Caught in the Nationalist Web

The prescription of nationalism which brought wealth and dignity to the imperial nations failed to produce for the countries of South Asia.

They were all staunch nationalists: Gandhi and Jinnah, their seniors Dadabhai Naoroji, Pherozeshah Mehta, Syed Ahmad Khan, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, and their juniors, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Bose, Liaqat Ali, to name but a few of the galaxy of leaders from three generations of freedom fighters.

In their appreciation of the ideology of nationalism, they demanded self-determination for India, first in dominion status and then complete independence. They really believed that once India achieved freedom, all its problems would be solved. India would be rid of oppression and injustice and would become a strong and prosperous country.

The training grounds of many of South Asia´s founding fathers were the institutions of higher learning in Britain, where they found a civilisation very different from their own. As they read and travelled, they discovered that the lands of Europe and North America were divided into countries, each inhabited by a nation. The polities were structured and organised as nation-states. They also learned that Western nations were politically powerful, technologically advanced, and far more prosperous than their country.

The young students from India learned that elected parliaments governed the nation-states. Elections were regularly held, after which new governments were formed without strife or turmoil. The system of governance was called democracy. It was depicted as government of the people, by the people, for the people.

There was rule of law. Compared to the centuries gone by, there was considerable individual freedom. "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" was the motto bestowed to the peoples of Europe by the French Revolution. People with equal money were equal. And, but for the war in Crimea and a relatively brief German attack on France in the 1870s, Europe had enjoyed a long era of peace following the Napoleonic wars.

They also learnt that every nation of the West had strong faith in its superiority over other nations. Its inhabitants were no longer subject to the arbitrary rule of a lord or a king. They had become citizens, and, as citizens, acquired rights that were enforceable through courts of law.

Under this social contract, the citizens owed highest loyalty to their nation-state, where they lived and for which they were prepared to die. They were nationalists. The nation-state considered itself sovereign. It could do no wrong. It was answerable to none. The young students had arrived in Europe at the height of the era of national-ism-a powerful driving force. Dedication to the principles of nationalism was akin to a political religion.

Patriots but Poor

Half a,century has elapsed since the achievement of independence. To the dismay of a billion-plus people, the prescription of nationalism that had brought wealth, prosperity, power, creativity and dignity to the industrialising imperial nations of Europe and America has failed to produce the same results in South Asia.

We, the peoples of the Subcontinent, did become intensely nationalist, but we have remained poor, backward, illiterate and ill-nourished. We pay lip service to the concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity. Our individual constitutions guarantee all the liberties enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, our ruling elites and governments continue to act in a highly authoritarian manner. Inequalities abound in our polities. We remain in the grip of the hydra-headed monster of religious, ethnic, and racial intolerance.

Above all, we remain imperial, ever ready to use force to suppress and oppress racial, ethnic, linguistic and religious groups demanding liberty, autonomy, self-determination, or independence from the clutches of our highly centralised and exploitative administrations in New Delhi, Islamabad, Dhaka and Colombo. What went wrong? Why did the ideology of nationalism not deliver the same results in terms of progress and prosperity in the Subcontinent as it did in Europe, North America and Japan?

Why has the ideology of nationalism in the Subcontinent proved to be a hindrance rather than a vehicle for peace and progress? India and Pakistan fought three wars in support of their national cause, but both sides incurred huge losses rather than make any gain. Separatist and secessionist tendencies have cropped up all over South Asia, and the achievement of nationhood seems only to have opened the way for claims for the creation of further nation-states.

A Matter of Faith

The ideology of nationalism that took root in Europe and North America two centuries ago developed along the medieval Christian Church model. It emerged as a religion in form and content. The religion of yesteryears became a matter of personal faith. In this manner, nationalist faith took over the secular domain. The nation-state replaced the church in claiming the highest loyalty and devotion for political, social, economic and cultural questions.

National constitutions acquired the sanctity of sacred texts. National heroes emerged more easily than religious saints used to in the old days. An eruption of nationalism followed in the form of great national causes, national destiny, national will, national honour, national struggles, national days, national pride, national culture, national language and national dress. National armies fought national wars, claimed national victories and produced national martyrs.

By completely swallowing the ideology of nationalism that had developed in the imperial nations of the West, the nations of South Asia stumbled on three major counts:

  1. The ideology of nationalism carried the deadly virus of national superiority. Infected by it, every nation came to believe, as a matter of faith, in its superiority over all other nations.
  2. The ideology of nationalism had a built-in imperial component. Territorial boundaries became sacrosanct, no matter how immorally or unjustly the domain had been established, and it was the right, even the duty, of every nation to wage wars and extend its territory.
  3. The ideology of nationalism failed to define the underlying criteria for a group of people to be correctly called a nation. Was it race, language, ethnicity, religion, culture or the accidents of history in the immediate past that outlined its present political boundaries?

The intelligentsia of South Asian countries need to rethink the phenomenon of nationalism, study the havoc it has wrought all over the world during the last two centuries, and evolve an ideology of a new kind of nationalism.

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