LITERATURE REVIEWS

COMMUNALISM AND THE STATE: SOME ISSUES IN INDIA BY

BIPAN CHANDRA: In this article, the author tries to explain the concept of
communalism with a political point of view. He tries to explain this ideology of
communalism by taking an example of when India was under British power. However the
author explains the whole communalism as more of a belief system and not as an ideology.
He took various examples of the British times, such when communal violence became a force
in India in 1920 and when during 1935-1945 communalism was growing very fast in India.
Moving on, if we go through the article we see the examples of Mohammed Ali Jinnah who
used the most violent form of communal ideology from 1938 to 1947.

Further he states some of the characteristics of communalists which can be easily traced by
the activities which were going on during the British period. Such as he tells us that
communalist may not promote non-violence prima facie. But promoting this ideology at a
wider extent obviously promotes the violence.

This article concludes by saying that if we want to fight communalism, particularly at this
time when this ideology has also entered into the state power where the seats have been
reserved according to the minority religion the struggle to fight communalism must become a
mass movement in India.

MAKING SENSE OF JINNAH TODAY PUBLISHED IN ECONOMIC

AND POLITICAL WEEKLY: This article is a review published in Economic and
Political Weekly which is on book “Jinnah: India-Partition-Independence, Rupa & co., New
Delhi 2009”. Jaswant singh who is the former foreign minister of India and a long-time leader
of Bhartiya Janta Party was expelled from the party for writing this book. This book openly
favours Jinnah and argues that congress leaders like Jawahar Lal Nehru and Sardar Vllabh-
Bhai Patel practically forced Jinnah to demand the partition of British India and the creation
of Pakistan. Further this says that Jinnah was the leader of Muslim community in undivided
India and was merely trying to save his community and leadership from a Hindu majority
democracy.
In the review Jinnah was favoured not only for the Hindu-Muslim Unity in undivided India
but also his work in the New Pakistan which brought secularism and liberal democracy in
Pakistan today.

The article concludes by stating that it cannot be denied that Jinnah was responsible for the
partition of India and not just one leader can be blamed for this action whether it is Gandhi,
Jinnah, Nehru or Patel.

GANDHI-JINNAH EQUATION BY ZAHOOR SIDDIQI: This article shows

the relation between Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi. This article highlights
their soft feelings for each other and also highlights their nature towards each other in the
personal arena.

The author also tried to explain the role of Jinnah and Gandhi and their reaction towards each
other during the British time such as during the Khilafat Movement. Here the author states
that both Gandhi and Jinnah were aware of each other’s weakness. The incident of mass
killing of Muslims in Bihar is also analysed in this article. Also the Author reveals the fact
though both were great personalities in India during that time and as Gandhi had the power to
bring a mass revolution during that so Jinnah regularly targeted Gandhi for his demands but
this can be also noticed that whatever Jinnah demanded was not always in the hands of
Gandhi.

SEMINAR ON 'COMMUNALISM IN INDIA': A REPORT BY

SRIMANJARI: This paper starts with a basic introduction on communalism, interpreting
the first session of the seminar on “Comunalism: Legacy of history” by Romila Thapar which
states that the expression of communalism starts from an interaction between the religious
communities and then turn to a violent action. He indicates that communalism may never
lead to better results.

He further notes down that religion by itself, or as it is, does not generate a communal
identity. A person can have multiple identities. Most of the times religion gives the poor a
space where they could be themselves. Economic development and literacy alone do not
mitigate communal feelings. Yet through the eradication of illiteracy and through economic
insecurity, which is one of the major causes of of communalism, is removed. In the whole
article, the author tries to connect major concepts with communalism such as Communalism
and the state, communalism and culture & communalism and media.

CENSUS AND COMMUNALISM BY T. MANI CHOWDARY: Here in this

article author tried to relate the concept of communalism with population. This article is
actually based on statistical analysis. With data present, the article tells us that the paranoia
which we have created that Hindu will be minority in our country if the Muslim growth rate
increases at the rate it is increasing is absolutely wrong because the growth rate of population
of Muslim in India is not much different from the growth rate of Hindu’s. He took many
examples of certain district and towns to prove this paranoia wrong. The article also states
some of the Islamic law which help him prove his point.

Through this article we can say that it would be wrong to blame just the Britishers for the
cause of divide between Hindu and Muslims. There are many other leaders who were
responsible for this action. Most of facts stated in this article have been proved by the
statistics presented by the author.