a) Communalism means an aggressive patriotism for a religious identity. This aggressive patriotism is called chauvinism.

b) Chauvinism means an attitude that believes only his own group is the legitimate one and all other existing groups are inferior, illegitimate and opposed. Therefore, we can define communalism as an aggressive political ideology linked to religion.

c) Communalism is about politics and not about religion although the communalists are intensely involved with religion. However, there is no necessary relationship between communalism and personal faith. A communalist may or may not be a devout person, and a devout believer may or may not become a communalist.

d) Communalists cultivate an aggressive political identity and strongly criticize all those who do not share their identity.

e) All communalists believe in political identity based on religion.

f) An important feature of communalism is that it claims that religious identity overrides anything else