From the description given below, choose the word that means the same:

'It is a particular kind of politicisation of religious identity, an ideology that seeks to promote conflict between religious communities.'

Communalism

The correct answer is Option 2 - Communalism

Communalism refers to a politics that seeks to unify one community around a religious identity in hostile opposition to another community. It seeks to define this as fundamental and fixed. It attempts to consolidate this identity and present it as natural – as if people were born into the identity, as if the identities do not evolve through history over time. In order to unify the community, communalism suppresses distinctions within the community and emphasises the essential unity of the community against other communities.

One could say communalism nurtures a politics of hatred for an identified “other”– “Hindus” in the case of Muslim communalism, and “Muslims” in the case of Hindu communalism. This hatred feeds a politics of violence.

Communalism, then, is a particular kind of politicisation of religious identity, an ideology that seeks to promote conflict between religious communities. In the context of a multi-religious country, the phrase “religious nationalism” can come to acquire a similar meaning. In such a country, any attempt to see a religious community as a nation would mean sowing the seeds of antagonism against some other religion/s.