Understanding communalism

I have always been the one, who always got communalism and communism wrong. In my protected middle class life stripped of any ideology, both seemed like extremly alien concepts. It was not until a 10 month stint at the Asian College of Journalism that I finally figured out the difference between ' left and right' wing political views . As I finally began accepting idealistic notions of the world, I found a job in what can be easily called the ' Hindu Heartland'  - Gujarat. So in a span two years I have got a glimpse of  two diametrically opposite view points.
Today I intend to just focus on communalism which has resulted in more than one heated argument over the past couple of months. Bipin Chandra is the man, who has made it all easy for me as fas as understaning communalism..
Now the important question to ask is what is communalism? Now for a long time I thought communalism was just one religion thinking it is better than the other. Though this defenition explains conflict it is more like a broad generalisation and confused me as then I looked at communal conflict only in terms of conversions.
However in reality, the 'threat of conversion' is largely used by the Hindu communalist to mobilize public opinion. It is a means for propagating communalist ideology and not the ideology itself. This is an important aspect to note, as over the course of my reading I have found out that a lot of things are misinterpreted this way.
Communalism can be understood, if we undertstand the notion of aspirations -
If you live within the realms of a society then as a human being you are bound to have aspirations. Now what are these aspirations? These aspirations are a host of things: from preserving social status, to understanding lineage and most importantly in a democracy  to be part of it ( either as a voter or by being part of governance). The first seeds of communalism are sown into the social fabric when the idea that the people belonging to a particular religion ( by virtue of that fact) have common aspirations. As soon as the aspirations of an individual are misread as the aspirations of the entire community (in this case religion) the problem of communalism begins. Now many of you might argue that what is wrong with that? In the outset, this idea seems all the more welcoming as people belonging to a certain community learn to work together in order to meet these aspirations. This should reduce inequality right?
However, at this point it becomes important to realise that in a society where only one religion exists this idea can definately aid in the development of that community but what actually happens in a multireligious society is that it creates adverseries in followers of other faith. As people of one religion begin ot believe that their interets are different from that of the other.
The Number Game
By stating that the number of people belonging to one religion are the majority in a nation, the communalists tend to feed on this difference. From difference it transforms into insecurity and the strong belief that the other religion/religions is/are a hindrance to the common interests of the minority community.
Now just because the majority community has numbers it is not that it feels secure either. An idea of 'cleansing' the country out of the minorities to enhance their interests is propagated by the majority communalists  thus furthur adding fuel to the insecurity.
Once this cycle begins, it is like a vicious circle that in most cases leads to violence.

So as citizens of India, it is essential to understand these three distinct stages and curb communalism in the earlier stages by emphasising on the other identities that perhaps have more relevance in meeting our aspirations.

Cartoon courtesy: Indian Express
Content courtesy: India's struggle for Independence - Bipin Chandra