“Communal disharmony in India is a social problem but has economic causes for it.” --ESSAY WRITING

“Communal disharmony in India is a social problem but has economic causes for it.” .

India is an emerging society and the process of socio-economic development is continuing.  After the independence not only rapid economic development was need of the hour, but social development of many sections of society was also a major challenge. The government adopted several policy measures to achieve this twin objective of economic development and social upliftment.  But despite its policies, as well as the constitutional provision of being a secular State, Indian society has continued to face social disharmony, particularly resulted by the communal unrest. Religious fundamentalism is one of the reasons for persistence of this problem. Politics of religion practiced by the political parties for political gains may be another reason. But many feel that though this is a social problem, the causes for this are mainly economic in nature.

(a) Even after five and a half decades of economic planning, about 260 million people in the country are still living below poverty line. This high incidence of economic deprivation is one important reason for social and religious unrest.

(b) Yet another serious socio-economic problem in India is the growing incidence of unemployment. Increasing unemployment is raising the social tensions and the idle and unemployed youth is being misdirected to communal riots in the country. 

(c) Some of the religious communities are economically backward and some other are educationally backward.  The youth of such communities fall easy prey to the  elements who do not want the country to grow faster and want the communal tensions to dominate the socio-economic scene of the country. 


(d) Communal disharmony is primarily a social problem caused mainly by the social inadequacies and social tensions. This is the reason that the communal riots do not necessarily take place only in the low income and less developed regions. It would be wrong to say that the causes for communal disharmony are purely economic in nature. Communal disharmony is a social problem and its solutions are also social in nature.

(e)  India is a multi-ethnic society and traditionally people belonging to several religions live harmoniously in India. Communal clashes take place sporadically and there is generally some urgent and immediate cause behind every communal riot. Most of such immediate causes are social in nature, calling for a social remedy. 

(f)  Many a time, communal disharmony is a result of communal politics propagated by some political parties. In such cases religious passions are raised by the interested parties for small political gains. Hence  the problem is that of petty politics and has got nothing to do with economic causes.

(g) Rise of fundamentalism in the recent decades is an important reason for growing communal disharmony. There are several fundamentalist groups, protected by some political parties at times, which have surfaced in India.  Tolerance level is low in such people, which brings down the overall tolerance level of the society as a whole.