How does communalism threaten the Indian Democracy? Explain.
Ans.
1) Communalism involves religious prejudice, stereotypes of religious communities and belief in the superiority of one’s religion over other religions.
2) A communal mind often leads to a quest for political dominance of one’s own religious community.
3) Political mobilization on religious lines is another frequent form of communalism. In electoral politics, this often involves special appeal to the interests or emotions of votes of one religion in preference to others.
4) Sometimes communalism in India takes its most ugly form of communal violence, riots and massacre.
5) Communal prejudice and propaganda need to be countered in everyday life and religion based mobilization needs to be counted in the arena of politics.