The Communal Politics Of India

The Caste system has aroused much controversy than any other feature of India’s society. Every day, Dalits are butchered, assaulted, abused, raped, lynched, shot or openly mutilated without considering any consequences of the offenders. The deaths of pregnant women who are not able to pay the bribes at government hospitals, some boys with eyes raised completely out for falling in love with a girl of a superior caste, and horrid stories of employees boiled to death because of spewing out arguments with the boss are continuously reported in mainstream newspapers. After years of democracy, the social structure stands to practice the caste system disregarding abolishment laws. Every international or national effort to abolish caste differentiation and segregation has been proven ineffective. The caste system of India is a deeply inculcated social problem requiring immense commitment domestically and internationally in understanding what has stopped the measures to get rid of this ancient system and what measures are needed to complete elimination of the system.

Disputes over land seem to be a catalyst for almost every hostility and war since the dawn of time. The addition of politics and religion into the matter only serves to aggravate an already tense situation. Kashmir knows this all too well. The conflict between Hindus and Muslims seems to be an ever reoccurring battle. This is also evidenced in population battles. Hindus make up the social majority of the population of India by almost eighty percent. Feelings of tension and uneasiness are a natural reaction to being dominated by a majority and are a problem unto itself.

From the start congress had shown interest to safeguard the rights of Hindus only. The prediction of Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan seemed to be proven to Indian Muslims that, “Hindus and Muslims are two different nations who have different Ideologies.”1 So the several events strengthened the desire of the Indian Muslims to organize themselves as a Separate Community like Urdu-Hindi controversy, partition of Bengal and its which gave Birth to the All India Muslims Leagues on 30th December 1906. The objectives of the Muslim League were; to safeguard the rights of Muslims and to bring muslins in the notice of the government, to prevent the rise of prejudicial feelings among the Muslims against other communities of India and the last one was to create the feelings of loyalty towards the British Government among the Muslims. So overall this phase was the inception of both parties which believed in

This French article discusses the current cultural and religious conflict in India. The author cites various individuals who argue that Muslims are purposely blamed for violence that affects both communities. As well, it stresses that the government is lacking actions in order to resolve the conflict. This article applies to psychology.

Untouchability as claimed by the Indian government is said to be abandoned 60 years ago, however still 40% of Dalits are illiterate (Around 70 million). This tells us that the caste system unfortunately still exists. The caste system is a system of class and hierarchy, it divides people in terms of classes called castes which usually determines their status in the community and therefor their livelihoods. The caste system still exists and if not constitutionally definitely socially. The caste system presence keeps different communities separated, lowers national GDP (Economic activity/development), discriminates against those of the lower caste, slows the development procedure and creates unlimited social consequences.

On the other hand, India has spent a majority of its history as a colony of England. It was not until 1947 that India became an independent nation state, after a grassroots nationalist movement started by Gandhi, and even then they were a one party congress. They are also an interesting case of democracy because of how many unfavorable aspects towards it they had, such as high inequality, many peasants, and many different languages and religions (Lecture). In 1956, India was broken up into states by the States Reorganization Act, that made state lines based on linguistic group. India’s founding leaders mirrored the ideas of America, in balancing states rights with a central government (Sil, 2014). They have also more recently gone through a liberalization of their economy. India is unique in the way that their social hierarchy is constructed because of the fact that they have a caste system. The caste system is a combination of religious practice and community organization that is a part of Hinduism (Sil, 2014). This system was officially demolished in the country, but in the country it is still very prevalent, and the focus on helping those who were in lower castes succeed has made people more aware of the way they institute social policies.

Oppression in India has been happening for over a thousand years with little to no action being done to stop the caste discrimination. There has been oppression occurring in India against Dalits, people below the caste system who are also known as Untouchables, and to lower caste people because of their culture and their religion, Hinduism. In order to rid caste discrimination facing Dalits and lower castes in India, people of India must know and evaluate the history of the oppression, the current situation India is in, and what has been done, needs to be done to solve this issue.

Although neither region experienced tremendous stability, the early states of China and modern-day India consistently followed their own styles of state-building practices. These powerful states in East and South Asia, respectively, used quite different methods of state-building, with their techniques greatly mirroring their different levels of desired interaction with outsiders. While the Chinese focused on state-building from within, the empires of modern-day India were more open to outsiders and their potential contributions to Indian society.

Religious genocide in Gujarat is also known as the Gujarat pogrom and the Gujarat riots. This was the three days period of inter-communal violence which was occurred in the western state of India. This is the violence between Hindu and Muslims religion which happened in between September- October 1969. This communal violence was the first major massacre, arson, rapes and on large scale of looting. Since the partition of India, it was the most deadly Hindu-Muslim Violence. Following the Initial incident, there were other occurrences of violence, 1985 Bhagalpur violence and conflicts in the main city of Gujarat which is Ahmedabad. There were continuous outbreaks of the communal violence against the minority

The unique caste system also known as a closed system that is used throughout the subcontinent parts of India allows for a person's status to be ascribed through birth. Being apart of a caste systems means that social status does not really change, you are stuck with that status for the rest of your life, meaning no social mobility. Caste systems are not based on economic factors in this system is influenced by religion and everybody tries to fulfill the caste duties following certain customs, rituals, and folkways. The system is stable and orderly grouping people into the four major groups, keeping people of there own kind into the same group. The class system is based on the principle of achievements and effort from a person. The class system

India's caste system is among the world's oldest forms of surviving social stratification. The caste system dictated almost every aspect of Hindu religious and social life. Each set or group took over a specific place in the complex hierarchy. The four classes were the Brahmins (priestly people), the Kshatriyas (also called Rajanyas, who were rulers, administrators and warriors), the Vaishyas (artisans, merchants, tradesmen and farmers), and Shudras (laboring classes). The caste system is a social structure that divided different groups into ranked categories which was used to maintain social order keeping people within there match.

The “spiritual volunteers” that were attempting to build a temple for Rama were on the train the “Sabarmati Expres”, where on the way to Ayodhya (where the temple was to be built) the Bajrang Dal workers forced Muslims traveling on the train near Gujarat to worship Rama. These acts irritated the local Muslims and on the 27th of February, when the same train was passing through Gujarat with the same “spiritual volunteers” returning from the site of the desecrated mosque were attacked by the local Muslims, the train was hit with rocks, there was lots of fighting, because of this several Hindus had locked themselves in their carriages, and ultimately one of the train carriages had caught fire. This fire had burned 59 Hindus, some to death, while others were wounded by the fire. The fire was actually caused by a malfunctioning cooking stove, but that was determined later (Rich 272). This incident allowed Party leaders and national extremist groups to place the blame entirely on Muslims and openly start a cause for genocide against them with ugly and unspeakable crimes

Gandhi’s Hindu ethnic background greatly influenced the man that he became in many different ways. He was once a lawyer that would use what he had learned to judge right from wrong. Once he looked deeper into his faith, he had realized that the decisions that he made were a reflection of his inner self. When he returned to India, he had abandoned his sense of English fashion and stuck to the dress of his home country. He did not oppose English clothes, he just saw them as unnecessary, and prefered the garments of his homeland.

is a much-debated issue across the globe. In our own country, the continuous appeasement of minorities or backward communities for vote bank politics has gradually established itself as a deep-rooted cancer in our society. Every couple of years, a ‘backward group’ rises above the rest of the groups and holds the country for ransom to gain reservations in educational institutes and government jobs. There are widespread killings, looting and arson until the central government bends to the unjust demands of the protesting community and surrenders. Unfortunately, this becomes a vicious cycle and emboldens other people with a common grouse to demand reservations, statehood, favours, etc. The appeaser i.e. the government remains a spectator for most of the period but eventually ends up on the losing side whereas the appeased party i.e. the protesting group usually ends up on the winning side. However, the biggest losers are the rest of the people (third-party) who have nothing to do with the issue. Badly hit road and train travel, exorbitantly costly air travel, electricity / water crisis, postponement of exams / interviews, collateral damage in terms of killings and loss of income, etc. are few of the problems that people face due to the standoff between the government and the protesters. Appeasement in such cases creates unsettling, volatile-calm cycles of unrest and peace. It

The Partition of India in August, 1947 was a significant event in history that accounted for the separation of one of the world’s oldest civilization into two, independent nations – Pakistan and India. Like many other wars in history, The Partition of India was instigated by religious, political and social conflict. This resulted in violence, discrimination and the largest human displacement in contemporary history. While the Partition was well-studied, much of our understanding was focused on the political side of history, not the human side of it. This was why oral history played an important role in manifesting the complexity of a historical event. Our focus here is Maya Rani’s testimony from Butalia’s book, The Other Side of Silence: