'Communalism could have been controlled': An Interview with Bipan Chandra

Q&A: 'Communalism can grow without communal riots'
in: The Times of India, 1 Sep 2008, 0210 hrs IST


Historian Bipan Chandra, 80, is best known for his writings on Indian national movement and communalism. He tells Avijit Ghosh that communalism could have been controlled, even eradicated, if an active educative campaign was carried out against the phenomena in post-independent India:


Your major work on communalism, 'Communalism in Modern India', came out 24 years ago. How serious a threat is it today to India's integrity?

We are a multilingual, multi- religious, multicultural society. Communalism can split the country in the middle. If it is not controlled, India will be in a state of permanent civil war like in Sri Lanka or Lebanon. The problem is communalism has got a foothold in India. At least 20 per cent of the population now votes for the BJP. In the past, communalism was a middle-class phenomenon. Now it has taken hold of the common people. It has grown among tribals, in villages. The middle class, of course, is heavily communalised. It was said that south Indians can't be communal. But now you see that communalism has grown in Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

The number of communal riots has come down.

Communalism is an ideology. It means a Hindu's socio-politico-cultural interests are different from a Muslim's because he is a Hindu and vice versa. Riots are only a symptom of the disease. Communalism can grow without communal riots. For example, there were hardly any communal riots in 1930s or early 1940s, but communalism grew between 1937 and 1945. Riots occur when communal ideology has taken a certain hold. Riots are promoted by communal forces to enable communal ideology grow. Take the 2002 Gujarat riots. The purpose of the riots was not so much to kill Muslims or destroy their property. It was primarily to enable Hindu communalism grow there. Once that objective was achieved, there's peace.

Is terrorism linked to communalism?

Terrorism can be linked to communal ideology. For instance, there's hardly any Hindu terrorism today but Hindu communalism is very strong. Most Muslims in India don't support terrorism. But terrorism can take the form of Islamic terrorism. Religious conservatism need not necessarily be communal in nature, though it can lead to communalism. Many Hindus and Muslims are very conservative but they need not be communal.

How can we tackle communalism?

We need a full understanding and explanation of communalism. Many people, including some of my students, were communal to begin with. But once issues were explained to them, they changed. We need a educative campaign. For example, our education system encourages rather than discourages communalism. It is full of communal ideas, hidden or otherwise. Sometimes even the writer may not be aware of it. Nothing is being done about it. Our NCERT books now don't even have communalism as a topic. We should devote one week every year to an all-India campaign against communalism.