Nationalism: Towards a thoughtfulness

“Show me a culture where honesty is considered ridiculous, where nobody's ever accountable for anything, where anger gets admired as a sign of strength, and I'll show you a place where misery is permanent”
― Anthony Steyning

     I am writing this article in the turmoil when there are disturbances among two neighboring states; Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. This struggle and violence is about sharing of very vital water resource. One strong reason for me to write this article is; there is deteriorating scope for political consciousness with the decline of ‘Arts Education’ stream in our country, which is a back bone for key educational streams such as, History, civics and sociology. These are the streams which have shaped the world. Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of 32nd President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt says, “Our children should learn the general framework of their government and then they should know where they come in contact with the government, where it touches their daily lives and where their influence is exerted on the government. It must not be a distant thing, someone else’s business, but they must see how every cog in the wheel of a democracy is important and bears its share of responsibility for the smooth running of the entire machine”.

We usually see, when women fight for women’s right, all the women irrespective of caste, creed and nation unite together. When India is on war with another nation, all the Indian states unite. The billion-dollar question is, when we are united during so many critical occasions, then why are we violent against each other during the issues like interstate water sharing. All the farmers are united at the national level for most of the agrarian issues. And in the regional situations like the current one, the farmers are on war with each other. Now within the same huge group, two sub groups are formed. Farmers of ‘Karnataka’ and Farmers of ‘Tamil Nadu’. At this point on time it is better to understand the term called ‘Regionalism’. The term Regionalism refers to that feeling of people of a region in which they display more closeness & faithfulness towards regional identities and interests in comparison to their national identity & national interests.

When we consider ourselves to be Indians, we attach ourselves to India. And, when we attach ourselves to our own region (sub nation) for an important cause of our region, immediately we defend for the cause of our own region, factual thing being that we are already a part of large Nationality. Many also believe, identical language is a strong factor for nationhood. But it was tested to be false during the agitation for separation of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state. In which case both of them share the identical language ‘Telegu’.

We will get a little deeper by understanding a concept called "Imagined communities". Imagined communities is a concept coined by Benedict Anderson. He believes that a nation is a community socially constructed, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group. In his famous work Imagined Communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, Anderson argued that nations, as well any community in which face-to-face contact among all members would be impossible to achieve, are social constructs, existing only in the minds of those in the community. They are imagined ‘‘because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion’’. In a larger understanding, this communion is a ‘Nation’.

Through the understanding of the above perspectives, let us try to sketch on some definitions of nationalism.

Nationalism is a very widespread concept. Nationalism is an ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests. Nationalism is a modern movement. Throughout history people have been attached to their native soil, to the traditions of their parents, and to established territorial authorities; but it was not until the end of the 18th century that nationalism began to be a generally recognized sentiment molding public and private life and one of the great, if not the greatest, single determining factors of modern history.

I would like to showcase nationalism as per three broad claims; These claims include—political, moral, and cultural.

a.      a). As a political doctrine, nationalism is the belief that the world’s peoples are divided into nations, and that each of these nations has the right of self-determination, either as self-governing units within existing nation-states or as nation-states of their own.

b.      b) As a cultural ideal, nationalism is the claim that while men and women have many identities, it is the nation that provides them with their primary form of belonging.

c.       c) As a moral ideal, nationalism is an ethic of heroic sacrifice, justifying the use of violence in the defense of one’s nation against enemies, internal or external.

These claims—political, moral, and cultural—underwrite each other. The moral claim that nations are entitled to be defended by force or violence depends on the cultural claim that the needs they satisfy for security and belonging are uniquely important. The political idea that all peoples should struggle for nationhood depends on the cultural claim that only nations can satisfy these needs. The cultural idea in turn underwrites the political claim that these needs cannot be satisfied without self-determination.

At this point of time when we critically look at these violent situations at our regional level, we need to understand that nationalism is a collective feeling. And a large nation will be progressive only with the strong bonding between the people who represent various regions to form a great nation. And when we look at this from an educational point of view. It is not only important to raise scientists who can facilitate our lives with technology for our daily chores (Computer, machine, medicine). We also need social scientists who can guide us very well into an informed and peaceful future.

“It seems to be almost a law of human nature that it is easier for people to agree on a negative programme, on the hatred of an enemy, on the envy of those better off, than on any positive task. The contrast between the "we" and the "they", the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action. It is consequently always employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the unreserved allegiance of huge masses. From their point of view it has the great advantage of leaving them greater freedom of action than almost any positive programme.”
― Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum—even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
― Noam Chomsky, How the World Works

These are author’s personal thoughts.

Maaz Mohammed A.Q.

(The author is an Education and Learning strategist, based out of Bangalore, India. Holds an M.A Education degree from Azim Premji University, Bangalore)

                                           

References:

1.       https://www.britannica.com/topic/nationalism

2.       Blood and Belonging- Michael Ignatieff (1993)

3.       https://www.citelighter.com/sociology/linguistics/knowledgecards/benedict-anderson-imagined-communities

4.       https://congressional-quotations.wikispaces.com/Citizen+Involvement

5.       http://www.academia.edu/3494842/Regional_ASpiration_urge_for_sub_nationalism