Communalism can take various forms in politics :
It involves the use of sacred symbols, religious leaders, emotional appeal and plain fear in order to bring the followers of one religion together in the political arena.
(i) Communalism in daily beliefs : The most common expression of communalism is in everyday life. These routinely involve religious prejudices, stereotypes of religious communities and the beliefs in the superiority of one religion over the other religions. This is so common that we often fail to notice it, even when we believe in it.
(ii) Formation of political parties on the basis of communities: All the communities of the world have a quest for political dominance of one’s own religious community. For those belonging to the majority community, this takes the form of majoritarian dominance. For those belonging to the minority community, it can take the form of a desire to form a separate political unit.
(iii) Political mobilisation on communal lines : It is another frequent form of communalism. Parties based on a particular community make use of sacred symbols, religious leaders, emotional appeal and create fear in order to bring the followers of one religion together in the political arena. In electoral politics, this often involves a special appeal to the interests or emotions of voters of one religion in preference to others.
(iv) Communal riots: Sometimes, communalism takes the most ugly form of communal violence, riots and massacre. India has suffered some of the worst communal riots at the time of partition. The post independence period has also seen large- scale communal violence.
(v) To sum up, communalism leads to the belief that people belonging to different religions cannot live as equal citizens within one nation. Either, one of them has to dominate the rest or they have to form different nations.
