Indian Communalism

Indian communalism as described by Peter van der Veer is a combination of religion and nationalism, described by Dumont as one of a number of uneasy combinations. Communalism is a stage that disappears only when the given society is made truly "modern" (van der Veer 17-18). Communal refers to the fact that Indian society is made up of a number of religious communities, and communalism is a consciousness which draws on a supposed religious identity and uses this to form an ideology. Communalism then demands political allegiance to a religious community, supporting a program of political action to further the interests of that religious community (Thapor 60-61). Migration is identified by van der Veer as an important social process underlying both nationalism and religion and also the communalism which results from their combination. Van der Veer considers the nature of pre-colonial communities in India and the different forms of migration perceived there and makes a distinction between secular migration and sacred pilgrimage, while also finding a number of elements in common in the two. His analysis of migration and pilgrimage points to the underlying meaning of modernization and to the persistence of communalism in Indian society.

Van der Veer is countering a trend he sees in the literature toward seeing the spheres of the nation and of the local community as mutually exclusive and opposite in nature. He refers to Ferdinand T�nnies and his conception of Gemeinschaft

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Category: Foreign - I