Important Materials on National Security for IPS LCE Examination
Topic: Intractable Communal Violence in India
By: —Mr. K. Saleem Ali, Prof. Amarjeet Kaur & Prof. K.K. Aggarwal
Courtesy: Ministry of Home Affairs
Introduction
As one of the oldest 'cauldrons of civilization' in the world, India stands apart on account of its geoeconomic and political location. It is, therefore, only natural that imbibing the 'culture of tolerance' in its polity, is comprehensible which is amply reflected by the fact that it has shared its home with people of various religious diversities and race like the Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Parsees, Sikhs, Baha'is and others. Thus, a culture of tolerance had gradually evolved and emerged over the ages, ushering in the predominance of public reasoning, magnanimity and resilience in the day to-day life of the Indians. Perusal of great Epics like the Mahabharata and Ramayana tell us of heroic deeds upholding these broad minded values, age old scriptures of the Upanishads and Vedas chant innumerable hymns with analogies reflecting the merits of patience and acceptance. With time, the charity and endurance preached by Ashoka, the sufferance and understanding by Jain Muni's, subsequently, led to the open door policy of Akbar and the permissive Sufi and Bhakti Movements. All this only echoes the predominance of public reasoning and forbearance of its people, who had taken the test of time and matured, resulting in what we perceive today, an 'accommodative polity of India'.
Role models in the garb of Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Jawahar Lal Nehru, during its freedom struggle, played a pivotal part to portray, practice and propagate the indomitable spirit of public reasoning and accommodation of "Unity in Diversity". Thus "the secularism in contemporary India, which received its legislative formulation in the Post-Independence Constitution of India, contains a strong influence of intellectual history, including the championing of intellectual pluralism" 1. India prides itself as the only nation in the world, which adopted the secular democratic polity in its Constitution after achieving its independence. Contrary to this Utopian ideology, it has had to face its share of woes with the rise of fundamentalism irrespective of religion, over a period of time. The very same pillars supporting the basic value system envisaged in the Constitution has on several occasions gone to the extent of questioning this unique polity. The resilience of the people of India has kept it going, but at the same time, the cantankerous threat of communalism, looming large, remains intractable. To analyze the intractability of the communal violence and making it tractable, one need to delve into the entire issue of communalism from the historic point of view in a dispassionate manner and work out the structure of this conflict. Winston Churchill once had this standpoint, "if you want to plan for your future, you should know your past". This paper is one such attempt.
Conflict Theories and Communal Violence in India
To analyze the glaring factors and the complex structure of Hindu-Muslim conflict in India, an attempt is made to correlate and put it in the right perspective, by examining the relevant Conflict Theories. On exploring a large number of themes and various Schools of Thought on Conflict Theories; the macro and micro theories were dropped, as they focus more on individual than group behavior. Hence, the search was extended to the Modern Theories relevant to our times which combines both individual and group behaviors.
Enemy System Theory
Among the Modern Theories the Enemy System Theory (EST) developed by a group of psycho analysts and International Relations Practitioners of the United States of America is most relevant. Donald L. Horowitz's ten explanations on 'conflict' are also widely applicable in this context. Conceptually, both these theories have about six to ten factors, generally explaining the conflict between ethnic groups. The dividing line between ethnic groups and that of a religious group being very thin, both these aspects would be consolidated and utilized for our interpretation.
The EST hypothesis Paraphrases that, "humans have a very deep rooted psychological need to dichotomize and establish as enemies and allies". It can be inferred from this hypothesis that the rapport between such groups would depend upon their past historic relationship. In the context of this paper, this theory is apt, since there has always been an attempt from the Eighteenth Century by the Fundamentalists of both the communities to mutually dichotomize each other as enemies and allies. If this perception and attitude was one sided, the conflict should be tractable, but since it is mutual, it becomes intractable.
Us vs Them
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