Interpreting Nationalism in the Indian Context

SEJARAH, 2016

This article is aimed at an analysis of the imagining of Indian Nationalism and in locating scholarship that highlights such nationalism's inability to encompass the intense cultural diversity of the country. The article reviews a) early writings on Indian Nationalism that insisted on some form of homogenising civilizational core that would promote a sense of 'Indian-ness' above group identities to b) current scholarship's understanding of Indian Nationalism as a nation of multiple histories and voices not needing any sort of homogeneity and locating firmly the Nation as a site of debate and dispute. It is at this point that a reading of B.R.Ambedkar's conception of Indian nationalism provides a unique insight into the current thinking on the imagining of the nation. Ambedkar argues that democracy can provide for a site of debate and dispute and also the much needed homogeneity or sense of belonging that is required among peoples for effective non-ascriptive nation building. The article also analyses how this version of democracy can be viewed as a progenitor of deliberative democracy formulated by Jürgen Habermas and at the same time provide for meaningful perspective on possibly solving some of the issues that Habermas' conception failed to answer.

2017

In the previous Unit, you have been introduced to some of the major theories of and approaches towards nationalism. You have learnt how to understand and define the concept of the nation, as well as the various factors involved in these understandings and definitions, such as ethnicity, culture, language, race and gender. You have also been introduced to some of the issues that have been central to the debates around nationalism, such as territoriality, common heritage, the invention of histories and traditions. In addition, you have been introduced to feminist perspectives on nations and nationalism, on the issues noted above, as well as on the ways in which masculinity and femininity are deployed in these nationalist discourses.

Indian scholars and western scholars have presented different views regarding emergence of Indian nationalism. Scholars like Benedict Anderson are of the view that Indian Nationalism emerged in India because of British rule. According to Anderson, print media and railways helped in the emergence of nationalism. Valentine Chirol refuses Indian Nationalism. Another British scholar, Christopher Belle has tried to find the roots of Indian nationalism in ancient India. According to him, good government and patriotism always existed in ancient India. Anthony Smith focuses on understanding the origins and formation of modern nations to understand nationalism. Cultural identity is an important part of nations. Smith has found ethno-history as an important part of modern nations. The major concern with ethno-symbolism is the manner in which modern world's nations have been formed. Smith has seen nationalism as a modern ideological movement. Nationalism is aspiration for various social groups to defend, create or maintain nations. Nationalism maintains autonomy, identity and unity of nations. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay argues about the reasons that were responsible for the rise of nationalism in India. Cristopher Jaffrelot writes about the monopolization of the Hindu nationalist movement on the front pages of Indian newspaper in 1990s when Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) came strongly Indian political arena. Radhakumud Mookerji argues about the existence of nationalism in ancient Indian society, particularly, in Hindu culture. Mookerji states that ancient Indian society had a systematic bureaucracy, rules and laws. Big empires were setup by the kings like Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka and Gupta Kings. Trade and commerce developed during these empires. Mahatma Gandhi argues about nationalism through his non-violent ideology whereas Ravindra Nath Tagore sees nationalism as a tool of violence. In this sense, the present paper is an attempt to understand the debate on Indian nationalism. This paper will also limelight on different views on the ideology and nature of Indian nationalism.

2018

In the last Unit we discussed some major views on Indian nationalism – the colonialist, nationalist, and Marxist. In this Unit we will discuss some other views which are also of crucial significance so far as the interpretation of the national movement is concerned. A consideration of all these perspectives is aimed towards illustrating the point that not only was nationalism a complex phenomenon but also that history-writing is an intricate exercise informed by varying ideological and political practices.

Tathapi (UGC Care Journal)

Nationalism is the most successful political ideology in human history and national importance. India is distinct and special country in the world due to race, language, religion, caste, grid, etc., constitute the major forms of diversity. The concept of nationalism is as devotional and/or emotional sentiments to one's nation or as a policy of national independence. Anthony H. Birch (1989) 1 argued that the national integration depends on culture pluralism and its indigenous people claiming the right of self-governance, unity and secularism and at the same time increasing ethnic diversity leads to failure to integration. The present study is casual research in nature. The study has covered critical analysis on challenges and issues to nationalism for the Indian national integration. Henceforth, study aims to trace the reasons and challenges for nationalism and national integration.

Avishek Chanda, 2021

Since the BJP-led NDA Government was elected to office in 2014, India seems to have been experiencing a new brand of nationalism with renewed vigour: Hindutva. The constitutional secularism is being countered by a new Hindu-nationalist narrative trying to overshadow it. The earlier inclusive, civic nationalist brand is facing challenge from the ethnic, jingoistic majoritarian nationalism. A systematic academic scrutiny of this new development is an imperative. The study will expressly seek to address the following research question: What are the broad contours that characterise New Nationalism in India? Prima facie, a number of broad contours of this new nationalism can be identified-political Hinduism, obsession with national security and militarism, otherisation of minorities and dissidents, loath for liberal values as well as cultural diversity, glorification of a strong personality along with the pitch for a strong State and homogenized national unity, use of sophisticated technology for propaganda, agenda of religion-based citizenship through CAB and NRC, a new emerging paradigm of political common sense and so on. The aim of this research is to identify such broad contours in order to theorize the contemporary developments in India so as to anticipate the consequences for peace and regional stability in South Asia. A constructivist approach, coupled with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), is appropriate to trace these broad contours. Discourse includes ways of combining and integrating language, actions, interactions, and ways of thinking, believing, valuing, and using various symbols, tools, and objects to enact a particular sort of socially recognizable identity. Discursive power, control over discourse, is a crucial constituent of social power and a major means of reproducing dominance and hegemony. People tend to accept beliefs, knowledge and opinions through discourse. CDA would help unravel the reality of Hindutva discourse in the 21st century Indian context. An analysis of relevant speeches and actions of the involved actors collected from various print, electronic and social media would be undertaken. Thus the variant of New Nationalism being witnessed in India can be made sense of.

In recent days the idea of nationalism has again come into focus in mainstream political discussions in India. Those critical of the idea (‘liberals’), have usually attempted to contain the concept of nationalism by showing how it is used to mobilize certain constituencies for a right-of-centre political imagination. Apologists for nationalism (‘nationalists’) have made a strong pitch for recognizing the cultural uniqueness of Indian polity and making it an important plank for discussing matters of public life and statecraft. In this article, I argue that the standard liberal strategy of dissolving the concept of nationalism by showing it to be a surreptitious tool in a game of political power is unsatisfactory. Equally unsatisfactory is the nationalists’ method of gaining ground in this debate by invoking a catch-all idea of an Indian nation without delineating the exact implications of such a claim. I argue that claims about nationalism contain a significant, albeit distorted, appreciation of the political relationship between communities and modern states. However, I also try to show that both liberals and nationalists have a common, and untenable, notion of community underlying their claims.

With the nationwide discontent against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA, 2019), which allows citizenship on the basis of religion to six non-Muslim communities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and coupled with the exercise of National Register of Citizens (NRC) that has been allegedly said to be an exercise in targeted exclusionary politics against the Muslim population in Assam and as well as the pan-Indian Muslim populace, the Indian government today seems to stand on thin ice when it comes to justifying their stance on grounds of secularism. The expectation of the government withdrawing the CAA is absolutely futile. Rather, the government has made up its mind to decisively push through this crisis, by using all of state apparatuses to establish the state’s sovereign right to govern its population. By and large, India as a pillar of global democracy is facing an exigency of its own. The objective of this piece is to observe a novel trend of nationalism as a concept sub...

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Cosmopolitan civil societies, 2024

The central concern of this paper is to examine intersectionalities between the ideals of cosmopolitanism, patriotism, ethnocentrism and nationalism in general, and their changing facets and interfaces in India. It argues that being a multiethnic and plural society, the civilisational ethos of India is conventionally founded on cosmopolitanism. The practice of patriotism and its accommodative principle of unity in diversity have provided the building blocks to this cosmopolitanism. During India's independence struggle these ideals encountered the forces of modernism, ethnocentrism, communalism and ethno-nationalism. In contemporary India the forces of economic neoliberalism, developmental imbalances and persisting social and economic inequalities, post modernism, hyper modernism, populism, and cultural politics have become part of social reality. Notwithstanding the prevalence of the ideals of cosmopolitanism and civilisational interactive processes, these encounters have brought cumulative fluidity in the social, economic and political orientations in contemporary society, and have created further space for the influence of ethnocentrism and cultural politics as a means to remain rooted in society.