The Creeping Communalism of the Bengali (and Indian) Middle Class
Communalism has been part of our existence for thousands of years. For those who associate communalism with the advent of Muslims in India (and forget that they came to India by sea to Kerala in the 8 th century, not with the Ghazni invaders), should remember that we had violent communal clashes in the seventh century when Brahmanism took over ground from the Buddhists and when the Saivites in Tamil Nadu fought the followers of Vishnu. However when we talk communalism, we mean what we used to earlier say in hushed terms, and now in louder voices, the “ Muslim question”. We are we, and they are Muslims and occasionally Christians and, not to forget, in the 1980s, the Sikhs. But let us take the Muslim question which, of course, is what seems to drive the discourse among the Bengali Middle class today. When we were young, our parents had seen the communal riots during independence, but mainly as children. The Partition and its aftermath had coloured the visions of their parents, b