56 SOCIAL SCIENTIST who raise the slogan of Hindu-Muslim Bhai-Bhai", are not prepared to bring about fundamental changes in the social set-up, their slogan can have only a limited effect. The history of independent India bears testimony to the fact that although such slogans were never in a particularly short supply, as soon as there was an economic and political crisis the problem of communalism became more acute. So long as the social set-up, which makes it possible for some sections to resort to communalism, is not fundamentally changed, all the good resolutions and pious wishes are likely to have only a marginal effect. Communalism, indeed, is not a problem by itself. It is an instrument for preserving the status quo in our present day society. By the same logic, secularism can be an effective force only when allied to social forces which are challenging the status quo. The two cannot be separated. Therefore, only the third attitude provides the real solution to the problem. One cannot escape the problem by merely stating that religion has nothing to do with politics, and that religion is after all a matter of personal faith of each individual. To say this is to ignore the social role of religion and communalism in today's context, and ignoring it amounts to encouraging it and, therefore, objectively helping those sections which tend to benefit from it. Indeed, religion can become a purely personal affair of each individual only under the conditions of socialism. VII There is no fundamental difference between the communalisms of the various communities. Since the basic objective of communalism is to prevent the occurence of a socialist revolution or any fundamental change, which in today's world only socialism can bring about, it is encouraged, by all those sections and classes—which include Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs etc.,—who feel threatened by such a change. In this sense all communalisms, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc., are comparable. But communalism in India, like anti-semitism in Nazi Germany, is the ideological outfit of fascism. The objective conditions in our country are quite conducive to the growth of fascism. As Barrington Moore's study, the Social Roots ofDictatorship and Democracy has shown, Wherever capitalism refused to use violence for destroying the basis of feudalism and instead compromised with it, as in Germany and Japan, it led to the rise of fascism. The Indian bourgeoisie has also chosen, under its own hitorical compulsions, to compromise with the feudal elements in our society, thus preparing the ground for the rise of fascism. But a minority community, such as Muslim, Sikh, Christian and Buddhist, cannot easily turn into a farcist organisation. This only the majority community can do. It is, therefore, not an accident that the RSS has been organised on simple fascist lines unlike any other communal organisation such as thejamaat-e-lslami or the Akali Dal. In this sense the Hindu communalism is comparatively more dangerous than the others and one has, therefore, to be compara-