This paper examines some issues of identity formation, particularly in relation to the question of communal identity. Communalism in India has often been treated as a phenomenon peculiar to India, and, depending on one's point of view, as a result of either the Muslim invasions of India, or the period of Colonial rule and the divide and rule policy followed by the British in India. This policy, in turn, is seen as a response to the situation in India, where the British, a minority, sought to rule over the majority by disuniting the latter. When identity is defined in terms of religion, then there is, at some level, the creation of a social order predicated on difference, which is identified in religious terms. This difference becomes part of the myth-making process, and then leads to the emergence of a number of stereotypes, which further add to the myth itself. In such a construction, historiography becomes very important, for it creates a reality, which constantly redefines and reshapes the myth. In the context of this paper, this has been termed as a "foundational" myth. Such a foundational myth locates itself in a particular historical time, even though the process of myth-making takes place some other time. Myth-making is thus seen as a historical process, and as such, is a key element in identity formation. The construction of identity in such a process would have the added benefit of conferring the legitimacy of antiquity on that identity.
I would like to begin by trying to define the terms that I will be using in the course of this paper, i.e., myth, identity and communal, in that order. Don Cupitt provided,in 1982, one of the most wide-ranging attempts to outline what constitutes a myth. He said that a myth was."typically a traditional sacred story of anonymous authorship and archetypal or universal significance which is recounted in a certain community and is often linked with a ritual; that it tells of the deeds of superhuman beings such as gods, demigods, heroes, spirits or ghosts; that it is set outside historical time in primal or eschatological time or in the supernatural world,…; and finally that the work of myth is to explain, to reconcile, to guide action or to legitimate. We can add that myth-making is evidently a primal and universal function of the human mind as it seeks a more or less unified vision of the cosmic order, the social order, and the meaning of the individual's life."
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