“Discourse of community parallels violence; ‘community’ and ‘violence’ constitute each other; community borders are as uncertain as those of violence” -Gyanendra Pandey, "Community and Violence"
Before colonialism brought the European notion of a nation-state to Africa and Asia, smaller populations formed ethnic groups who often lived secluded from other groups in surrounding areas. European rule introduced national borders that overlooked the previous social networks.
Colonial governments created unified nations through a host of rigid governmental structures. As colonial authorities condensed multitudes of ethnic groups into one nation, they codified pre-existing individual groups to maintain their foreign rule in a "divide and rule" strategy. Census reports enumerated, classified, and assigned a hierarchy to differences between religions and regions. Under the British, Indians had to report as Hindu or Muslim, despite the flexibility in Hinduism that allowed people to follow both sets of beliefs. Scholarship battles over the presences of a pre-colonial distinction between Hinduism and Islam. Whether or not the two religious groups felt distinct before the British structurally differentiated between them, by Independence, powerful political leaders in the minority Muslim community feared the Hindu majority enough to demand a separate Muslim state, Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
A short history of Partition
When Pakistan embraced Islam, India set an agenda of secularism to unite Sikhs, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Muslims of India.