Asghar Ali Engineer THERE are social, political, economic, cultural and religious factors which account for the genesis of communalism and communal violence. It must, however, be remembered that communalism and communal violence are two distinct stages and that communalism may not necessarily lead to communal violence though it often does when some extremely provocative factors appear on the scene. The primary factor involved in the promotion of communalism is often religious or religio-cultural. Each religious group or community has certain prejudices against another religious group or community. Similarly, followers of one sect of a religious community entertain as strong prejudices against followers of another sect as against followers of another religion. But, the existence of religious prejudices is not, by itself, a sufficient condition for the emergence of communal violence, Communalism, however, provides a strong medium for communal violence.
