lively debates and becoming a buzzword in the fascinating world of
Indian historiography. As a result, the works of communalism are so huge. For the same
reason, we will not venture into describing the growth of communalism, which has already been
dealt with in great length by historians like Bipin Chandra, RS Sharma and Romillah Thapar.
This paper would rather try to critically evaluate the narratives on communalism and
contemplate other plausible frameworks that can be employed to understand the growth of
communalism during the colonial phase.

What is communalism?
Communalism, like any other 'isms' in Indian historiography, is a very loosely used term,
especially in the case of modern India; like any other word, the word communal or
communalism's use mushroomed with the changing political landscape of India in the
post-independence era. As a result, in popular history writings, this word has garnered a
negative connotation. For our examination of the growth of communalism in modern India, we
will assume it to be a value-neutral conceptual construct devoid of any positive or negative
connotations.

For this examination, understanding the word communalism is of utmost importance.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, communalism refers to:-
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"Originally and chiefly South Asian. Strong allegiance to one's own ethnic or religious
group rather than to a society or nation as a whole; religious factionalism, ethnocentrism.
Also: the structuring of society or politics on the basis of this."

With this, we will also utilise Bipin Chandra, one of the pioneers in theorising communalism in
India's conceptualisation of communalism, which is much looser than the Oxford Dictionary's
meaning of communism.

"Simply put (, communalism is the belief that because a group of people follow a
particular religion, they have, as a result, common social, political and economic
interests. It is the belief that in India hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs form different
and distinct communities which arc independently and separately structured or
consolidated; that all the followers of a religion share not only a community of religious
interests but also common secular interests, that is, common economic, political, social
and cultural interests; that Indians inevitably perceive such interests through the
spectacles of the religious grouping and arc bound to possess a sense of identity based
on religion, i.e., religion has to become the basis of their basic social identity and the
determinant of their basic social relationships; that they possess the inherent tendency to
act and function as a separate group or entity or unit in these fields; that they constitute
separate •organic wholes' or homogeneous and cohesive communities, especially in the
political field; that each such religious 'community' has its own separate history; that
communal identity and division have always pervaded Indian society, though they may
have been reinforced in modern times; that the religious 'community' has become the
basis of the organization of modem politics in India and of the perception of economic,
political and cultural issues by the Indian people; that a 'real' Hindu or Muslim can belong
only to a party of the community and cannot differ politically from other Hindus or
Muslims;· that all Hindus or Muslims must think alike in politics because they are Hindus
or Muslims; that, in fact, each religious 'community' constitutes a homogeneous entity
and even a distinct 'society' in itself; that there is and can be no such thing as an Indian
nation-India has been, is, and has to be, a mere 'confederation of religious
communities'."

After the synthesis of both definitions, we can reduce to the following characteristics of
communalism for the purpose of our inquiry:-

1. Communalism is an ideology that conceives reality and interests in terms of religious

groups such as Hindu or Muslim and not in terms of other groupings such as nation1 or
class.
2. Communalism conceives a social group as a homogeneous entity, neglecting the
differences within the group.
3. Communalists use religion to fulfil broader political aspirations.
4. Communalism is, therefore, antithetical to forming secular modern liberal nationalism
based on secular issues such as common economic suffering.

1
The word nation is used based on Ernest Renan’s understanding of a nation.
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For the purpose of this paper, we will use communalism just as a conceptual framework and not
a desired or not desired, right or wrong ideology. In this paper, we will attempt to trace the
growth of communalism across the communities in colonial India, adhering to these 4 basic
points of characterisation elucidated above.

The emergence of communalism in British Colonial India

Communalism, in the sense of our definition of the term, did not exist in medieval India and is
the basic premise of Bipin Chandra's works. This assumption itself is questionable as a huge
amount of literature is available to counter this narrative2. However, we will confine our study to
the colonial phase of India for the sake of convenience.

As far as the emergence of communalism is concerned, the typical Marxian analysis, as

propounded by Bipin Chandra, attributes the emergence of communalism to colonial rule.
According to this analysis, communalism is an offshoot of colonialism and emerged because of
the interplay of class conflicts based on the colonial mode of economic exploitation. However,
there are multiple problems with this understanding, namely:-
1. It does not take into consideration the conflicts which were far away in time from the
divide and rule politics era of the British time in the last quarter of the 20th century, such
as the Mophlah rebellion of 1802, Adivasi rebellions throughout the 19th century and
Wahabi movement.
2. It assumes the economic aspect as the sole reason for the outbreak of conflicts and
antagonism between the communities.
3. The writings of Bipin Chandra do not take into consideration the difference between the
nature of Indigenous and foreign religions and put every religion under the broad
category of 'Religion' falling under the trap of colonial modernity (Patel 2007).

We will attempt to solve these issues one by one and then attempt to reconcile them with the
framework of communalism.

The Wahhabi movement and Subaltern community movements

The Wahabi movement perfectly fitted into our definition of communal. The move was
propelled by religious goals such as the purification of Islam and the eradication of polytheism
prevalent among Indian Muslims. Syed Ahmed was more ferocious of the polytheist
co-religionists than the British (Ahmad 2020, 324-342). Additionally, the movement was lent by
a spirit of making India Dur-ul-Islam from Dur-up-Harb via the means of jehad, which is part of
Muslim doctrine3 . Its communal outreach cannot be denied where the supplies and financial
support came from the distant interiors of UP to the NWFP. The movement primarily saw Shiks
and Christian kafirs as the prime enemies of Islam in India.

2
For reference see Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s History and Culture of the Indian People Vol. VI: The Delhi
Sultanate.
3
See chapter XII National frustration in Pakistan and Partition of India for further explaination of this
doctrine.
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Another element of communalism, which is the use of religion for the purpose of assuming state
power, was equally manifested in their designs. Support was sought from the distant seats of
power such as Tokh and Hyderabad4. However, the participation of non-muslim bankers
cannot be denied, who were the principal backbone of the movement. This particular point
again highlights that though these movements were infused with the religious spirit of the
community, the upper classes found themselves in a truce with each other for mutual benefit.

As a whole, the Wahabi movement fulfils all the characteristics of a communal movement
propounded by Bipin Chandra. In a way, the communal politics of Muslims in the later half of
the 19th century, pioneered by Sir Syed, owes its existence to the Wahabi movement (Ahmad
2020, 364). Here is precisely where the Marxist communal thesis comes under attack.
Suppose the British policy of divide and rule propounded by British historiography and economic
exploitation are to be regarded as the sole reasons for the emergence of communalism in India.
How did a communal religious revivalist movement emerge as early as 1830 when the British
historiography not even started? Moreover, the movement was not for any class interest but
was guided by religious fervour against the Shikhs and the British (Ahmad 2020, 352).

Quite similar to this case is the case of other anti-imperialist movements, which didn't find their
place in Marxist and Nationalist historiography. This category includes the subaltern histories of
the Sanyasi and Fakir Rebellion, the Santhal rebellion, etc. The Marxist and nationalist
historiography did not even give a place to these struggles in the nationalist movement.
Similarly, the Marxian framework of communalism theorised by Marxian historians such as
Romilla Thapar, RS Sharma, and Bipin Chandra has failed to capture the broader religious and
cultural aspects of these movements. The framework of communalism is so fragile that any
movement guided by the spirit of preserving culture, habitat or religion is deemed communal. If
we go by this definition of communalism then the movements of the Santhal Rebellion, The Devi
Movement and the Kuka Rebellion all will be placed under the broad category of communal
propounded by Marxian scholars5. However, it has to be noted that some movements,
especially the tribal movement, are guided by a spirit of fusion of religion, material and culture in
which one cannot go without the other. There is a need for more empathic frameworks to
understand these rebellions from their own point of view rather than the shock treatment of one
fits the all method of class analysis.

The alternative understanding

Failure of the Marxian understanding lies in its over-emphasis on the class aspect of
communalism. Class does matter in the case of communalism by assuming it to be the
sub-structure on which all the superstructures lie might be true in the case of a homogenised
society like Europe, but in the case of the diverse caste-ridden Indian society, the mould of class
analysis is not enough. Nationalist historians like RC Majumdar, in this aspect, have at least
been able to capture the importance of the religious-cultural motivations of certain movements

4
See pp 220 of Wahabi movement in India.
5
Based on the opinion of Dr. Bhangya Bhukya who pointed out this in a class.
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like the Wahabi movement and the Kuka rebellion6. However, even the nationalist historians
did not give adequate place to the subaltern movement.

What is needed is a different framework that lays equal emphasis on different aspects of this
movement instead of falling prey to the slippery slope of religion, culture or class conflict as the
sole cause of the movements.

There are two broad reasons for the emergence of communalism, which should be co-soldered
separately, namely the religious doctrinal level and the cultural-material and political level. The
Rankian historians like RC Majumdar and Jadunath Sarkar and partly Dr Bhimrao Amdedkar, in
his book Pakistan or the Partition of India, have emphasised the doctrinal differences between
Hindus and Muslims. This approach includes the narrative that Muslims and Hindus cannot
form a nation together because of their different imagination and interests. This narrative, if
measured with the Marxist yardstick of communalism, the approach itself would be deemed to
be communal. However, the inherent differences between the two communities are thought to
be neglected. This was partly accepted by Bipin Chandra. In other words, if the wedge
between Hindus and Muslims was created by the British policy of divide and rule, then why
Hindus and Muslims could not overcome it once the British left (Madan 2003)?

While Bipin Chandra agrees on this point that British policy alone could not result in such
consequences but used the pre-existing differences, he considers the existing differences as a
manifestation of the economic churning of classes. Thus, the difference is solely class-based,
and everything else is a part of the superstructure standing on the substructure of the economy.
The correction is required on this particular point. As religio cultural, and doctrinal reasons are
equally important. For instance, the Kuka and Sanyasi rebellions do not have a plausible
Marxian class analysis type explanation. Therefore, it would be better if we leave this baggage
of economy first and doctrine second. But it is always the one out of two or a mix of two that
causes communal unrest. This is a typical chicken and egg problem, which is better to be left
to itself rather than jumping to conclusions like the Marxist and Nationalist historians.

Conclusion
Holding the British completely responsible for the emergence of communalism is historically
incorrect. Moreover, communalism as a modern colonial phenomenon is true to the extent we
talk about the degree of conflict, but its roots lie deep in the cultural and doctrinal differences
between various communities. However, concluding that the British were entirely separate from
the growth of communalism is equally fallacious. British used those socio-cultural, doctrinal
and class-based vulnerabilities in the Indian social fabric to fuel the fissiparous tendencies and
cultivate their interest out of it (Chandra 1984, 237-289). In the end, the British succeeded in
dividing the Indians to the extent that the independence arrived, with the splintering of India into
two.

6
For further reference see the chapters on Wahabi movement and Kuka rebellion in RC Majumdar’s cited
book.
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References
1. Ahmad, Qeyamuddin. 2020. The Wahhabi Movement in India. N.p.: Manohar.

2. Ambedkar, Bhimrao R. 2014. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches. N.p.: Dr.
Ambedkar Foundation.

3. Atal, Yogesh. "Sociological Study of Religion." Sociological Bulletin 52, no. 1 (2003): 149–52.
[http://www.jstor.org/stable/23620327](http://www.jstor.org/stable/23620327).

4. Chandra, Bipan. 1984. Communalism in Modern India. N.p.: Vikas.

5. Majumdar, R. C. 1997. History Of The Freedom Movement In India (volume II). N.p.: KLM.

6. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “communalism, n., sense 3”, September 2023.
[https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9409522956](https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9409522956).

7. Patel, Sujata. 2007. "Sociological Study of Religion." Economic and Political Weekly 42, no.
13 (March).