Communalism is first step. Then minds become criminal and that is the most worrying aspect for any society.
If X commits theft in your house, will you go to his house & commit theft?
For example, if a woman is molested, accused must be booked, not that a woman of other side be molested in revenge.
It is sick to take revenge and become a criminal. However, it becomes acceptable when mob mentality takes over. It leads to rise in dirty thought process.
The casual hateful remarks become common. The level keeps going up.
Media groups want eyeballs and hence headlines are given with the aim to draw attention.
Thousands of crimes take place in a country daily but one is selectively taken up. Clear sides are taken and people become so brainwashed that they refuse to see reason.
Entire groups are seen as enemies and then all energies are directed against targeted group.
This level of hateful behaviour makes people blind and they keep getting radicalized.
Most often it's not in the interest of the people but in the moment, whipped up sentiments, passion and anger appeal more.
If poison is injected in a part, it spreads to entire body. Hate too spreads & grips all, weakens nation.
People know it but when bug of bigotry bites, men transform. The tendency to 'otherize' comes with majoritarianism & it destroys society.
The situation becomes critical when organs of state turn blind eye and leaders become complicit.
Or when media becomes a participant in the dirty project to create wedge between communities.
If politicians incentivize communalism, many loafers emerge and the law & order goes to a toss. The ramifications are severe.
Sometimes, ten or twenty years later, a few people among those who have spend their lives drowned in hate, realize that it was the time they wasted.
Many others still won't as people like to justify their acts as accepting own fault is rare.
If you want a better future for yourself, your family and next generation, introspect and act against hate, to save nation and society.