Nationalizing India

Preface

Nationalizing India is a continuation of my earlier projects on exploring the multiple strands of India’s nationalist thought. The attempt is to pursue the argument that, despite differences in their approaches, the nationalists were swayed by the view that nationalization of India was their primary goal. Their effort resulted in establishing the claim that there was hardly a modular form, as asserted by Western scholars based on their understanding of the growth of nationalism in homogeneous Western countries. Colonialism introduced the Western thinkers to circumstances which neither corresponded with their derivative knowledge nor were there models to capture the peculiar texture of the countries which were colonized. It was a matter of surprise to them that, despite being socio-culturally disparate, these countries remained united. What was the mechanism that helped them sustain their unity? The derivative Western conceptualization was futile in providing a plausible explanation for the unity witnessed by the colonizers. These countries were different on many socio-cultural axes, yet they remained united with an ideational vision appreciative of diversity. In other words, instead of being a source of division among those living in these countries, diversity acted decisively in evolving ‘togetherness’, which was neither a constraint nor a source of consternation. This was a puzzle for the Western thinkers which they were unable to fathom given their emphasis on essentializing human identities.

A careful analysis of the ideating priorities of Indian thinkers and also those born and raised in socio-culturally diverse societies reveals that this was an outcome of an emotional bond that emerged from civilizational unity over thousands of years. It is evident because even a cursory look at the ancient texts – Vedas, Upanishads, Smriti, Puranas, Ramayana and Mahabharata, among others – confirms the contention. India thus cannot be comprehended in the derivative format based on Western ideational preferences. This was not attempted before, presumably because of the hegemonic grip of Western discourses. Gradually, it was realized that the explanatory models derivative of the Western discourses were futile in conceptualizing the rise of nationalism, cutting across areas with completely different socio-cultural priorities. This was unique and not so unique at the same time: unique since the models seeking to understand Indian nationalism in the indigenous conceptual mould did not attract them as most of the Western thinkers believed, out of their intellectual arrogance, that a nation was a product of totalizing human identities and no exception to this conceptualization was possible; not so unique because these countries continued to remain united despite being frequently attacked by the invaders. A fierce challenge by many nationalist leaders, especially Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950), who, while conceptualizing new/democratic nationalism, provided adequate inputs to theoretically explain why India was a nation. This was an argument that gained acceptance with the intervention of the succeeding nationalist leaders, including Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941), Sarala Devi Chaudhurani (1872–1946) and Nazrul Islam (1899–1976), among others.

I owe a debt of gratitude to many. My daughter, Mamma, who while being busy in pursuing her own academic mission in the United States, is a great support to me when I accept academic challenges. My wife, Sanchita, and our son, Pablo, also contribute to the fulfilment of my academic desires. There were many in academia who always stand by me when I get rattled by my detractors. I may not have had the capability of finding out the reasons for which I was subject to vilification, although I do understand that the crab mentality is of epidemic proportions in Indian academia. So, they are ‘satans’ for me, and with their presence, I gained enormous energy. I am, however, encouraged since Rabindranath Tagore confronted the same difficulties, the nature of which, however, underwent changes once he was recognized globally when he was awarded the Nobel Prize (the real Nobel Prize) in literature in 1913. In his many creative texts, he expressed his disillusionment with some of his colleagues and also the Bengalis. I would like to suggest that everybody should read one of his seminal texts, Charitrapuja (1895) where he very candidly painted the Bengalis with reference to their behavioural traits while focusing on the contribution of Iswarchandra Vidyasagar (1820–1891). I am thankful to my lawyers, who are always there to support my battle against the politically engendered evil forces who await a reward in exchange for their servitude to those wielding authority and power. My gratitude goes to the illustrious judges of the Indian judiciary who sincerely discharge their constitutional duties and are steadfast in their commitment to those fighting for justice and fairness.

I also bow down before my students, both in India and abroad; it is because of their sustained support and inspiration that I continue to explore newer areas of academic queries. Without their presence, it would not have been possible. At this stage of life, I pray to the Almighty for their well-being, and I wish them success in academic and other endeavours to help build a citizenry with concerns for universal humanism and the courage to stand against efforts at dehumanizing humanity.

March 2024

Introduction

Nationalism is a politico-ideological construct with contrarian objectives. At one level, it tends to homogenize people on the basis of identical socio-cultural characteristics; at another level, it is a device to strengthen the claim for dividing people as they are socio-culturally segmented. The formation of Pakistan in 1947 out of India’s dismemberment following the British withdrawal is a glaring example. Despite being together with Hindus for centuries, Muslims consolidated themselves to press for a sovereign state because they were religiously different from their Hindu counterparts. On the surface, the argument may appear plausible; a deeper probing raises a valid question by highlighting the fact that socio-cultural compatibility appears to be insignificant in sustaining the bond between two communities that hold different religious beliefs. The story of the rise of Pakistan confirms that nation formation does not always follow a formatted mode of bringing people together because, notwithstanding religious differences, many Muslims decided to stay in India, although Jinnah and his associates got what they preferred to maintain their religious distinction. Later on, the formation of Bangladesh in 1971 after the breakup of Pakistan reconfirms that religious amity is not always as strong as it is generally conceived.

Socio-cultural similarities and nation are conceptually congruent, as Western experiences suggest. Constituted by elements of commonality, a nation upholds those ingredients that bring people appreciative of identical socio-cultural traits together. This is conceivable, and many theorists strongly defend this point of view with reference to their exclusive understanding of the situation in which they evolved their ideational vision. As a nation is formed by visible factors of identity, most of the theoreticians, due to their unconditional acceptance of Western conceptual yardsticks, tend to ignore the claim that civilizational unity could also be a factor in unifying people despite being socio-culturally disparate. The British colonial rule in India endeavoured to create a common template for India by introducing English as a medium of instruction in schools and colleges, although the main purpose was to develop a class of ‘clerks’ capable of helping the rulers govern India. The 1835 Macaulay Minutes were a watershed in India’s socio-cultural history for two reasons: on the one hand, it was a significant step in generating interests in English language for public jobs and social respectability, which attracted many from the Bengali middle class; on the other hand, it was also a strategic design that created a sense of belonging among those who opted for English education to a socially privileged section of the ruled by being equipped to communicate with the rulers in their mother tongue. It is also historically true that many of the ruling classes championed the oriental languages and cultures of Asiatic society, etc.

With the formation of Pakistan, religion was espoused as an instrument for the formation of a nation. The emergence of Bangladesh proved that socio-cultural togetherness was far more effective in bringing people together in opposition to those seeking to divide a socio-culturally united collective. A perusal of the processes leading to the consolidation of Bengali Muslims proves that their Bengaliness had precedence over their identity as Muslims. In other words, religion was not as strong as it was felt to be when India was bifurcated in 1947. The 1971 battle for the liberation of Bangladesh demonstrated that the socio-cultural preferences of Bengali Muslims acted critically to stand against a powerful Pakistani military junta.

One is now in a position to evolve meaningful theoretical formulations. The rise of Pakistan and, later, the appearance of Bangladesh as an independent nation proved that the Western mode of conceptualizing a nation that privileged religious unanimity was not adequate to sustain the bond between East and West Pakistan, although Pakistan was created out of M. A. Jinnah’s two-nation theory supporting that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate nations. Basic here is the point that it does not seem conceptually viable to argue that there is an axiomatic model of nation formation; in fact, it is far more plausible to argue that the idea in favour of nation formation needs to be contextualized. Bengalis in Bangladesh evolved a unanimity since they were raised in a similar socio-cultural environment; for them, west Pakistan was as alien as England, for instance, given the stark socio-cultural differences they had with those who internalized Punjabi socio-cultural practices.

The above discussion, though brief, is useful to understand the complex nature of the ideas of nation, nationalism and national identity. There cannot be a derivative formula in this regard. The distinctive experiences of people matter most in conceptualizing, on the one hand, why they come together to appreciate one type of identity and, on the other hand, privilege different modes of togetherness. Critical here are the socio-cultural characteristics that evolve over a period of time when religion may not be as significant as it becomes in certain circumstances. For instance, in the case of European nations, religion is certainly one powerful factor in creating socio-cultural congruence. In India, the argument hardly makes sense because religion is neither so critical nor so significant in developing as well as sustaining a bond among the people. In a multi-religious and multi-lingual society like India, it is conceptually difficult to conceive of its nationhood in terms of fixed notions of identity, as is seen in homogeneous Western countries. A socio-culturally disparate human habitat cannot be conceptualized in a well-knit format, given the inherent limitations of such a methodological approach. As it is an accepted view, socio-cultural practices are context-driven, which means that context remains nearly pivotal in their articulation. In fact, it will not be an exaggeration to suggest that none of the countries in the world is pure socio-culturally in view of the constant movement of population from one geographical space to another. Following this, one may now persuasively argue that even the European nations are no longer culturally monochromatic but multi-cultural.

So, the argument is that the idea of nation cannot be conceptualized in the earlier format that the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) championed. One must add a caveat here: the old established factors of cementing a bond among a group of collectives have not lost their viability entirely; what is new is that they do not seem to be as critical as they were in the past, presumably because mere physical distance is no longer a deterrent in the transmission of socio-cultural values and practices from one place to another. The communication revolution is certainly an aid to the reconceptualization of the nation as an ideational category.

In the changed conceptual mode, one thus needs to be careful in identifying the factors creating an amity or camaraderie among a collective because the conventional ideational criteria are no longer as meaningful as they were in the past. For instance, Great Britain is a nation at one level, but at another, it is not so because it is a conglomeration of three areas, separated from one another in terms of contextual priorities. Furthermore, the fact that Scotland, Wales and England maintain separate football teams also suggests that those belonging to these areas are not inclined to submerge their identities with the all-pervasive identity of being British. By being exposed to completely different socio-cultural influences, none of the European countries can claim to be as ‘pure’ as they were in the past, following the same logic.

The United States is a good example. At best, it can be explained by resorting to the analogy of a bouquet or a salad bowl. Many nationalities came to the United States when it was discovered; they fought the English hegemony together and finally they succeeded in forming a nation comprising many races with distinct socio-cultural features. It is also surprising that despite being clearly different, these nationalities formed the United States of America. For a persuasive answer, I need to draw on the most perceptive comments made by Alex de Tocqueville, who in his magnum opus, Democracy in America (1835), attributed the unity among differently textured nationalities to the idea of ‘associationism’, which he explained as an urge to remain associated and also to sustain the spirit of being associated with one another as they espoused distinct socio-cultural ideational preferences; they were different but not different enough to develop a competitive identity. Hence, the spirit of associationism, argued Tocqueville, cemented a nearly permanent bond among those settled in the United States as an independent nation following the defeat of the colonizers. Historically speaking, political differences between the southerners, or Dixie states, in the United States and their northern counterparts over the retention of slavery, which led to the outbreak of civil war in the late nineteenth century, epitomized a battle over identities. As the Dixie states were keen to maintain slavery as opposed to their neighbours in the northern part, one may argue that it was also an assertion of identity by those in support of slavery. However, the adoption of the 1893 Emancipation Proclamation outlawed slavery, and the bone of contention appeared to have been resolved. A perusal of how the Afro-Americans struggle to survive in the United States provides inputs to challenge that the discriminatory Jim Crow laws continue to remain viable in shaping the identities of many white Americans, especially those known as Red Necks, who are known for being hardcore racists even in today’s United States. So, the nationalist identity cannot be comprehended in black-and-white terms; one is required to understand the phenomenon, nation, in a nuanced way, which perhaps reinforces the point that there is hardly a fixed formula to understand nation as a phenomenon; one has to be sensitive to the rapidly transforming context and the peculiar interplay of processes rooted also in equally peculiar socio-cultural processes.

In the changing global scenario, the idea of a nation cannot be easily understood. Being a collective of conglomerations of identities, a nation is now inherently multi-national. Hence, in ideating the concept, one needs to be sensitive to the distinct and separate socio-cultural characteristics contributing to the formation of a set of collectives as a nation. There is now an obvious question. How then is a collective conceptualized in nationalist terms? The answer is both easy and equally difficult: easy because, by arguing that, despite differently textured identities, there are nations that do not correspond with the classical conceptualization because many of them lack the essential ingredients of being a nation. Difficulty arises when communities with nearly incompatible socio-cultural features prefer to be united as a nation. The perfect example is India.

In dwelling with the principal query of this exercise, fundamental is the issue of how a nation is constituted in the absence of the conventional yardstick popularized by the classical thinkers since the adoption of the 1648 Westphalia Treaty. It is evident that many nations rose as nations, which, in the perception of the classical thinkers, were not nations. As nations with starkly different socio-cultural characteristics exist in today’s world, it is conceptually erroneous to stick to the classical conceptualization of the phenomenon. What is now required is to understand nations in ‘a non-nationalist language’.

India is a good example. Following the classical definition of a nation, India was not a nation and can never be one, even now. The British rulers brought the vast country under one administrative umbrella, which is usually highlighted to argue that India became one during colonialism. If that were so, India would not have remained one after decolonization, which confirms that mere administrative unity was not adequate to explain India remaining one even after the withdrawal of alien authority. One may, of course, refer to the fact that sustained administrative control created a sense of homogeneity that lasted even after decolonization. To counter this argument, one may refer to the consolidation of the nationalists across the length and breadth of the country to replace the imposed foreign authority. In other words, the nationalist campaign brought collectives with separate socio-cultural identities under one political platform, the Indian National Congress. With the acceptance of the Congress generally by all and also with the hailing of Gandhi as a messiah for Indians, there is no denying that the ruled evolved a sense of belongingness to combat the colonizers. So, two contrarian impulses worked for the nationalist feeling to grow and strike organic roots in India during the nationalist campaign. On the one hand, the ruling authority weaved together disparate nationalities for its exclusive purposes; the nationalists, on the other hand, joined hands to realize the goal of emancipating India as a British colony. Administrative unity and nationalist inclinations helped generate an ideational vision to politico-ideologically support the endeavour for India’s political emancipation.

The processes leading to the consolidation of different nationalities in India provide insights to understand the phenomenon of a nation differently. There are two levels that are manifested in the transformation of a community or a set of communities into a nation. As per the classical thinkers, unity among a group of individuals was possible, provided it was formed on the basis of classical ingredients like religion, cultural homogeneity, common kinship, and a common enemy, among others. The conceptualization has hardly passed the test of time, as despite having lacked the above characteristics, there are many nations that exist. While theorizing such a unique situation, one is drawn to civilizational unity, which is identified as perhaps the most critical to the formation and sustenance of nations without being unified in terms of any of the classical ingredients. So, underlying the unity lies the well-entrenched civilizational compatibility that remains regardless of political circumstances, as India’s recent history demonstrates. Notwithstanding the dismemberment of India leading to the creation of a sovereign Muslim state Pakistan in 1947, India continues to be a country where Muslims constitute the second largest community; globally, India is also a country where the number of Muslims is higher than in many Islamic countries; in fact, demographically, Muslims in India are just behind Indonesia, which has the maximum number of Muslims. One of the critical reasons is the civilizational congruence that has developed over centuries between Hindus and Muslims by being together regardless of changes in political authorities.