Cultural Nationalism

Cultural Nationalism

                    @ Prof. Bal Apte

Nationalism as a term is considered to be of modern origin. It is also said that the concept of modern nation state developed after the French Revolution (1789). Whether nationalism as a concept or as a social development or as a political ideology is modern may be a matter of historical interpretation. But the basic proposition to be appreciated is that “nations existed since ancient times.”

How does a nation acquire its identity as a nation? Or in other words, what are the ingredients that constitute a nation? Anthony D. Smith who is a political scientist and has written extensively on the concept of nationalism has defined the concept of nation as a “named human community occupying a homeland and having common myths and a shared history, a common public culture, a single economy and common rights and duties for all members”. Rupert Emerson has defined nation in terms of a sense of belonging to a community of people who share the same heritages and would like to share the common future. For Ernest Renon, a French Writer (1882), the modern nation is a historical result brought about by a series of convergent factors: “to have common glories in the past and to have a common will in the present, to have performed great deeds together, to wish to perform still more: These are the essential conditions for being a people.” For him “a nation is a soul, spiritual principle.” Shri Guruji, Second Sarsanghchalak of RSS, used to describe the attributes of people to constitute a nation: common history, common traditions, common feelings of friendship and enmity, common aspirations about future and common set of heroes; a society having these in its homeland as the progeny of that homeland constitutes a nation.

However, when we see the history of the world it is by and large a history of dynasties and empires. We don’t find nations as independent sovereign political entities.  But nations as cultural entities did exist and during the last 500 years they started asserting their identities. Europe was under the domain of the Holy Roman Empire. Assertion of France as an independent entity within that empire under a treaty known as the treaty of Westphalia, 1648 is considered as the beginning of this process. Under this treaty the king of France obtained from the Holy Empire liberty to have freedom of religion and use of its own language. In the process ‘Westphalian’ became an adjective used to characterize the modern Euro-centric and State-centric world of the 19th and 20th centuries, named after the above treaty of Westphalia of 1648 which is believed to have laid the foundation of the modern interstate system. Even when United Kingdom as a nation state had not materialised and England was only a monarchy, Pitt the Younger appealed to ‘our existence as a nation....... our very name as Englishmen.’ Samual Johnson in his Dictionary of 1755 defined nation as ‘ a people distinguished from another people generally by their language, origin or government.’

The point to be noted here is that nations existed even though they were not sovereign states as we understand them now. The sense of belonging which develops a national society and a common public culture which holds them together exists in the absence of governments and such national communities are not mere communities claiming to have common ancestry (which  are understood by the term ‘ethnie’),  but have a common public culture, which defines their social norms and ideals.

Modern nationalism developed after the French Revolution where a French Nation state with a clear political ideology of liberty, equality and fraternity asserted itself as a political entity. The entire discourse on nationalism in the world assumes the existence of nations as political entity. This approach asserts that nation/nation state is a product of modern history. The existence of nations before the emergence of nation state was treated to be only the existence of ethnic groups. It is also asserted that majority of nations in the world are multi ethnic nations referring to them as ‘social nations’. This understanding of a nation to be necessarily a nation state is classically exemplified by the observation of an American Scholar  quoted in “Nationalism and Globalisation East and West’ edited by Leo Suryadinata: China is actually “a civilisation that pretends to be a nation”.

In these circumstances citizenship is also equated with nationality. But there is a basic distinction. One acquired nationality because of his being part of a national community and hence  he gets it by birth. It is a socio-political status. Citizenship on the other hand is acquired from government and through the process of Law Citizenship by birth is also possible only because of the provisions of the laws of land. It is thus a politico-legal status. But today with the prevalence of nation-state both terms are used interchangeably with the same meaning.

The entire modern discourse is informed by this direction to treat only nation states as nations. The Charter of the United Nations 1945 is a document based upon the agreement of governments. All subsequent charters and conventions are adopted by member states or agreeing governments. In the light of this approach we find an interesting categorization of states made by the editor of ‘Nationalism and Globalisation East and West’ Shri Leo Suryadinata. It is as follows:

w   Immigrant states: Australia, United States, Singapore.

w   Indigenous states:            Indonesia, Malaysia

w   Old established states and Modern nations: France, The United Kingdom

w   Ancient states and new nations: Japan, China, India

w   Nation building and Nation destroying: Russia, Yugoslavia

This classification reveals the approach clearly when it describes India, China and Japan as ancient states and new nations when it is the other way round, namely, they are ancient nations new states.

Because of this approach, treatment of India as a nation has always suffered from an ignorance of Indian history and a confused understanding of present day India. During the British rule we were told that India was a nation in the making thanks to the sovereign British rule encompassing the subcontinent. The communists always stated that India is a state with multiple nations. It is always said that India doesn’t have a common culture but it is a composite culture with various different streams maintaining their identity. It is therefore said that India is not a nation based on common heritage but is only a social or civic state.

It must be understood and asserted that it is a universally accepted proposition that India has a continuing ‘culture which blossomed more than 5000 years ago and has given successive generations of Indians a mind set, a value system and a way of life which has been retained with remarkable continuity despite repeated foreign invasions and the enormous growth of population.

It gives to Indians as well as the people of Indian origin a unique personality today as it had done in the past’. “Culture  and Democracy in India - R. C. Agrawal” in Culture Democracy and Development in South Asia Edited by N. N. Vohra, Indian International Centre (Shipra)

The supreme court recognised this reality in the case of Dr. Pradeep Jain when Justice P. N. Bhagwati observed “it is an interesting fact of history that India was forged into a nation neither on account of a common language nor on account of the continued existence of a single political regime over its territories but on account of a common culture evolved  over the centuries. It is cultural unity - something more fundamental and enduring than any other bond which may unite the people of a country together - which has welded this country into a nation. Sir Vincent Smith, a Historian writes: “India, beyond all doubts, possesses a deep underlying fundamental unity far more profound than which is achieved by either geographical isolation or political suzerainty. This unity transcends all the various diversities of caste, creed, race, colour, language and custom.” It has been a solemn declaration since the time of Vedas: Prithivye samudraprayantaya ekrat.

This inherent cultural unity is the civilizational foundation of our national identity as well as absolute values of life. It defines our way of life. And that is the foundation of our nationhood. Hence the nationalism which we proclaim and stand by is essentially Cultural Nationalism.

At this stage it is advisable to briefly refer to the development of nationalism as a doctrine or an ideology. The ‘ideology of nationalism requires an immersion in the culture of the nation - the rediscovery of its history, the revival of its vernacular language through such disciplines as philology and lexicography, the cultivation of its literature, especially drama and poetry and the restoration of its vernacular arts and crafts, as well as its music, including native dance and folk song’. (Anthony D Smith)

This nationalism developed into a political doctrine which visualized a nation to be a social structure created by a community on a defined territory with the help of common laws. This is refereed to as a civic nation and the nationalism is in the nature of republican patriotism which is inspired more by the system of governance than by a sense of belonging to the community. However, the nationalism that developed into a doctrine was based on two positions:

·     Allegiance to nation

·     A community of self governing nations is the foundation of world peace.

Recent developments in the world show a new realization of the cultural component of the existence of a nation. The last century particularly after the collapse of Five Empires in the early decades created various nations by putting lines on a map. This was followed by the nations which went under the communist hegemony. After the collapse of Soviet Union, the lines on the map, which were artificial, crumbled and nations emerged on the basis of people’s identity as historically one community with common heritage, common traditions and common values. This was not merely Balkanisation but it was the emergence of nations that were existing dormantly into nation states.

About China it is said that nationalism in its territorial and political sense is a new phenomena emerging only in the mid 19th century. China always existed as a nation having a loose community bond more by a common way of life than by any messianic appeal. With all its variety of groups they are one people and the single most outstanding feature of nationalism in China is that it is much more cultural than political. The example of Yugoslavia illustrates the other instance of dormant national identities. After the collapse of the Soviet Empire different national identities of Serbs and Croats emerged. Without going into the subsequent conflicts and violence and American intervention the aspect to be noted here is the consciousness of the Serb identity which is evident by the telling example of Kosovo. The Serbs were aggrieved a few centuries ago by their defeat in 1389 at the hands of the Turks in the final battle in Kosovo when Yugoslavia as it then was became a part of the Turkish Empire. Even today the Serbs remember this and observe the day of defeat as a day of national mourning.  The emergence of three states by the disintegration of Yugoslavia is a matter of a separate study. But the aspect to be noted is that national identities permeated through centuries even though there was no state representing them.

In spite of the din of globalisation, nationalism is going to be the dominant ideology for nations of the world. The world may go flat but the individual identity of the nations will protect them from the super power hegemony only on the foundation of nationalism.

The declaration of the newly elected president of France is an example of this. In his first public statement after his election, Nicolas Sarkozy, the President, promised that he would defend the independence and identity of France. (Independence from the American hegemony, in the garb of globalisation; Identity from getting deluded by Islamisation under the threat of terrorism)

It is thus now a historically established fact that a nation exists on the basis of the trinity of land with people having a common culture. This trinity of one people one land and one culture constitutes a nation. This is all the more so insofar as India is concerned. This truth is on many occasions clouded by confused thinking about the concept of culture and the principle of secularism. India became home for many faiths coming here and were adopted by sections of people for various reasons, which we will not dwell upon here. It is forgotten that the main stream of Ganga remains the main stream even though hundreds of big and small rivers and rivulets merge into it. This country boasts of complete spiritual freedom and diversity in particular traditions and yet for all of them basic values of life that determine human relations are same. You may give this unique tradition any name or you may not name it: it may be Hindu, Bharatiya, Sanatan or even Indian. But, it is certain that it is one with a capital O.

This nation and unadulterated love for it are our basic creed, we live and will die for. Our culture defines our existence and as Deen Dayalji had said “the entire edifice of our thinking in politics, economics and sociology is founded on our culture”. Hence cultural nationalism is naturally the core of our ideology.

We have already noted that our cultural unity is the civilizational foundation of our national identity as well as absolute values of life. This national identity of the entire territory of India which we revere as Bharatmata was understood as such by whoever came to this country over the last thousands of years. Bharat was always one integrated territory from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. They may have come from the north-western frontier or the south-western frontier from Khyber, to Kerala. They called it India meaning the land of Bharat. This land is described as such from the Vedas, Puranas and subsequent literature. Adi Shankaracharya, The Great Unifier established his centres (Mathas) in the four corners of this land.

This foundation of our culture also designs our way of life. It gives us a direction in terms of understanding the relationship of man and man, of man and state, of man and nature and of man and the sublime,God. It lays down an unwritten code of ethics, rules of behaviour and social harmony. This intrinsic unity of existence and purpose was always there and is always perceived to be there. It is our firm faith that this code of human conduct that is Dharma, will guide the world tomorrow towards happiness and peace. This is a tall claim but that is the destiny of this country. Huntington who wrote about a Clash Of Civilizations claims that the present century also will belong to America. He says that if the last century was dominated by military power this century America will spread its way of life not by power but by the principles of (1) Individual liberty (2) Democracy (3) Free Market. Our faith in the ability of this country’s culture to guide the world is based on four guiding principles: (1) The realization that the entire world of living organism as well as the matter without apparent life is permeated by the same spirit, energy, Chaitanya (2) Dharma the cosmic order of human behaviour (3) Family, Kutumb (4) Consensus, Sahamati. These principles effectively answer the calls of ecology and environment protection, ethics and social harmony, homogeneity and conflict resolution, welfare and governance.

This ultimately will be the national agenda of this country.

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References:

 i.             Nationalism, Theory, Ideology, History by Anthony D. Smith (Polity) and his earlier books on Nationalism.

ii.             Nationalism and Globalization, East and West Edited by Leo Suryadinata (Institute of South East Asian Studies,                

                Singapore)

iii.            Culture Democracy and Development in South Asia Edited by N. N. Vohra, Indian International Centre (Shipra)

iv.            Blackstone's International Human Rights Documents - P. R. Ghandhi (Universal)

v.             The Twilight of the Nation State - Prem Shankar Jha (Vistaar Publication)

vi.            Clash of Civilization - Samual P. Huntigton (Penguin), and other essays by the same author.

vii.           Supreme Court on Hindutvwa- Edited by Prof. Bal Apte ( India First Foundation)