emergence of nationalism in india

Concept of Nation | Emergence of Nationalism in India

Concept of Nation | Emergence of Nationalism in India

Concept of Nation :

Once, sociologist, T. K. Oommen called certain tentative definitional proposals of a nation/nationality, state/citizenship, and ethnicity/ethnicity. To him, a nation is nothing more than a territorial entity to which the national hade an emotional attachment and in which they invest a moral meaning. That is the homeland either inherited or adopted. But a state is not entirely so. It is a legally constituted institution, which provides its residents with protection from internal insecurity and external aggression. Prof. Oomman also makes certain distinctions between the state and the nation. 

He says that while the territory is common to both, 'their state territory; the former is the crucial difference between national territory and a moral, and the latter a legal entity. If the state and the nation are coterminous, we have a nation-state. But most states today are multinational, polyethnic, or a combination of the two. If one goes by the assertions of Prof. Oommen then he is to agree with the theory of the fusion of a common homeland with a common language. He again says that nationality is the collective identity that the people of a nation acquire by identifying with the nation. This proves that citizenship has been equated with nationality. But in majority of cases nationality is used as a term, synonymous with ethnicity. If so, then various cultural groups constituting a nation are described as nationalities.

Emergence of Nationalism in India :

The colonial rule gave birth to a sense of nationalism through Rabindra Nath Tagore was averse to the term' nation' itself. To him, this term was suited to Europe where nationhood emerged either from a common ancestry or from a common language. But Gandhi had a different observation. He envisaged a nation that has its root in the ancient past. Foreign rule though subjugated the people in India but could not vanquish the feelings of the people. Gandhi succeeded in uniting the entire India to oppose the foreign rule. Whether India could be claimed as a unified 'nation' or not is a point of high debate. S. N. Banerjee prior to the emergence of Gandhi could think about a growing nation. Like Gandhi, he also ascribed the oppression of foreign rule and aspiration. of those oppressed helped nationalism to grow and flourish.

Observing the situation in India Prof. Hobsbawm once described India as a polity that grew out of the anti-colonial movement. The leaders of those movements were able in assembling people from various regions with various ethnicity with them. It was the finest achievement of the leaders spearheading the freedom struggle. The British left with a fanciful dream that very soon India would be dismembered. Still, India remained united. The leaders in free India also could bring more than six hundred big and small near-independent states within the fold of the newly-born republic. This was more or less the handiwork of the elites, the theory as propagated by some. 

The British left the power with a selected few whom some prefer to call 'elite. This group was a minuscule minority but was able to carry the entire country with them. They had to combat a host of internal and external pressures to reduce as well as eliminate if needed, the incongruence between state and society. Society had a strong influence on the masses who were eventually divided into a large number of groups. The Nation-building process in all the countries confronted challenges from social groups. Threats of separatism were also very strong. Each case of separatism constitutes a unique specimen of state-society contradiction. To overcome such difficulties in nation-building exercises in the post-independent the state adopted a policy to construct a pan-Indian identity. In doing so the state formulated its economic and cultural policies. Its aim was to honor the aspirations of the people spread out over the vast landmass.

But that undertaking opened the floodgates of dissensions, tribal, regional as well as linguistics. The state's attempts were roughly viewed as a majoritarian one. This brought violent protests threatening cessations also. A type of ethno-nationalist movement emerged. Ethnicity could not be overshadowed by majoritarian agenda. India's political atmosphere too often was designed by those people who do not necessarily represent the entire country. For this smaller elements within the society feel neglected. Hence, the future and also survival of India as a nation depend on the acceptance of the plurality of nationalities. A strong state tries to decimate group identities in the name of national integration. India is not an exception. This attempt by the state has long been a force for brewing trouble in many parts of the country.

During the freedom struggle, the Indian National Congress endeavored strenuously to put the question of nationalism above everything. No doubt, it had roughly an urban character in its initial days. Even the Muslims kept themselves out of it by following the advice of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan of Aligarh. Its leaders like DadabhaiNaoroji, Surendra Nath Banerjee, R. C. Dutt, and men like them could envisage a united India which would be able to accommodate all shades of opinions by overcoming local or regional issues. Hence, a sense of nationalism developed. But the avowed votaries of it were all guided by the western model. 

During the Swadeshi Movement (1905- 11) sense of nationalism (Swadeshi) got a boost. The twentieth century opened with nationalist movements which gathered momentum and ultimately with the arrival of Gandhi Congress could achieve national unity. The pre-eminent view of Indian nationalism has been that of an inclusionary, accommodative, consensual and popular anti-colonial struggle. This has entailed degenerating the exclusive affinities of religion as 'communal' in an imagined hierarchy of collectivities crowned by the ideal of a nation' unsullied by narrow-minded bigotry." (Ayesha Jalal;' Nation, Reason and Religion: Punjab's Role in the Partition of India' in Economic and Political Weekly. Vol.33 No. 32 8 August 1998. p. 2183)