Communalism has always been a significant social issue in India. In popular discourse, it is always perceived as an unhealthy attachment to one’s own religion which strongly emphasises the essential unity of the community against other communities. In colonial as well as post-colonial India’s stiff competition for power among identity and ethnic-based groups, communal violence has always proved to be an effective weapon through which society has always been made polarised to reap the political and electoral gain. Academically, the emergence of communal identities has been the subject t of intense debate and has been always understood through the prism of the Hindu-Muslim binary.
Despite being the central point of academic debate and popular rhetoric, the history of communalism remains inadequately researched and has been often intermingled with popular perceptions and propositions. In the context of these ongoing intellectually debilitating absurd assumption, Gyanendra Pandey’s ‘The construction of communalism in colonial North India’ offers a new understanding of the construction of Indian society and politics in the last two century and unfold different dimensions of communalism, nationalism and colonialism. This book rehearses some of the major issues and basic questions of Indian society with a sustained critique which has been described as the national question from the nineteenth century to recent times.
The book seeks to understand how communal identities were formed and mobilised in the context of British colonialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Pandey argues that communal identities were not inherent or pre-existing in Indian society, but were largely a product of British colonial policies. He traces the root of communalism to the British Policy of divide and rule, which sought to create divisions between different religious and ethnic groups in order to maintain control over India.
Communalism was not a monolithic or static phenomenon but was constructed through multiple processes that include the articulation of communal identities, the formation of communal organisations and the mobilisation of these identities for political purposes. He shows how the colonialist construction of Indian history has manifested religious bigotry and conflict as a distinctive feature of Indian society.
In this book, Gyanendra Pandey critiques the colonial historiography that reduced communal identities to ancient, immutable and irrational conflicts between religious groups. Instead, he proposes a new approach that examines the historical memory and accounts of the ‘little community‘, and highlights the ways in which communal identities are constructed and reconstructed over time.
In this book, Gyanendra Pandey critiques the colonial historiography that reduced communal identities to ancient, immutable and irrational conflicts between religious groups. Instead, he proposes a new approach that examines the historical memory and accounts of the ‘little community‘, and highlights the ways in which communal identities are constructed and reconstructed over time. One example of this approach can be seen in Pandey’s examination of Waqeat-o-Hades, a local community in Qasba Mubarakpur, which he uses to illustrate how communal identities are shaped by local histories and narratives.
However, it is important to note that Pandey’s approach is not limited to a particular time and space. Rather, it emphasises the contingency and complexity of communal identities, and how they are shaped by larger social, economic, and political forces. By focusing on the historical memory and accounts of ‘little communities‘, Pandey’s work challenges us to move beyond simplistic and reductionist understandings of communalism, and to engage in a deeper analysis of the complex and multifaceted nature of communal identities.