skip to Main Content
Two Sectarian Guys Carrying Another One On Stick

Sectarianism Decoded

Sectarianism is the tendency of a human being to consider his particular sect/religion/caste superior or different from others and undermine society as a whole. This kind of thought most of the time finds its base from political campaigns. From the dawn of civilizations, different sectarian parameters have been employed to justify the political actions of rulers or sway public support for them.

Actually, most human beings aren’t able to interpret complex communications properly. Their prejudices play too big of a role in their versions of what is being said. So, it’s easy to trap them into fallacies if a charismatic speaker successfully makes use of their perceptions regarding their caste, religion, etc.

 

Digital Media

Lately, the process of exploiting prejudices has got super easy due to the emergence of Digital/Broadcast media. Politicians/Influencers specifically create hateful sentiments about other castes/sects/religions using social media or news anchors. And then, at the right time (during elections), use the fallacious tricks, to trap voters into voting on a Sectarian basis.

 

Example

‘Political Party A’ can run an agenda on ‘Political Party B’. In a Hindu Majority country, Propaganda can be spread that ‘Political Party B’ is attached to Muslims. So, they are ‘anti-Hindu’. Hence, if they are elected to power, they will do no good for Hindus.

On the other hand, ‘Political Party A’ is portrayed as a ‘Saviour of Hindus’. This way, a mindset is formed among Hindu masses over a long period of time regarding friendly and rival parties.

Then, just before the elections, the final nail can be put to the coffin by taking the propaganda to the next level. Star Campaigners of Political Party A can be asked to urge people to vote on the basis of their religion (Model Hate Speech: Only our party can save your religion. If you vote for other parties, Hindus will be unsafe. Your mothers and sisters will be raped by Muslims openly. So, it’s your decision if you want to save your religion and family or not).

Since the voters had been already communalized by long-drawn propagandas, final hate speeches are able to directly make use of those prejudices and are way more effective than a random campaign speech.

 

Innovative Politicians

Since religious identities are slowly becoming obsolete in the modern world and people are getting insensitive to their religious attachments. Innovative Politicians have increasingly started employing secular tags like ‘Anti National’, ‘Urban Naxals’ to mark the people opposing them. This way, parties effectively mark their supporters as ‘Nationalist’ and opposers as ‘Anti-National’.

(Sample Speech – Only people who don’t want our country to progress oppose our government/party. They are anti-national.)

 

Adverse Impact of Sectarianism:

  1. It disturbs peace, happiness, and love in social establishments.
  2. Sectarianism nurtures hate for other sects. So, it makes impossible the collaboration of two opposite sects. This effectively limits the progress humans can attain together.
  3. It creates unnecessary conflict, which is harmful to individuals as well as for large organizations like countries or states.
  4. Sectarianism can make people elect corrupt governments and overlook the goodness of change.

 

I, personally think that love and peace should be the only way forward in the world. The process of creating divisions doesn’t provide anything except social unrest. It’s our duty as good citizens to understand this truth and spread it to everybody.

Humans Societies are far from ideal. So, it’s impractical to expect that all of a sudden after reading this article, any person would shun his Sectarian Perceptions but, over time, change can be brought. I invite you to become part of that ‘change inducing’ group.

This Post Has 0 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

×Close search
Search