It has been an eventful few days. The dastardly attack on a
CRPF convoy in J&K, which shook the collective conscience of the nation,
was followed by a precision strike by the Air Force, leading to an aerial
engagement between India and Pakistan. The countries look poised on the
precipice of escalation, even as the global community calls for peace.
Away from the border, other equally remarkable events
unfolded. The opposition parties came together to issue a statement of
solidarity with the forces and the government, stating this was not an event to
be politicized. The government graciously held an all-party meeting to brief
them. Today’s Indian political leaders had evolved into statesmen, or so it
seemed. Elsewhere, citizens took out protest marches and candle light vigils as
a mark of respect to the fallen soldiers. This was a ‘New India’ rising, as
some commentators put it.
However, things unraveled quickly. The President of the
ruling party tried scoring points at a rally by saying the martyrdom of
soldiers would not go in vain as it was not the Opposition which was in power. The
Opposition did not lag behind in making allegations either. However, when the Opposition
parties tried to question the government, a senior minister was seen saying
that the Opposition speaks the language of Pakistan. In an election year, in an
emotionally-charged atmosphere, if this is not political opportunism, then what
is? By equating the opposition to an ‘enemy’ state, the democratic dialogue in
the country plumbed a new low. A recent article in the Indian Express had some
sage advice: long years ago, L K Advani once told Rahul Gandhi that they were
‘political rivals’, not ‘enemies’.
The governor of a state went to the extent of asking
people to boycott everything Kashmiri! Television troopers, social media
strategists and WhatsApp warriors swung into action, baying for blood, asking
for war. Regional news channels and some national channels have since been
engrossed in a race to the bottom, with disgraceful warmongering and
shamelessly pandering to the gallery, without an iota of social responsibility.
Social cohesion came apart as well, with attacks on students from Kashmir in different
parts of the country, asking them to prove their ‘nationalism’. If the ‘New
India’ consists of one group which claims ‘nationalism’ to be its patrimony at
the cost of ‘othering’ some communities, we would only be playing into
the hands of those looking to channel this sense of alienation into strife.
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There
is a certain ease with which the word ‘anti-national’ is bandied about these
days. The obvious challenge is how one conceptualizes and understands
nationalism. Two sources greatly aided me in this process. One, George Orwell’s
famous essay ‘Notes on Nationalism’; two, Foreign Affairs (by the
Council on Foreign Relations) magazine’s latest edition, titled ‘The New
Nationalism’.
Nationalism
is a relatively new concept, which was born out of intellectual churning during
The Enlightenment. It is based on two fundamental principles – first, members
of a nation, defined as an equal group of citizens with a shared history and a
common political future, should rule the nation; second, they should do so in
the interests of the nation. This led to the formation of nation-states, based
on common laws which unite a people with supposed common ancestry. When states
do not adhere to ‘national’ boundaries, it often results in civil strife as
seen in West Asia today.
For
countries fighting imperial powers, nationalism, or the desire for a
nation-state, involved invoking a glorious past – real or imagined. India was
not an exception. However, there were mainly two schools of thought involved in
this revival. One stream looked at the entire civilizational or cultural
history of the land. Nehru famously called India a ‘palimpsest’, where each
era/epoch left its imprint to form the composite idea of Indian-ness
today. The second stream was less
generous. The glorious India they invoked was the one before the establishment
of the Delhi Sultanate, except for a brief period, which saw the emergence of
the Maratha Empire. These two ideas continue to contest each other even today.
It remains a mystery, however, how
one manages to wish away seven centuries or more of history (pretty much like
wishing away nearly sixty years of governance!).
The scope of ‘nationalism’ itself has undergone a
transformation. One of the articles in the magazine argues that during the
1970s, scholars ignored the study of nationalism in favor of a ‘cosmopolitan
globalism’. This was a grave error, for scholars were replaced by people who
peddle nationalism based on myths,
prejudices and hatred, which has today led some people to criticize, if not
demonize, nationalism as a whole.
How does one define nationalism? In his essay, Orwell draws
a distinction between patriotism and nationalism, two words often used
interchangeably. A simple distinction between the two is ‘civic’ nationalism
and ‘ethnic’, or as in the Indian case, ‘religious’ nationalism. Patriotism is
about providing for our own people, without involving costs to the other.
Nationalism, on the other hand, is a desire for power – not for himself, but
for the ‘nation or the unit’ in which the person seeks to ‘sink his
individuality’. This ‘nation’, Orwell says, need not be a physical entity like
race or geographical area. It can even be an abstract idea or a concept, like
the desire to establish an Islamic Caliphate.
Narrow
nationalism is on the rise globally. Be it Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’,
the anti-immigrant politics in Europe, an ill-judged Brexit or the contentious
Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 in India, all these are different
manifestations of conservative, ethnic or religious, nationalism. The
invocation of xenophobia, loosely disguised as ‘national security’, is a common
thread across these movements. This often has disastrous consequences on
minorities - ethnic, religious and ideological - who are either violently suppressed or quietly degraded to
second-class citizenry.
[It
must be noted here that the reasons stated for opposition to the Citizenship
Bill at the central and regional levels are quite different. However, the
rationale behind the bill strikes at the idea of India carefully cultivated
through the freedom movement and seven decades of independence.]
In the US, white working-class men moved towards Trump’s
brand of nationalism because it promised to prioritize their interests over
other colored groups and 'restore their central status' in the national discourse.
A similar churning can be seen closer home. In 2014, the BJP had the luxury of
being in the opposition and riding on a wave of popular sentiment built on one
watchword: corruption. Today, in the absence of a ‘wave’, the contentious Ram
Mandir issue has returned to the campaign. Reservation for the upper castes
(and others in the general category), based on a false narrative of victimization,
is an attempt to retain/regain the voter base of the Indian equivalent of the
white working-class. Little do we realize that reservations to the general
category will further balkanize the country.
One reason for Modi’s – as well as Trump’s – success is that
he cast himself as an outsider, opposed to the alleged ‘entitlement’ of those
within the establishment – “Lutyens’ Delhi” – within and outside his own party,
despite having been one of the longest serving chief ministers. As an emotional
populace, we have always romanticized the under-dog. He churned a narrative of
belonging to and speaking the voice of the ‘real people’. This was bought by
the aam aadmi, who returned the BJP to power with a massive mandate.
However, there is an inherent danger in this ‘nationalist
populism’ – majoritarianism. Anybody opposed to their ideas is deemed inauthentic,
illegitimate and cast as the ‘other’ to be reviled. Such attacks are not
against the establishment or the elite alone. They strike at the very base of
pluralist politics, with minorities as the first victims. Whoever disagrees
with popular opinion is labelled ‘anti-people’; in the Indian case,
‘anti-national’. The biggest casualty in recent years is perhaps the fact that
batting for minorities has become criminal in the majoritarian public
narrative, so much so that ‘secular’ has become a cuss word.
A
nationalist, as the one described above, tends to stick to his ideas and
beliefs, even in the face of hard facts. This is what Orwell calls ‘power
hunger tempered with self-deception’. Orwell’s words seem prescient,
prophetic even, if one observes the debate around statistics and data in the
country today. Actions are judged and evaluated not based on the merit of the
act, but on who the actor is. Welcome to the world of post-truth!
Yet, nationalism is here to stay. A nation-state is, after
all, the basis of democracy, public welfare and ‘binding people together with a
sense of common purpose and mutual obligation’. Globalism is too abstract, too
utopian a concept. What we need today, rather, is redefining and broadening the
concept of nationalism. The challenge is to take back nationalism and mould it
into an inclusive idea. Political leaders and the society – across the globe –
have to cater to the needs of people as a whole and not any particular
community.
The
modern idea of the Indian nation is based on the Constitution. That alone
should be the guiding spirit. Emphasizing any other identity at the cost of ‘othering’
some communities is not the idea of India our founding fathers envisioned and
struggled for.
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