Understanding Nationalism
When one of the earliest martyrs of India’s freedom struggle,
Khudiram Bose, embraced the hangman’s noose, his countrymen bid
him farewell and sang ‘Hansi Hansi Porbo Phansi, Dekhbe Mor
Deshbashi’ (my countrymen will watch me as I go to the gallows with
a smile on my face). Bhagat Singh’s call of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ inspired
a whole generation to resist British rule in India. They rose up as one
against the inhumanity heaped on Indians by the then mightiest imperial
power, with Bhagat Singh’s words ringing in their ears: ‘The sanctity of
Law can be maintained only so long as it is the expression of the will
of the people’. The youth of India joined the struggle against British
Colonialism remembering Chandrashekhar Azad’s immortal words:
‘If yet your blood does not rage, then it is water that flows in your
veins. For what is the flush of youth, if it is not of service to the
motherland’. When young Indian ratings in service in the British Navy
turned the guns on their ships towards the Bombay harbour, workers
across India downed their tools in solidarity. Our struggle for freedom
united the entire country, chasing a dream that had to become a reality.
In the words of the poet-revolutionary Ashfaqullah Khan ‘There is no
dream, and if there is, there is only one to see you my children struggling
for the same and for which I am expected to be finished’.
While the dream of a free India united its people against colonial
rule, it was not a dream in just one colour. The rise of Indian nationalism
under colonial rule was not just about freeing our land, it went much beyond. Indian nationalism was imbued with the colours of the
rainbow, where the dreams of people who inhabited the land converged
into a vision that was to become the vision for India – free, proud,
fully in control if its own destiny as an independent nation. A nation
that would have place for all – women and men, poor and rich, workers
and peasants, people of all faiths, indivisible as a nation beyond caste,
religion and gender. The rise of Indian nationalism was also a struggle
to free its entire people from shackles that prevented them from leading
lives that were free of exploitation and injustice. In the words of
Rabindranath Tagore, the dream was of an India awakening in a land
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, Where
knowledge is free, Where the world has not been broken up into
fragments, By narrow domestic walls”. Note how Tagore’s vision of
the Indian nation is not just about its territory, it is also about social
justice and dignity, about freedom to acquire knowledge, and about
respect for all communities and nations.
The bedrock of Indian Nationalism was, thus, freedom from
exploitation in any form – in Gandhiji’s words: ‘Our nationalism can
be no peril to other nations in as much as we will exploit none, just as
we will allow none to exploit us’. Gandhiji here, was already demarcating
the idea of Indian nationalism from that of imperial nations of that
time like Britain, when he said: “It is not nationalism that is evil, it is the
narrowness, selfishness, exclusiveness which is the bane of modern
nations which is evil”. Babasaheb Ambedkar further argued forcefully
that nationalism can be an empty slogan if it does not include the
emancipation of those who are most exploited. He argued that: “…it
may be possible to consider a nation as a unit but sociologically, it
cannot be regarded as consisting of many classes. Freedom of the
nation, if it is to be a reality, must vouchsafe the freedom of the different
classes comprised in it, particularly of those who are treated as the
servile classes”. Sarojini Naidu declaimed in the same vein: “Until you
have acquired and mastered the spirit of brotherhood, do not believe
it possible that you will ever cease to be sectarian... you will ever be national”.
This, then, was the larger vision of a free India, a nation free of
exploitation by foreign powers on one hand and one where all efforts
would converge to guarantee social, economic, and political freedom
and justice to its entire people.
Not just a nationalism that defends the
physical boundaries of the nation but one that raises its voice against
injustice and exploitation within society.
It is important, at the same time, to remember that the broader
vision of Indian nationalism which incorporated the idea of freedom
in all its dimensions for the entire people, did come into conflict with a
much narrower idea of nationalism that was based on religious or
ethnic identity. During our struggle for independence, the struggle against
the British played a very important role in developing our ideas of
nation and nationality. But during this period of our history the above
two contrasting ideas about the Indian nation were advanced. Let us
explore, first, the roots of these very different ideas, which lie in
eighteenth century Europe.
Emergence of ‘Modern’ Nations: Civic Nationalism vs.
Blood and Race Nationalism
The modern definition of the ‘nation’ emerged in eighteenth
century Europe. Before that there were kings and rulers, there were
kingdoms and they had their boundaries, but there was no nation. If
you take Europe for instance, you had the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
the Ottoman Empire, which had almost half of central Europe under
it, the British Empire, which spanned a large part of the world outside
England. You had the French and Germans who fought over Europe
repeatedly. There was no concept of a nation. Each empire had as its
boundaries, and various religious groups who fought each other –
Catholics opposed Protestants, Protestants opposed Catholics. Both
opposed the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Ottomans oppressed
everybody. The concept of nations, as we understand it now, emerged
in the eighteenth century, as a part of the process of defining what Karl
Marx called the economic boundary of the market under Capitalism.
This is the basis of the modern nation-state.
The nation-states organised themselves around certain common
cultural parameters, which people in the nations could identify with.
Most commonly, it was language, which emerged as a part of the
process of the consolidation of a national identity. The languages, by
which we identify most countries in Europe today – English, French,
Italian, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish, etc. -- became dominant in a particular country through a long history of struggles and conflicts.
A number of languages were lost or were termed as dialects of the
(what emerged as) the dominant language. For example in Spain the
people in Catalonia (surrounding Barcelona) argue that the Catalan
language is different from Spanish, yet, it continues to be categorized
as Spanish. Thus the process of the making of the nation was not a
simple one by which, suddenly, a national identity emerged. The nations
emerged as part of a much larger cultural exchange and, quite often,
violent conflicts. Side by side with the establishment of the capitalist
market, we also saw the establishment of a language and a ‘national’
identity
But the definition of what we mean by a nation, and nationalism,
was understood in two different ways. While both versions were defined
by a territory or a geographic boundary for the nation, one focussed
on the people, the other focussed on the land. The idea of civic
nationalism draws its inspiration from the French Revolution, and define
that all people who live within the boundary of the nation are full
citizens of France: the nation essentially is its people . Hence all citizens
were seen as equal before the law, therefore the slogan – liberty, equality
and fraternity. Any citizen of the French State was a full citizen. The
French revolution not only overthrew the ruling aristocracy, it also gave
full citizenship rights to all people residing in France, including, for
example, for instance Jews who were persecuted in most of Europe.
In this period of European history, another concept of the nation
was also emerging. This was the ‘blood and race’ concept of the nation
that arose in Germany. This was intimately connected to the land –
those who belonged to the land were the ones who belong to this
nation. It introduced the concept that the original inhabitants of the
land were the true inheritors of the nation, and all others would be
viewed as being outside this nation.
Those who advanced this notion argued for a Germany nation
composed only of those who drew their ancestry from people who
lived in the imagined past of Germany. It was based on an imagined
past as we know that no country in the world is populated by just one
kind of people, as for tens of thousands of years people migrated
across the face of the earth and mixed with existing populations. This
concept of the ‘pure’ German nation was based on the myth that it is possible to identify a particular ‘race’ with very similar 'racial
characteristics' as being the original inhabitants of a nation. This is
exclusionary nationalism: it includes one set of people based on some
arbitrary characteristic while excluding all the others.
The last three hundred years of European history has been a
reflection of these two contentious ideas of the nation. The effort to
create such homogenous blood and race nations led, for example, to
expulsions of Protestants from France, Catholics from Denmark and
Norway. Europe went through hundreds of years of war to try and
create such “homogenous” nations. This is the bloody history of
European nationalism: wars, massacres, ethnic cleansing and mass
deportation of minorities.
The ‘blood and race’ concept of a nation led ultimately to fascism
in Germany. Whoever does not belong to the ‘pure’ German nation,
defined by their supposed ancestry, will have no place in Germany --
this was Hitler’s basic position. On this basis he proceeded to kill the
Jews and gypsies in Germany, and we all know about the horrendous
effects of the rise of fascism in Germany that culminated in the Second
World War.
Contrary to what Hitler and other fascists in Germany proposed,
it is important to understand that nations as we know them today did
not have their origins in a mythical past. They have been constructed,
over hundreds and thousands of years through interactions between
people. It has led to the emergence of a shared culture, a shared language
(or languages in many countries) and a shared purpose as a nation. The
interactions leading to the emergence of of European nations was
largely accompanied by bloody conflicts.
Defining the Indian Nation during the National Movement
During India’s freedom struggle, when the Indian nation, as we
know it now, was being shaped, the same two contradictory ideas of
what constitutes a nation were put forward. The debates in that period
of Indian history were influenced by debates and practices regarding
nation and nationalism in Europe. If we look at the writings of Savarkar,
Golwalkar and Hegdewar, on the one hand, and those of Nehru,
Ambedkar and Gandhi, on the other, we can understand the debates
about different concepts of the Indian nation. Before we proceed it is important to understand one significant difference between India and
modern European nations. There are very few countries left in the
world today where there still exist, like in India, so many languages, so
many religions and so many cultural identities. The history of many
parts of Europe is actually a history of how diversity of religion,
language and culture was brutally suppressed to create nations that were
usually formed by people speaking the same language and following
the same religion. Nationalism in Europe was accompanied by far
more violence, it was far more exclusive than in India. We should be
very proud of the fact that India is perhaps the only country in the
world, which has such a diversity of languages – major languages, not
minor languages – and major religions. In that sense it is a unique
experiment.
In the early twentieth century Nehru spoke of ‘unity in diversity’.
Nehru’s position was also that of the Congress Party. The attempt was
to define the Indian nation on the basis of its economic boundary. The
concept of ‘swaraj’ was built on the idea that India as a nation would
prosper, along with all its citizens, only if we are free of the chains of
British colonialism. In this vision of India, everybody was a part of
the Indian nation, united in the resolve to be free from British rule. In a
sense India was the birthplace of twentieth-century nationalism – not
based on blood and race but on economic and political sovereignty.
The concept of the Indian nation was to be developed on the basis of
the struggle against colonialism and imperialism.
While the above concept of Indian nationalism prevailed, it stood
in direct contrast with the ideas of Savarkar, Hegdewar and Golwalkar
on one hand and that of Jinnah on the other. The position of Golwalkar
and others, adopted by the RSS and other allied groups, suggested that
only religion could form the basis of nationalism (not very different
from what Jinnah proposed). This concept of nationalism drew from
certain ideas about nationalism in Europe. Thus Golwalkar aligned
with Hitler, on the question of ethnic minorities being massacred and
‘cleansed’, which Golwalkar felt was an expression of the ‘highest form
of racial pride’.
That this brand of nationalism is a derivative of exclusionary
European nationalism is clear in the way Golwalkar defines the nation:
"Thus applying the modern understanding of ‘Nation’ to our present
conditions, the conclusion is unquestionably forced upon us that in this
country, Hindusthan, the Hindu Race with its Hindu Religion, Hindu
Culture and Hindu Language, (the natural family of Sanskrit and her
offsprings) complete the Nation concept.. “(Ref: We or Our
Nationhood Defined). Both Golwalkar and Savarkar were looking at
how to build a “modern” nation using religion as its core element. This
involved also the glorification of a mythical ‘Hindu’ past. Golwalkar’s
concept of nation is defined in terms of five “unities”: geography,
race, religion, culture and language. Plurality had no place in such a
nation. It is interesting that this vision of nationalism was very close to
that proposed by Jinnah, with the latter substituting Muslims for Hindus.
The striking feature of Golwalkar’s variety of nationalism is not
just what it claims as its basis but also what it does not. It nowhere talks
about the economic basis of nationalism: the right of a people to
control its economy, market and its resources. It is not surprising
therefore that the RSS did not fight the British: their main focus was
against the enemy of the “Hindu” nation the “secularists” and the
Muslims. Similarly Jinnah’s Muslim League was content to collaborate
with the British as long as it was willing to grant them a ‘muslim nation’.
It is important to note that neither Savarkar nor Jinnah, were
never interested in promoting religion, but rather in looking at religion
as the basis of building national identities. Neither Savarkar nor Jinnah
were religious in their personal lives but for both, religion had a political
Rise of Exclusionary Nationalism under Globalisation
Those who wanted to build the nation on religious lines could
never come to the forefront of the National Movement because they
did not want to fight the British. Why is it then, that today a brand of
nationalism is again gaining ground that is based on the exclusionary
nationalism of Savarkar and Jinnah?
To look for an answer to this we need to understand the deep
influence of what we loosely term as ‘Globalisation’ on economic and
political process in almost every part of the globe. Let us first try to
understand what we mean by Globalisation here.
A few hundred years ago, Western capitalist countries began their
plunder and conquest of the rest of the world — Asia, Africa and the
Americas. The British, for example, colonised India 250 years ago. The
motivation of the western countries was greed. The capitalist “free
market economy” has only one goal—profit. This colonial loot was
helped by the Industrial Revolution (with its development of machinebased
production), which began in Britain about 250 years ago. The
new factories produced steamships and guns, which made imperialist
conquest unequal, easy and bloody.
Today we hear the term ‘globalisation’ used to describe the
expansion of the global capitalist economy. In India, Pepsi, CocaCola,
Western TV shows and movies, and foreign clothes like Nike
have become common. India is opening up even further to the global
market economy. But the history of the last 300 years shows us that
globalisation is just another word for the continuation of capitalist and
imperialist exploitation. It is a word that has been deliberately coined
to raise false hopes among the poor of the world: that the current
processes in the global economy will allow them to approach the
standards enjoyed by the rich in North America, Europe and Japan.
While selling this false dream, these countries have mounted a fresh
offensive on the resources of poor countries.
The globalisation that we are talking about does not mean that
national boundaries have receded in the world. Globalisation means a
special integration of markets, where the entire world is one market
that is available for exploitation, in which capital (money) and
commodities (goods) and services can move freely. National boundaries
stay. But they stay to see that people don’t travel. You would be asked
whether you are a citizen or not but money, goods and services would
face no such questions. The integration of the global market has
significantly reduced the ability of nations to take sovereign decisions
about their own economies. Money flows in and out based on where
it is most profitable to invest, meaning where it is possible to exploit
labour in the most extreme form. Trade rules are set in international
forums like the WTO, where the rich imperialist countries dominate.
Global institutions, again dominated by the imperialist countries of
North America and Europe, such as the World Bank and the IMF,
police the globe’s economic architecture. They deny individual nations the sovereign right to regulate and protect their own economies, and
thus the livelihoods of their citizens.
What we are witnessing is the return of almost colonial forms.
Under British colonialism, there were restrictions on Indians travelling
to England, but British capital could flow in and out of India quite
freely. When England sold any of its goods in India it paid no or
minimal duty. Foreign capital was entitled to loans, but Indian capital
was not. So it could capture the Indian market completely. All these
things are recurring in India today. Under financial liberalisation, trade
liberalisation, the way barriers are being taken down, what we are really
seeing is the re-creation of what happened under British colonialism
minus the white man being physically present with an imperial army
What is the effect of loss of control over our economy under
globalisation? Nationalism in India, as we see earlier, was built on the
idea of economic sovereignty -- the endeavour to control and prevent
exploitation of our labour, our markets and our capital by foreign
countries and foreign companies. In the current ear of globalization
the nation has to be redefined minus the economic space, that is minus
sovereign control over economic activities that take place within the
boundaries of India. The way we had conceived the nation on an
economic basis, protecting it from foreign control – if that is taken
away then how do we define the nation? Further In this game, we see
the increasing collaboration of ruling elites, even in developing countries
such as India. These ruling elites, are the only real gainers from imperialist
globalization, and are content to hand over control over national
economies to foreign corporations, foreign banks, and global agencies
controlled by imperialist countries. Who are the real anti-nationals in an
India, where the ruling elites are every day, every hour, collaborating
with foreign capital to sell our national assets?
Now, the problem that arises is, if we have defined the nation in
terms of economic space and if we let that go, then how do we define
the Indian nation? What we are seeing today is a redefinition of
nationalism because successive governments have given up on economic
sovereignty. Nationalism is being projected not as an expression of
our endeavour to protect our economic space and thereby as a way to
protect the livelihoods of our people. The current definitions of national
and anti-national seek to reverse the consensus of the national movement. It seeks to resurrect the concept of nation proposed by
Golwalkar and Savarkar. ‘Cultural nationalism’ is now being primed
to replace the idea of economic nationalism that emerged from the
national movement. When you talk of cultural nationalism you have to
define culture. And when you define culture you will have to leave out
certain groups. Therefore, the cultural nationalism being currently
promoted defines the nation as a Hindu nation.
इन सबके बावजूद हमारे प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी जी उन्हें आदरपूर्वक हमारे मेहुल भाई कहकर संबोधित कर रहे थे तो इस बात से चंदा कोचर और शिखा शर्मा क्यो प्रभावित नहीं होती, उन्होंने भी तुंरन्त 30 बैंकों का कंसोर्टियम बना कर नीरव चौकसी को वर्किंग केपिटल उपलब्ध करा दी। यह घोटाला भारतीय बैंकिंग का दीवाला निकाल कर ही दम लेगा। अब यह साबित होने जा रहा है कि यह दुनिया का सबसे बड़ा बैंक घोटाला है।
इन सबके बावजूद हमारे प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी जी उन्हें आदरपूर्वक हमारे मेहुल भाई कहकर संबोधित कर रहे थे तो इस बात से चंदा कोचर और शिखा शर्मा क्यो प्रभावित नहीं होती, उन्होंने भी तुंरन्त 30 बैंकों का कंसोर्टियम बना कर नीरव चौकसी को वर्किंग केपिटल उपलब्ध करा दी। यह घोटाला भारतीय बैंकिंग का दीवाला निकाल कर ही दम लेगा। अब यह साबित होने जा रहा है कि यह दुनिया का सबसे बड़ा बैंक घोटाला है।
