Post colonial frame of reference
One of the most widespread beliefs in modern India is that religion has always been the main way people identify with politics. This belief, however, does not withstand historical scrutiny. A growing body of studies suggests that the politicisation of religious identity in India is not a historical remnant but a modern construct heavily shaped by colonial administration.
Before the 19th century, religion was vital for social and moral life, but it wasn’t a strict political identity. People were more likely to be politically loyal because of their service, where they lived, who they knew, and who protected them than because of their religious beliefs. Colonial administration methods significantly contributed to the establishment of religion as a permanent political category.
India Prior to Colonisation
Historians such as Irfan Habib (The Agrarian System of Mughal India, 1963) and Muzaffar Alam (Languages of Political Islam in India, 2004 ) have demonstrated that in pre-colonial Indian states were pragmatic in outlook and governed with secular principals. The Mughal government, for instance, depended on collecting taxes, military service, and bureaucratic expertise instead of religious compliance.
The Mughal mansabdari system unified Muslims, Hindus, Jains, and others within a singular governance framework. Maratha, Rajput, Sikh, and Deccan states also relied on service elites from a variety of faiths. C. A. Bayly, in his Empire and Information (1996) argues that political authority in early modern India was personal and negotiated, not communal.
Religion was very significant in everyday life, but it didn’t have the same effect on political identity as it does now. People were different people at different times and places. For instance, an individual may simultaneously be a planter, a subject of a king, a member of a caste, and an adherent of a faith.
Colonial Classification and the Formation of Identity
The British colonial government was very different from these earlier traditions. The colonial government wanted to run India by counting, sorting, and standardising everything, which was different from how things were done before colonisation. Bernard Cohn’s in Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge (1996) argues that colonial knowledge turned flexible social processes into rigid categories.
The colonial census, which began in the year 1872 under Lord Mayo’s reign, forced Indians to use fixed religious labels to identify themselves. Communities that had previously engaged in overlapping or ambiguous identities were subsequently classed into mutually distinct religious classifications. Thus, religion became both a way to show what you believe and a way to keep track of numbers and people.
This method had a big impact on politics in India. Once religious identities were measured, they could be measured, which made them easier to manage. The idea of religious majorities and minorities has changed from being only a sociological label to a political fact.
Law, Community, and the Organisation of Diversity
Changes to colonial laws made religious identities even stronger. The British established separate personal laws for Hindus and Muslims, formalising customary norms into codified restrictions. Lata Mani in her Contentious Traditions (1998) and Nandini Chatterjee in Negotiating Mughal Law (2020) have shown that this legal codification supported elite interpretations of religion while ignoring lived, local practices.
People in India often used mediation, customs and local authority to settle their differences before the arrival of the British. Imperial courts took away this freedom and made religion a legal identity by putting it into precise legal categories. Over time, this idea gathered strength: that communities had different political interests because of their faith. This left a huge mark on the political structure of post-colonial Indian politics.
Politics of representation and getting people together:
Another important and landmark event happened in the 19th century when institutions were created. Another important event happened in the early 1900s when representative institutions were created. Colonial measures such as communal electorates established religious identification as the foundation for political participation. Partha Chatterjee in The Nation and Its Fragments (1993) and Ayesha Jalal in Self and Sovereignty (2000) assert that the state mechanisms like communal electorates cultivated the view of politics as a rivalry and polarisation among the religious factions.
This was a big change from how politics used to work. In the past, before British colonisation, governments coped with diversity by making space for it. Colonial governments mobilised citizens to work together. Religion developed as a political constituency. To define this colonial divide and rule.
Colonial historiography and the shared past:
Colonial historians made these tensions worse by saying that Indian history has always been a long struggle between Hindus and Muslims. Romila Thapar in Cultural Pasts published in 2000 has noted many times that this narrative condensed a complex past into a communal binary.
Colonial historiography legitimised the imperial dominance by portraying British administration as an unbiased intermediary among contending communities, so distorting historical memory. Unfortunately, these perceptions still shape how most people view India’s history.
The colonial legacy in contemporary India:
Colonial designations have persisted in India beyond independence. The post-colonial Indian state inherited the administrative structures, legal frameworks and political discourses established during the colonial rule. Even conversations about secularism occurred in an environment already defined by religious enumeration and judicial separation.
Sudipta Kaviraj in her The Imaginary Institution of India: Politics and Ideas (1991) has observed that modern Indian politics operates within a “colonial-modern” framework, in which identities are concurrently historically produced and politically mobilised.
Reassessing politics and reassessing history:
It is essential to recognise that the politics of religion is not a permanent condition, but a historically produced phenomenon. When religion is portrayed as the fundamental basis of political life, history is being selectively utilised.
India’s pre-colonial history showcases many governance systems established on negotiation, pluralism, and shared institutions. Understanding how colonial rule changed political imagination in India, lets us question the assertions that communal politics are inevitable or historically accurate.
Religion appears to wield more political influence today than in previous times. This is not because Indians have always been divided by religion. Colonial rule has been the catalyst in developing this thought process.
Younus Yousuf Ganie, Research Scholar, Department of History and Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
