On Nationalism

by Romila Thapar

By “patriotism” I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people… Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his individuality.’

Conversion, for most of these individual sects, was an alien idea. Opting out of the sect one identified with could also affect one’s caste identity, and a person without a caste identity was regarded as an outcaste, and of little consequence in the larger society. A caste identity would continue if a caste as a collective converted, as often happened in conversions to Islam or Christianity. All religions in India, irrespective of their theoretical support of social equality, maintained caste distinctions—especially in the codes of marriage and inheritance.

Texts too should be read with reference to their context. How did religious sects interact with social groups and how and why did they change when they did? Such an exploration would reveal the reality of the practice of a religion and not leave us imagining a reality. Hurt religious sentiments—irrespective of the religion they refer to—are equally an articulation of a rejection of contemporary rational thinking as of an objection to the thwarting of the past practices of the particular religion.

A distribution of wealth that negates the continuance of poverty and the protection of social justice are two essentials of democratic functioning. These are the kinds of rights endorsed by a secular society and are prime requirements in a nationalist ideology.

As a matter of fact the essence of democracy is Criticism of Government.

‘Kings turn men into coins to which they assign what value they like, and which others are obliged to accept at the official rate, and not at their real worth.’ François de La Rochefoucauld’s

This is a question all of us need to reflect on deeply—our own self-implication in our respective nationalisms.

In Nationalism, first published in 1917, he goes as far as to say ‘The nation is the greatest evil’, and states ‘it is my conviction that my countrymen will gain truly their India by fighting against that education which teaches them that a country is greater than the ideals of humanity’.

Incipient, amorphous, contradictory and always-information, national consciousness or nationalism precedes the emergence of all nations. This constructs itself around two visible axes—the political and the cultural. While the political engages with concepts of freedom, self-determination, sovereignty and self-reliance, the cultural tosses up difficult, contentious paradigms of identity, a coherent historical past, artistic heritage and a moral self.

A nation that, at some point, lets its political primacy be eroded and overrun by cultural nationalism can be construed to be on the verge of an implosion.

It must be said here that ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ is not an attribute of patriotism, but of deep patriarchy. Extreme mother-love is a camouflage for extreme misogyny.

Often we find that dance forms originating in subaltern classes or non-dominant communities present a trajectory of upward mobility during specific phases of nation-building, during which these forms are fumigated, deodorized, gentrified and deeroticized. During such clinical de-sexualization and domestication of the forms as they cross class/caste boundaries we also find a distinct transformation in body-usage, as the erotic charge is sublimated within false religiosity.

These are tendencies and impulses of self-righteousness and aggressive nationalism that have been incubated right from the earliest days of the national movement. Many of these tendencies had stayed underground and hibernated until the soil and temperature were ripe for them to sprout. Many others stayed invisible because no one was paying attention, because they seemed marginal and were tolerated.

For, if the image of the idealized woman is broken, out with it go notions of the family (as conceived in the mind of the right wing) as a microcosm of the state, with the role of women being limited to being mothers and those who keep the family together.

Well, perhaps the news needs to be delivered to these worthies—the fringe has, in fact, usurped the field.