Our nationalism
seems to be getting belittled in many ways each day.
A student
group chants, ‘India, go to pieces!’ and the government takes aggressive steps
against them, setting off accusations that free speech and democracy are being
supressed in the name of nationalism. The ‘suppression’ thing may be more talked
about than experienced, but nationalism gets a bad name.
Some people
promote nationalism’s symbols and icons like flag, anthem, patriotic songs and heroes
with such zeal that their critics find it unseemly, though for long, man has used
such stratagem to unite people whether of a tribe, nation or religion. Conclusion:
nationalism is unworthy of such enthusiastic promotion.
Critics ridicule
the government for its chest-thumping nationalism, compelling the government to
defend itself aggressively, whereupon, anyone questioning the government on ‘nationalist’
issues is branded ‘anti-national’, and they in turn deride nationalism as
outdated.
In this
process, nationalism, which for us has always been the force that won us our
freedom and created our nation, is getting demeaned. Of course, nationalism is not
a nice word in the West- for its past excess. But India’s nationalism was never
so, hence, why be apologetic about it. Anyway, in all this, it is noteworthy
that sceptics of our nationalism are silent on patriotism, an acceptable
substitute for nationalism in the ‘liberal’ West.
Since the stuff
of our nationalism is the strong attachment to our land, its freedom, people, culture,
and values, as well as the will to preserve and promote them as citizens of our
nation, questioning our nationalism is like questioning our nationhood itself.
What if our
nationalism so weakens that the country does crumble, howsoever unlikely it may
be? Can we expect the breakaway sub-nations to live happily ever after? Our history
doesn’t support such hope; rather, they would engage in ruinous internecine conflicts
like those throughout the subcontinent’s history. Present Indo-Pak conflicts
would be just a trailer of that.
Can the
constitution of India prevent such event?
But constitution itself was willed, shaped and brought to force by ‘We
the People of India’. In other words, it was the people who made the
constitution, and if they no longer want a nation, its constitution would matter
no more.
In short,
to know what can sustain and what can wreck our nation, we need to consider the
origins of our nationhood that we now take for granted.
Most of Indian
subcontinent had come under short lived Indian empires in earlier times, but political
unity was typically confined to units like community, caste, village or city
state -not beyond. No doubt there was a certain pan-Indianness since a coalition
of cultures and faiths, now called Hinduism, existed due to overlap of faiths,
pilgrim centres, beliefs, etc., that overcame the linguistic, caste and other differences.
But it was never strong enough to forge a nation. Moreover, people used to
think it was the natural order to be ruled by monarchies.
Hinduism
was never a unifying political force; when Islamic kings invaded, India’s
warring Hindu kings did not unite to repulse them. In contrast, the ancient
Greek city states that were fighting among themselves, united to repulse the
Persian attack that endangered their Hellenistic culture. Similarly, the
monarchies of Europe, though usually disunited despite shared Christianity, united
as the ‘Holy League’ to defeat the Muslim Ottomans when they threatened Europe’s
faith and culture. This shows that Hinduism was never a unifying political
force against external adversity, let alone being a force to create a nation. That
is because ‘Hinduism’ is only a tacit social arrangement of tolerance that
enables people of different social strata and faiths to coexist reasonably well
in peace. In fact, no religion can be a substitute for nationalism.
A true
nation gets constituted only as an outcome of people’s will, and for that it
took India almost hundred fifty years of British rule, when a sizable English-educated
population, familiar with the political philosophy of the West, realized how humiliating,
unjust and devastating was the foreign rule. Meanwhile, British, during their
longish rule had effectively tamed the warring princes of India, turning many
into docile pleasure seekers, which ensured that when British rule ended, they
were ineffective to restart the in-fighting that had ruined India.
Then during
our freedom movement, largely peaceful, spread over the subcontinent, led by
enlightened leaders and with large-scale participation of people from diverse
backgrounds, the idea of nationhood took roots. Though Hindus played a major
role, it was largely nationalist, driven by India’s ingrained spirit of
co-existence developed over millennia. Nationalism is but a state of mind, and
the unprecedent unity of purpose, sentiments and pride among the people of the subcontinent,
immortalized in Tagore’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’, gave rise to it, and we were firmly
on our way to become a nation. Importantly, many other nationalisms based on
religion, communities and kingships too existed then. When British rule ended, Islamic
nationalism begot Pakistan, but the rest got subsumed in the strong pan-India
nationalism.
But for the
serendipitous birth of our nation as above, India today would still be riven by
warring states, as indicated by the many sub-nationalisms dogging the country. We
only need to look around to see how difficult it is for a diverse country like
ours to become a functional nation and remain as one. Europe or South America
with comparatively less linguistic religious and ethnic diversity, couldn’t become
nations despite the obvious benefits to their people.
Certain exceptional
circumstances gave birth to the pan-India nationalism that created our nation
and fading nationalism could quickly undo it. For instance, it took one
decisive election to break Pakistan into two. It took no time for Yugoslavia, apparently
stable despite ethnic and religious diversity, to unravel and descend into terrible
ethnic wars. USSR broke up along ethnic lines due to Gorbachev’s well-meaning ‘glasnost’
and regional conflicts erupted. Conflicts increase when nations beak but decrease
when they unite. Internally disunited Europe spawned two cataclysmic World Wars
in 20th century, while internally united USA and India saw no wars
within.
In fact, humans,
by their intuitive wisdom, have got progressively more united from tribes to large
nations, common markets and to a global UNO, enhancing peace and prosperity.
There is nothing
sacred about nationalism, but without it, India’s sub-nationalisms would be warring
sub-nations, and ironically, there would have been then a huge cry for
pan-Indian nationalism.
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