How the seeds of communalism were sown in India in 1857

2012

By Justice Markandey Katju

Communalism, which was almost non-existent in 1857, is widespread in our society today. Muslims often face discrimination in getting jobs, houses on rent, etc, as the Justice Sachar Committee report has highlighted.

Muslims are often falsely implicated in bomb blasts and they have to spend years in jail though ultimately found innocent.

As I mentioned, up to 1857 communalism was almost non-existent in India. There were no doubt differences between Hindu and Muslims, but there was no enmity between them. In the Mutiny of 1857 Hindus and Muslims jointly fought against the British.

After crushing the Mutiny the British decided that the only way to control India was divide and rule. Consequently, the policy came from London to create hatred between Hindus and Muslims.

The British Collector used to secretly call the Panditji and gave him money to speak against the Muslims, and similarly he gave money to the Maulvi Saheb to speak against Hindus. All communal riots began after 1857. The communal award in the Minto-Morley ‘Reforms’ of 1909 introduced separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims.

Year after year, decade after decade, the communal poison was injected by the British into our body politic, and even after 1947 there are elements which continue this (see online ‘History in the Service of Imperialism’ and my article ‘What is India’ on my blog http://justicekatju.blogspot.in)

Certain agent provocateurs take advantage of our backwardness to incite communal riots, and unfortunately many people fall prey to these evil designs and get emotionally carried away by communal propaganda and fight with each other.

(Excerpts taken from a reply by Justice Dr Markandey Katju to two young law students, who served him a legal notice for his remark that 90 per cent of Indians are fools. Full text can be had on the following link: http://justicekatju.blogspot.in/2012/12/mreply-to-young-students-tanaya-and.html