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Report
Community workshop on communal
harmony and peace
The community workshop on communal
harmony and peace was organized by Center for Study of
Society and Secularism in Vasai on 20th
February, 2011. The Programme was attended by 45
participants. The programme was initiated by Mr. Anwar
Hussain. He introduced the programme by receiving the
guests with warm welcome. He gave an introductory speech
where he emphasized the need for communal harmony and
peace in the society. He also remarks stipulated the
reasons for organizing workshop on communal harmony in
Vasai. He started his speech by saying that though there
is no evidence of communal riots in Vasai but there is
tendency among builders for refusing the flats to
Muslim. By this way he said that though the feeling of
communalism is not apparent here but it does exist
 in
latent form, so the question is how to end it from the
society of Vasai. Focusing on this aspect of communalism
he initiated the discussion on the aspects of
communalism and its awareness in the society of Vasai.
And he claimed that it is this thing that needs us to
probe the issue of communalism in the society. After
briefly elaborating on the aspects of communalism in the
society he went on introducing the activities of Centre
for Study of Society and Secularism regarding raising
awareness of communalism in society. He said that
throughout the year the Centre organizes talks,
lectures, training workshop and other programmes for
removing communalism from the society.
After Mr. Anwar Hussain’s
introductory lecture, Mr. Pravin Luthra expressed his
opinion about why there is a need for a workshop on
communal harmony and peace in Vasai. He emphasized on
the need that there should be way out for removing the
problem of builder’s refusal for allotting the flats to
Muslims in Vasai. Beside this he also claimed that there
is a need for building an inter-community relationship
in Vasai. After Mr. Pravin Luthra’s lecture, Dr. Asghar
Ali Engineer’s session on communalism started. Dr.
Engineer started his lecture that how British created
the feeling of communalism in society by introducing the
concept of Hindu, Muslim period in Indian History.
British were responsible for the emergence of
communalism in Indian society. They did it by pursuing
the policy of divide and rule. They created so much
poison in the minds of the people of India that even
after the independence of the country, more than sixty
years have passed but the feeling of communalism is
still prevalent in Indian society. After emphasizing
about the role of the British government in creating
communalism in Indian society he said that even in
independent India the role of state has not been very
favorable for ending the communal consciousness in
Indian society. Even now the text books of schools
content as prepared by Central and state governments in
India to different schools through out the length and
breadth of the country is having a description of Indian
history which is full of communal contents which are
enough for poisoning the minds of our school kids. Still
every day it is taught in schools that
 Aurangzeb
was communal who destroyed many temples in India. But
nobody knows that Aurangzeb also gave jagir to temples.
According to him medieval history has been distorted by
British and various communal elements in the country
beyond repair. After that he said that basically no
religion is bad it is the economic interests of various
persons in different religious groups that lead to the
creations of communal riots and tensions in the country.
For instance he said that once in Gujarat When Solanki
was Chief Minister the communal riots were created by
builders lobby for removing slums and capturing the
lands of the poor. When he took actions against the
builder’s lobby then communal riots immediately stopped.
So according to him it is often the economic interests
of the persons from different religious groups which is
often found to be involved in creating communal riots
and tensions. He is of the opinion that in big cities
like Mumbai often the builder’s lobby who in order to
capture by clearing the lands of slums manufacture
riots. During the question answer sessions he cleared
many doubts of the audience. The people were asking many
questions regarding how to remove the feeling of
communalism in Indian society. Dr. Engineer elaborated
in detail about removing the consciousness of
communalism in Indian society by citing that if people
know that Aurangzeb gave jagir to temples and in no way
was bigots and anti Hindu as is claimed by history then
this will help in this regard. Overall his lecture was
for creating awareness among people.
In the afternoon session Sudhir
Paranjpe on the topic, ‘Communalism and Regional
Chauvinism-Challenges before Maharashtra’ elaborated
upon the aspects of identity politics and the process of
its formation in Maharashtra. In his lecture he
particularly emphasized upon the false notion of
identity and consciousness found among the people. He
said that the question of ethnic and religious identity
is basically created to obfuscate the real issues. This
whole thing is done to suppress the real issues from the
minds of the working class people. According to him the
real issues for people are economic issues of bread and
butter but in order to divert the attention of the
people and divide them for political purposes politician
divide them on the basis of religion caste, creed and
region. People should be aware of the diversionary
tactics of politician. In Maharashtra, the Marathi
identity is used by different political party for
enhancing their vote bank. The fight between Marathi and
North Indian is created to bolster the vote bank of Siv
Sena or MNS. It is better if the question of Marathi
identity is used by secular people, and people belonging
to North adopts Marathi language and culture then the
edge of raising the regional frenzy by Shiv Sena and MNS
will get blunt.
In the second lecture of afternoon
session, Mr. K.K. Prakashan spoke on ‘Covert Communalism
and its use in the Subordination of Labor to Capital-A
view from Suburban Mumbai’. During his lecture he
emphasized upon the role of capital in the production of
communal consciousness and riots in India. According to
him it is the tension between capital and labor that are
mostly responsible for the communal riots in Mumbai.
While in Mumbai capitalists enjoy all the benefits and
luxuries of life on the toil of the labor class and give
petty sum to labor class for their hard work. The phrase
that Mumbai never sleeps and even after the terrorist’s
attacks people go to the job next morning is a myth. It
is not the fearlessness and spirit of the Mumbaikars
rather it is the compulsion of job and the
 company
managers that force the labor class to travel in the
train in thousands of numbers. They do not have the
option because after three days of absence from jobs
their child will be hungry. Their economic status is of
subsistence level. They cannot survive without joining
the job for three or four days. Their quality of life is
very bad. They go in the morning for job and come later
in the night and do not have time for sleep, family and
socialization. They do not even have good living
conditions. The percentage of these types of people in
Mumbai is above 90% than those who really have the
capital and enjoy life. Most of the times in Mumbai the
communal tension and communal riots are created for
promoting the interests of capitalist class. The
political parties like Shiv Sena, BJP and Congress also
cater to their interests and they do not hesitate in
supporting the demands of the capitalist class at the
cost of labor class. The communal feelings are sowed in
the minds of labor class to divide them on the lines of
religion. Various Hindu’s cultural organizations in the
name of organizing yagna, puja or religious
gatherings of various spiritual gurus not only blunt the
feeling of economic grievances from the minds of working
class people but indirectly support the growth of covert
communalism in society. The religious gatherings of
different spiritual gurus of Hindus basically have
helped in the perpetuation of covert communalism in
society. This has always kept the feeling of communal
consciousness on boil. It is the manifestation of
capital and consumerist society that nearly all the Miss
Universe have gone to take the blessings of Bal
Thackeray. Amitabh Bachchan has good relationship with
Bal Thackeray and so is many personalities from
Bollywood. This shows that how the soft power has led
it’s helping hand in glamorizing the communal party and
organization in the country. Bollywood proximity to Shiv
Sena and BJP has given them status, halo and legitimacy
in the eyes of the people which they very much require
for being a big stake holder in the power game.
Mr. K.K. Prakashan said that
communal riots have often been created to promote
capitalist class interests in Mumbai. There is a need to
create the consciousness among working class people. If
one wants to defeat communalism and communal
consciousness in Mumbai then one has to break the nexus
between capitalist class and politician, and plus
working class has to be aware of the designs of them.
During the interaction session all
the participants showed their desire for this type of
programme in Vasai. Many of them said that they were not
aware of the various issues and information which Dr.
Asghar Ali Engineer raised. So they said that this type
of programme must continue in Vasai. They also
emphasized upon the fact that there is a need to spread
the information regarding communalism in society. A
school principal was particularly categorical regarding
this. He said the information about Aurangzeb need to be
included in school text books so that the communal
poison get removed from the minds of thousands of kids
in India. Everybody appreciated the programme and wanted
that this type of activities should continue in future.
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