Material interests as a discourse of community power: Exploring the religious nationalist worldview in colonial India

This paper seeks to explore-in the context of late 19th and early 20th century Punjab--how the intense competition among middle class Hindus and Muslims for government offices was interpreted by those who professed a Hindu or a Muslim nation as a matter directly impinging on the social status of the community as a whole. Till now, historiography has focused mainly on how secular nationalists saw this job competition and its manipulation by the colonial state to drive a wedge between Hindus and Muslims through the application of the Divide and Rule Policy. Within this discourse, what were actually material interests were channeled into “communalism” by the colonial state's deft playing of Hindus against Muslims. But, interestingly-as this paper contends--the economic competition often seen as the cause of the rise of “communalism”-identical with religious nationalism--from the 1870s is seen by the adherents of religious nationalism in a very different way: as not just material competition but as a discourse of community power. Their unease over the Other community walking away with government jobs is not articulated as merely economic but as fueled by the fear that the Other community's access to these positions of power may alter the delicate dynamics of community power in the locality. In other words, while job competition is a material factor contributing to the fueling of communalism for secular nationalist ideologues and scholars, for religious nationalists the apparently material competition for jobs becomes part of a discourse of community power.