Communalism (South Asia)
The term communalism ( English communalism ) means the phenomenon in the socio-political context, people that are primarily about their group interests as the most religiously or ethnically specific group defined. The term is mainly used in the political environment of South Asia (in India , Pakistan , Sri Lanka , Bangladesh , Myanmar, etc.) and usually has a negative connotation. So far, the term is less common in German than in English. In the case of local violence between different religious or ethnic groups, the English literature z. B. of communal violence orcommunal riots (communalist violence or communalist unrest). A politics of the respective particular interests is called communal politics . Although the term 'communalism' is mostly used in the context of South Asia, the underlying phenomenon is not limited to this region of the world.
The term was coined during the British colonial period (before 1947). The word coining is obviously derived from the term “commune” (cf. English community “community”, common “common”). The British colonial rulers used the term to subsume under one term the numerous animosities and disputes that took place at the local level between the almost immensely diverse groups in British Indian society, and which to a large extent remained incomprehensible to them. In this sense, there was communalist violence between members of different religions (Hindus, Muslims, etc.), as well as between members of different ethnic groups and between members of different castes or professions. The term “communalist” expresses two things: on the one hand, groups act here at the level of small communities (e.g. village communities), often on their own initiative, ie not centrally controlled (but possibly influenced), on the other hand It is not individuals who act here, but entire groups of people who act from a collective consciousness.
Communalist conflicts were and have remained a major social problem in the recent history of the Indian subcontinent . The mass expulsions and excesses of violence against Hindu and Muslim minorities after the partition of British India were, in this usage, expressions of communal violence, which in total claimed more than one million lives. Other major outbreaks of communalist violence were the riots against Sikhs after the murder of Indira Gandhi in 1984, the temple-mosque controversy in Ayodhya , which culminated in the storming and destruction of the Babri Mosque in 1992, the riots in Gujarat in 2002 after the death of some Hindu Pilgrims, the ongoing ethnic violence in Assam, especially against immigrants from Bengal, the ongoing suppression of non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan, and many others, each of which resulted in thousands of deaths.
Some political parties in the above-mentioned countries are accused of consciously promoting communalist ideas and, in some cases, being directly responsible for such acts of violence. These include, for example, Shiv Sena in Maharashtra , Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab , India , Islamist groups such as Jamaat-e-Islami and Hindu nationalists , some of which are gathered in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ursula Rao : Communalism in India - A presentation of the scientific discussion about Hindu-Muslim conflicts. South Asian studies worksheets at the Institute for Indology and South Asian Studies at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Volume 4, Halle (Saale) 2003. PDF
- ↑ Seema Mustafa: The struggle for a secular India. Heinrich Böll Foundation, February 25, 2014, accessed on February 13, 2016 .
- ↑ Hindu nationalism and the politics of non-negotiability. Federal Agency for Civic Education, October 31, 2002, accessed on February 13, 2016 .
- ^ Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar : Pakistan or the partition of India. Bombay: Thackers, 1945 full text
- ^ Ravindra Kumar: Mahatma Gandhi on Problem of Communalism. mkgandhi.org, accessed February 13, 2016 .