Religion in politics and communalism

Detail

1. When religion and politics can mix

• Religious diversity in India is much greater than in countries like Northern Ireland. Many religions live side by side here. So the link between religion and politics needs careful handling.
• Gandhi's view: religion can never be separated from politics. For Gandhi, "religion" did not mean Hinduism or Islam. It meant the moral values shared by all religions. Politics should be guided by these values.
• Human-rights groups: most victims of communal riots in India are from religious minorities. These groups ask the government to protect minorities.
• Women's movement: family laws of all religions treat women unfairly. Family laws cover marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance. The movement wants them changed so that women are treated equally.
• The general rule (NCERT):
• People may raise their needs, interests and demands as members of a religious community.
• People in power may regulate religious practice to stop discrimination and oppression.
• Both are fine as long as every religion is treated equally.

2. When the link becomes dangerous

• Religion as the basis of the nation: in Northern Ireland, the conflict between Catholics (who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland) and Protestants (who wanted to stay in the UK) turned religion into a question of which nation people belonged to. The result was decades of violence.
• Three other warning signs (NCERT):
• One religion is presented as superior to the others.
• One religious group's demands are set against another group's.
• State power is used to give one religion dominance over the rest.

3. Communalism: meaning and flaw

• Communalism is the belief that religion is the main basis of social community.
• It assumes that all followers of one religion share the same basic interests.
• It assumes that followers of different religions cannot form one community. If their views differ, the differences must be basic and unavoidable.

• Extreme form: followers of different religions cannot live as equal citizens of one nation. So either one community must dominate the others or they must separate into different nations.

• Why the belief is wrong:

• Every person has many identities and roles. A person is also a woman or a man, a worker, a member of a region, and has a language and a caste.
• Every community has many voices. Each religion is divided by caste, class, region, gender and sect. All these groups have the right to speak for themselves.

• So, bringing all followers of one religion together on religious lines alone suppresses many voices inside that community.

• Bipan Chandra's three stages (Communalism in Modern India, 1984):

Stage	Core belief
Communal nationalism	Followers of one religion share common secular interests (political, economic, cultural)
Liberal communalism	Different religious communities have different interests, but these can still be adjusted inside one nation
Extreme communalism	The interests of different communities are hostile to each other, so they cannot live together. This is the language of fear and hatred

• Nehru's warning: majority communalism is more dangerous than minority communalism. The majority can easily present its own communalism as "nationalism".

4. Four forms of communalism

1. Everyday beliefs - These include prejudice (judging people without knowing them), stereotypes of religious groups, and a belief that one's own religion is superior. - NCERT's cartoon about a person who "often cracks jokes" about other communities shows how such ordinary habits spread communal thinking.

2. A quest for political dominance - In a majority community, it takes the form of majoritarian dominance (the view that the majority alone should decide everything). - In a minority community, it can become a demand for a separate political unit.

3. Political mobilisation on religious lines - It uses sacred symbols, religious leaders, emotional appeals and plain fear to bring followers of one religion together in politics. - In elections, it means targeting voters of one religion with special appeals. - Legal check: under Section 123(3), Representation of the People Act, 1951, it is a corrupt practice (an illegal act that can cancel an election win) when a candidate, or someone acting with the candidate's consent, asks people to vote for or against anyone on the ground of religion, race, caste, community or language, or uses religious symbols to help a candidate [3]. - Abhiram Singh v. C.D. Commachen (2 January 2017): a seven-judge bench decided this case 4:3.

   • The majority read "his religion" in Section 123(3) broadly. It covers the religion of the candidate, the voter and anyone else.
   • The minority (Chandrachud, Goel and Lalit JJ) held that "his" means only the religion of the candidate or a rival candidate [5].
   • Criminal law: Section 153A IPC punishes promoting enmity between groups on grounds of religion and similar grounds [4]. Section 196 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 now carries the same offence.

4. Communal violence - Partition (1947): a very large number of people were killed during the riots at the time of Partition. - After 1947: 1984 (anti-Sikh violence), 1989 (Bhagalpur), 1992-93 (Mumbai), 2002 (Gujarat), 2013 (Muzaffarnagar) and 2020 (north-east Delhi). - Newer forms:

   • Online hate and misinformation. Class 9 NCERT lists fake news as a challenge to democracy.
   • Mob lynching.
   • Calls for economic boycott of a community.

5. State response to mob lynching

• Tehseen Poonawalla v. Union of India (17 July 2018): the Supreme Court laid down a three-part approach [6]:
• Preventive steps: identify high-risk areas; appoint a nodal officer (an officer not below the rank of Superintendent of Police) in every district; stop the spread of messages and videos that incite violence; have the police break up mobs.
• Remedial steps: protect witnesses; give legal aid to victims and their families; finish trials within a fixed time; pay compensation.

• Accountability: take action against police and district officers who fail to act [6].

• Centre (2018): the Centre set up a high-level committee chaired by the Union Home Secretary to suggest ways to stop mob lynching [7].

• State anti-lynching laws [6]:

State	Year	Distinct feature
Manipur	2018 (first an ordinance)	Collective fines; jail for police who fail to prevent lynching
Rajasthan	2019	No collective fine; life imprisonment if the victim dies
West Bengal	2019	Death penalty as the highest punishment

• All three laws define lynching to cover attacks based on religion, caste, language, dietary practices, sexual orientation, political affiliation and other grounds [6].

6. Secular state: the constitutional answer

• No official religion. Unlike Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Islam in Pakistan or Christianity in England, India has no state religion.
• Freedom of religion: all people may profess, practise and propagate any religion, or none (Articles 25-28).
• No discrimination: the Constitution bans discrimination on the ground of religion (Articles 15-16). Article 325 says no one can be kept off the electoral roll because of religion. This rules out the separate electorates (separate voter lists for each religion) of colonial times.
• Intervention to ensure equality: the state may step into religious matters to ensure equality, for example by banning untouchability (Article 17).
• The word "secular" was added to the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment (1976). In S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994), the Supreme Court held secularism to be part of the basic structure (core features of the Constitution that even Parliament cannot destroy).

7. Demography and the "overtaking" myth

• Census 2011 religion shares:
• Total population was 121.09 crore. Hindus were 96.63 crore (79.8%) and Muslims were 17.22 crore (14.2%) [2].

• Christians were 2.3%, Sikhs 1.7%, Buddhists 0.7% and Jains 0.4% (NCERT).

• Change from 2001 to 2011:

• The Hindu share fell by 0.7 percentage points.

• The Muslim share rose by 0.8 percentage points [2].

• Growth rates, 2001-2011: Hindus 16.8%, Muslims 24.6%, Christians 15.5%, Sikhs 8.4%, Buddhists 6.1%, Jains 5.4% [2].

• Long-term trend since 1961 (NCERT):
• The Hindu, Jain and Christian shares fell slightly.

• The Muslim, Sikh and Buddhist shares rose slightly.

• The myth and the rebuttal:

• Myth: Muslims will soon outnumber other communities.

• Rebuttal: projections made for the Sachar Committee show the Muslim share rising by only about 3-4 percentage points in 50 years.

• Fertility is falling for everyone:

• India's overall total fertility rate (TFR) fell to 2.0 in NFHS-5 (2019-21), from 2.2 in NFHS-4 (2015-16) [8]. TFR is the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime.

• 2.0 is below the replacement level of 2.1. Fertility gaps between religious groups are narrowing.

• A contested data point: the EAC-PM working paper (May 2024) compared religious shares between 1950 and 2015.

• Critics' concern 1: it reported relative change. For example, a small group growing from 1% to 2% shows a "100% rise", which can make small shifts look very large.
• Critics' concern 2: it did not rely on census data.
• Exam use: quote it as a debated paper, not a settled fact.

Prelims Hooks

• Section 123(3), RPA 1951: an appeal for votes on the ground of religion, race, caste, community or language, or the use of religious symbols, is a corrupt practice [3].
• Abhiram Singh (2017): a 7-judge bench, decided 4:3, held that "his religion" covers the voter's religion too, not only the candidate's [5].
• Tehseen Poonawalla (2018) is the case on mob lynching guidelines, which require a district nodal officer of SP rank [6]. Do not confuse it with Abhiram Singh, which is about election appeals.
• Census 2011: Hindus 79.8%, Muslims 14.2%. From 2001 to 2011, the Muslim share rose 0.8 points and the Hindu share fell 0.7 points [2].
• Lowest decadal growth rate (2001-11): Jains, at 5.4%. Buddhists were next at 6.1% [2].
• Trap: for Gandhi, "religion in politics" meant shared moral values, not any one faith.
• Trap: Bipan Chandra's liberal communalism accepts that interests differ but can still be adjusted. Extreme communalism treats them as hostile.
• The word "secular" entered the Preamble through the 42nd Amendment (1976). S.R. Bommai (1994) made secularism part of the basic structure.
• NFHS-5 (2019-21): national TFR was 2.0, below the replacement level of 2.1 [8].

Mains Points

• The line between legitimate and communal politics:
• Religion in public life is acceptable when it carries shared ethics (Gandhi) or asks for equal treatment, such as protection from riots or reform of family laws.
• It becomes communal when it claims superiority, pits one group against another, or captures state power.

• Secularism in India is equal distance and equal respect towards all religions, with the right to step in for reform. It is not the strict separation of state and religion seen in France or the US.

• The legal toolkit and its gaps:

• The law already has Section 123(3) RPA, Section 153A IPC / Section 196 BNS, and the Tehseen Poonawalla guidelines [3][4][6].
• Gaps: the guidelines are unevenly followed; there are only a few state anti-lynching laws [6]; election appeals made through coded speech and social media are hard to punish under Section 123(3).

• Possible reforms: a central anti-lynching law; fast-track courts; accountability of police for failing to act; regulation of platforms to curb misinformation.

• Demography as a tool of fear:

• The "overtaking" myth feeds communal mobilisation through fear.
• Census 2011 shows only small shifts [2], fertility is converging [8], and Sachar-era projections show slow change.

• Policy should respond to education, income and health, not religion.

• Why communalism hurts democracy:

• It turns many identities into one.
• It suppresses the voices of women, dalits and the poor inside each community.
• It replaces debate on policy with debate on identity. Majority communalism can also present itself as nationalism (Nehru).