Concept of Disparity -2 Causes and Consequences of Communalism, Casteism and Linguism

Intergroup conflicts:Introduction: in India, several groups live together, there exists a good degree of cooperation and tolerance among various groups. However, at times there is intergroup conflict, mainly due to conflict of interest. Conflict takes place of differing degrees, and at times the conflicts lead to violence and lawlessness in society. 

There are four types of intergroup conflict they are as follows:

1. Communalism
2. Castism 
3. Languism 
4. Regionalism
   

Communalism: 

• Communalism is a belief or an ideology of a social or political or a religious group, that their faith and practices are superior to that of other groups. 
• A communal group promotes the interest of its own members, and in doing so, May even be hostile to the interest of other groups of communities. The communal groups try to provoke work their other groups through their fundamental speeches and action that lead to violence and Lawlessness in society. 

Causes of Communalism

1. Geographical Causes: The territorial settlement of various religious groups especially Hindus, Muslims, and Christians causes them a wide difference in the mode of life, social standards, and belief patterns. Most frequently those patterns become contradictory and this could end in communal tension.
2. The negative impact of mass media: The messages about communal tension, in any part of our country, are spread through the mass media. This leads to further tension and riots between the rival communities. For example, the news of the demolition of the controversial structure at Ayodhya spread like wildfire all over the country through mass media. This made a more serious situation and resulted in riots all over the country. 
3. Failure of the governmental machinery: The State government as well as the Union government, cannot avoid their responsibility for the growing communalism in our country. They have repeatedly failed on many occasions to take stock of the situation, to anticipate in advance the sudden outburst of riots. They have also failed to take instant action to minimize stress intensity. The governments are only trying to blame the opposition parties and throwing the entire blame on them. The Govt. has also failed to put an end of political parties organized on the basis of communal feelings.
4. Seeds of Communalism were sown by British Imperialism: It's a historical fact that seeds of communalism were sown, nurtured are promoted in the soil of India by British imperialism, as a deliberate design with the sole object of sowing dissension (disagreement) in the minds of the major religious communities by the Policy of divide and rule" with a view to perpetuating British rule over India.
5. Encouragement to the promotion of communal politics: The Indian council Act 1909, for the first time in our country, electorate Foe(enemy) separate communities, classes, and interests and thus sowed the seeds of communalism and separatism. The  Government of India Act 1919 & 1935 eventually led to the partition of India.
6. Role of BJP, VHP, & SHIV SENA in promoting Hindu communalism: These have provided new strength vitality (spirit) to Hindu communal cobra in modern Indian society, by their active role and involvement in the demolition of Babri Masjid at Ayodhya on December 6th, 1992 on the ground that it was the original site for Ram Mandir, known as Ram Janam Bhoomi. The Godhra carnage on February 27th, 2002 was the contribution of the Muslim community and subsequent barbaric, inhuman and tragic development in Gujarat was initiated by the Hindu communal elements.
7. Role of Congress and Akalidal in promoting Sikh communalism: The army action in the golden temple greatly hurt the religious sentiments of the community, leading to the assassination (killing) of Smt. Indira Gandhi on October 30th, 1994.

Consequences of Communalism:

1. Communism these days in its varied forms and shapes has become extremely dangerous and in alarming proportion in our country.
2. It has interrupted the pattern of police co-existence in our multi-religious and multi-lingual fraternity.
3. It is an insult to India's nationalist identity, destructive of our democratic political stability and tragic set back to our developing secular culture
4. Our joint efforts for achieving vital common objectives such as a) Removal of poverty b) Eradication of disease c) availability of education to everyone and d) Provision for housing etc. are fragmented and frustrated by bringing religion to politic.

Casteism:

The cast factor is most prominent among Hindus any other community. The caste system refers to the varied hereditary social classes apart from the four traditional castes namely Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras, the Hindu society does have several sub-castes. on account of casteism are conflicts between upper caste and lower caste.

Consequence of casteism

• Casteism leads to violence and lawlessness in society and Loss of life and property especially that of middle-class people
• Backward caste are denied special benefits as a conscious attempt by the upper-caste official as an act of revenge for such conflict
• Small and marginal farmers who belong to backward caste are denied of bank loans by upper cast bank officials in certain parts of India
• A good number of backward people continued to live like destitute (extremely poor)
• Children of backword caste migrate to urban areas to escape from the clutches (a person's power or control) of upper caste people, adding to the overly populated urban areas thereby putting pressure on urban amenities.
• Education and social life of backward caste people badly affected because of tactics(an action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end) of upper caste
• The exploitation of girls and children belonging to backward castes. Casteism gives way to selfish and self-centered politicians to enter into state legislature and parliament. Such leader’s afternoon responsible for political instability and confusion

Measure to resolve communalism and casteism

1. Law & order administration: The law & order administration must conduct their duties with complete responsibility. The timely intervention of the police should help to control violence and riots before the situation becomes worse and may go out of control.
2. Public awareness campaigns: The frequent repetitions of campaigns may act as constant reminders of the people not indulge in communal activities and wors towards communal harmony.
3. Identification of communal elements: They must be identified and exposed. Strict action must be taken by the government against those who perpetuate casteism.
4. Education: The education curriculum (syllabus) should give importance to all. And the subjects comprising a course of study in a school or college must be added for awareness.
5. Religion: The education system should create an atmosphere of trust and cooperation among the followers of different religions. For the purpose, the students must be motivated to influence parents, neighbors, community leaders, and others towards communal harmony.
6. Role of media: The media should play a crucial role to develop a feeling of fellowship (friendly association) among various sections advocating communal harmony. The media should expose the ulterior motive of selfish leaders who sow the evil seats of casteism.
7. Role of religious leader: The religious leaders of all faith can play an important role to develop communal harmony. A religious leader should meet regularly to discuss ways and means to ensure communal harmony.
8. Derecognition of communal political parties: The government should derecognize any political party that has a direct or indirect connection with communal forces. Such recognition of communal political parties will help to depoliticize the issue of communalism and casteism and in turn, would foster communal harmony in the country
9. Punishment to government employee: Government employees including police personnel found guilty of negligence of their duty for encouraging communal passion in some form or the other must be punished including dismissal From services and withholding the retirement benefits.

Linguism: 

• The official language bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in 1963. The bill provides that the English language may be used in addition to Hindi as an official language.
• In 1965, Hindi was made the principal official language of India. This led to anti-Hindi agitation in Southern India and West Bengal. Therefor in 1965, the Parliament passed the official language amendment Act. This act gave a statutory guarantee to the non-Hindi speaking states that English would not be replaced by Hindi for any official purposes unless and until the states ready for the switch over.  
• The adoption of this Bill led to the anti-English riots in parts of Northern India. In repulsion(a feeling of intense distaste) there where again anti-Hindi riots in Southern parts.

Measures to resolve linguistic conflict: 

• The major linguistic conflicts have been resolved by the passing of the official language act of 1968. 
• Continuance of English for the official purposes of the union and in parliament in adoption to Hindi.
• Optional use of Hindi as state official language as an addition to English.  
• English shall be used for communication between the central government and state, which has not adopted Hindi as an official language. 
• Lingusim can be resolved by the following measures:
• Adoption of regional languages for official purposes.
• Do not impose a particular language on an individual or a group instead, create a condition that will motivate an individual to learn a given language.
• Develop the field of translation. we need to create a department at every local area where translation can be made and translators can be easily available.
• we must make attempt to resolve the issue by which the problem of language and the practical difficulty it creates can be resolved to te successful satisfaction of different groups.

Edited by: Imaduddin Khan (BMS, MA in Business Economics,M.Com)