Women Intellectuals and Communal Consciousness in Colonial Andhra

Communalism has been one of the serious problems facing modern India, and fighting and defeating it has really become an uphill task. Communalism in modern India gradually grew in the lap of nationalism. A communal understanding of Indian history forms the core of communal ideology, which is more dangerous than its worst manifestation, i.e., communal riots. Noted historian Bipan Chandra analysed how such an understanding contributed to the creation of communal ideology, and how even the ‘sturdy nationalists’ shared a communal view of history (Chandra 1996: 209–36).