Nationalism

Overview

Nationalism is the belief that the nation — a group of people sharing common characteristics such as language, culture, history, or territory — should be the primary basis of political organization, and that the nation deserves its own sovereign state. It is arguably the most powerful political force of the last 250 years, driving the unification of Italy and Germany, the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, the anti-colonial liberation of Asia and Africa, and the wars and genocides of the 20th century.

Nationalism can be emancipatory or oppressive. It inspired the resistance of colonized peoples against European domination and the overthrow of apartheid. It also produced the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the ethnic cleansing of the Balkans. Understanding nationalism requires understanding both its liberating potential and its capacity for dehumanization.

For India, nationalism is not an abstract theory but the lived experience of the independence movement, the Partition, and the ongoing negotiation of a diverse national identity. Indian nationalism is not one thing but many: secular, Hindu, Muslim, linguistic, caste-based, regional, and cosmopolitan. The struggle over which nationalism defines India continues to shape its politics.

Civic vs. Ethnic Nationalism

The most important distinction in nationalism studies is between civic and ethnic nationalism. This distinction, developed by scholars like Hans Kohn and Liah Greenfeld, separates two fundamentally different ways of defining who belongs to the nation.

Civic Nationalism

• Definition: The nation is defined by shared political institutions, laws, and values rather than by blood, language, or ancestry. Citizenship is voluntary and can be acquired by anyone who accepts the nation's political principles.
• Historical example: The French Revolution defined the nation as a community of citizens united by common laws and the general will. The American tradition, despite its contradictions on race, has historically emphasized civic ideals: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the promise of equal opportunity.
• Characteristics: Inclusive, assimilationist, forward-looking. It says: "You are one of us if you accept our values and participate in our institutions." It is compatible with multiculturalism because diversity is allowed within a shared political framework.
• Limitations: Civic nationalism can mask real exclusions. The French Republic claims to be color-blind but has struggled with discrimination against North African immigrants. American civic nationalism coexisted with slavery and Jim Crow. The gap between ideal and reality is often vast.

Ethnic Nationalism

• Definition: The nation is defined by common ancestry, blood, language, religion, or culture. Membership is not voluntary but inherited. You are born into the nation, and outsiders can never fully belong, regardless of citizenship or loyalty.
• Historical example: German Romantic nationalism, especially from Johann Gottfried Herder and later the Völkisch movement, emphasized the Volk (people) as an organic community bound by blood and soil. This was the ideological foundation of Nazi racial nationalism.
• Characteristics: Exclusive, organic, backward-looking. It says: "You are one of us only if your ancestors were one of us." It is inherently hostile to multiculturalism because diversity threatens the purity of the national essence.
• Modern variants: Ethnic nationalism does not require explicit racism. It can be based on language (Turkish nationalism against Kurdish minorities), religion (Hindutva's emphasis on India as a Hindu nation), or culture ("Englishness" as a set of inherited customs). The common thread is the belief that the nation has a fixed, essential character that must be preserved.

The Hybrid Reality

• Pure types are rare: Most nationalisms combine civic and ethnic elements. French civic nationalism has historically required cultural assimilation (speaking French, abandoning regional languages). American civic nationalism has always had ethnic undertones (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant norms).
• Slippage: Civic nationalism can slide into ethnic nationalism when the dominant group defines its own culture as the universal civic standard. "French values" or "Indian culture" may sound inclusive but can exclude those who practice different religions or speak different languages.
• Constitutional patriotism (Jürgen Habermas): A proposed solution to this problem. Instead of identifying with the nation as a historical community, citizens identify with the constitution and its democratic principles. This is genuinely inclusive because it requires no shared ethnicity or culture, only shared commitment to political norms. Critics argue it is too thin to inspire the loyalty that makes sacrifice and solidarity possible.

Origins and Theories

When did nationalism begin? Scholars debate whether it is ancient or modern, primordial or constructed.

Primordialism

• Claim: Nations are natural, ancient, and rooted in human psychology. Humans have always lived in groups with shared identity, and modern nations are simply the latest form of this ancient tribalism.
• Proponents: Early nationalists themselves, and some sociologists like Pierre van den Berghe who argue that ethnic solidarity has evolutionary roots in kin selection.
• Problems: Many "ancient nations" are recent inventions. The French nation was unified by state-building in the 19th century, not by ancient Gaulish identity. Many pre-modern identities were local, religious, or dynastic rather than national. The idea of a unified "Indian" nation would have been incomprehensible to most people in the subcontinent 500 years ago.

Modernism

• Claim: Nationalism is a distinctly modern phenomenon, emerging with capitalism, industrialization, print technology, and the modern state. Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, and Eric Hobsbawm are the key theorists.
• Ernest Gellner (Nations and Nationalism, 1983): Industrial society requires a mobile, literate workforce that can communicate in a standardized language. The state creates this homogeneity through mass education, producing a shared high culture that becomes the basis of national identity. Nationalism is not the awakening of old nations but the invention of new ones to serve industrialization.
• Benedict Anderson (Imagined Communities, 1983): Nations are "imagined" because even members of the smallest nation will never meet most of their fellow members. Print capitalism — newspapers, novels, and mass publishing — created the possibility of imagining simultaneous existence with strangers. The newspaper reader thinks: "I am reading this at breakfast while thousands of others I will never meet are doing the same." This creates a horizontal, anonymous community that is the nation.
• Eric Hobsbawm (Nations and Nationalism since 1780, 1990): National traditions are "invented" — consciously constructed by elites and then accepted as ancient. The Scottish kilt, the Indian flag, and national anthems are modern creations dressed in ancient clothing. Hobsbawm argues that nationalism is declining in the late 20th century as global capitalism and supranational institutions erode its economic and political foundations.

Ethno-Symbolism

• Claim: Anthony Smith and John Hutchinson argue that modernism overstates the novelty of nationalism. Modern nations are built on pre-modern ethnic identities — "ethnies" — that provide symbols, myths, and memories. The modern nation uses ancient materials but is not entirely invented from scratch.
• Example: Indian nationalism draws on the Ramayana, Mahabharata, and the memory of resistance to Muslim and British rule. These are not modern inventions but reinterpreted traditions. The nation is a "modern hybrid" — ancient symbols in modern political form.

Nationalism and Anti-Colonial Liberation

For colonized peoples, nationalism was not an ideology of exclusion but a weapon of liberation. The right to national self-determination, articulated by Woodrow Wilson and Vladimir Lenin during World War I, became the rallying cry of anti-colonial movements across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Wilsonian Self-Determination

• Fourteen Points (1918): Wilson's call for "a free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims" inspired colonized peoples to believe that the post-war order would recognize their independence. This was largely a betrayal — the League of Nations mandate system simply transferred colonies from defeated powers to victorious ones.
• Contradiction: Wilson was a segregationist who did not believe in racial equality. The Japanese proposal for a racial equality clause in the League Covenant was rejected. Self-determination was meant for Europeans, not for Africans or Asians. Ho Chi Minh, who attended the Versailles conference hoping to present Vietnam's case, was ignored and became a communist revolutionary.

Anti-Colonial Nationalism

• Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth, 1961): The Martinican psychiatrist and revolutionary argued that colonialism dehumanizes the colonized, reducing them to a state of inferiority and self-hatred. Nationalism is the first phase of psychological recovery — the colonized must assert their identity and dignity. However, Fanon warned that nationalism could become a trap: the native bourgeoisie, once in power, simply replaces the colonial elite and continues exploitation. True liberation requires a second phase: revolutionary humanism that transcends narrow nationalism.
• Amílcar Cabral (Guinea-Bissau): The revolutionary theorist argued that national liberation must be based on the culture of the colonized people. "Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people's history and a determinant of history." Destroying colonialism requires recovering indigenous culture, not imitating the colonizer.
• Partha Chatterjee (Indian critique): In "Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World" (1986), Chatterjee argued that Indian nationalism accepted the modular form of European nationalism while claiming a distinct content. The problem is that this framework is itself colonial — the colonized must think within categories provided by the colonizer. Chatterjee asks: can there be a nationalism that is not derivative?

Indian Nationalism

Indian nationalism is among the most complex in the world because India is not a nation in the European sense. It has no single language, no single religion, no single ethnicity, and no single historical origin. The Indian nation had to be constructed from extraordinary diversity.

Colonial Nationalism

• The Indian National Congress (1885): Founded by Allan Octavian Hume with Indian elites, the Congress initially sought administrative reform within British rule. By the early 20th century, under leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lajpat Rai, and Bipin Chandra Pal (the "Lal-Bal-Pal" trio), it demanded swaraj (self-rule).
• The Muslim League (1906): Founded to protect Muslim interests in a Hindu-majority polity, the League initially cooperated with the Congress. The Lucknow Pact (1916) showed Hindu-Muslim unity. However, the Khilafat movement's collapse, the failure of the Congress to protect Muslim interests in UP, and the rise of Jinnah led to a separate Muslim nationalism.
• Two-nation theory: Muhammad Ali Jinnah argued that Hindus and Muslims were not merely religious communities but separate nations, with distinct cultures, laws, and social customs. The only solution was partition. This was contested by many Muslims, including Maulana Azad and Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who remained committed to a united India.

Gandhi's Nationalism

• Swaraj as self-rule: Gandhi's concept of swaraj was not merely political independence but moral self-transformation. "Real home rule is self-rule or self-control." The means must be pure because the means are the ends in the making.
• Religious pluralism: Gandhi's nationalism was explicitly religious — Ram Rajya — but inclusive. He read the Quran, supported the Khilafat movement, and argued that India's strength was its religious diversity. His assassination by a Hindu nationalist (Nathuram Godse) was the tragic result of the conflict between inclusive and exclusive nationalism.
• Critique of Western civilization: Gandhi rejected the European model of industrial nationalism. "Western civilization is a disease because it is materialistic." He advocated for a decentralized, village-based economy that would preserve Indian autonomy without replicating Western materialism. This was criticized by both Nehru (as economically backward) and Ambedkar (as perpetuating caste).

Post-Independence Nationalisms

• Nehruvian secular nationalism: Jawaharlal Nehru's vision was of a modern, industrial, secular nation-state that would overcome communalism through economic development and constitutional values. This became the dominant state ideology but was always contested by Hindu and Muslim nationalists.
• Hindu nationalism (Hindutva): Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's "Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?" (1923) defined Hindus as those whose pitrabhumi (fatherland) and punyabhumi (holy land) are both India. This excluded Muslims and Christians, whose holy lands are elsewhere. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have made Hindutva the dominant political force in 21st-century India.
• Regional and linguistic nationalism: The States Reorganization Act (1956) created linguistic states, recognizing that language is a powerful basis of identity. Tamil Nadu's Dravidian movement, Assam's anti-immigrant politics, and Kashmir's autonomy movement all represent regional nationalisms that challenge the centralizing tendencies of the Indian state.
• Dalit nationalism: B.R. Ambedkar's politics was not nationalist in the conventional sense. He criticized the Indian National Congress as a party of upper-caste Hindus and argued that Dalits could not expect justice from a Hindu-majority democracy. His conversion to Buddhism and his advocacy for separate electorates represent a form of subaltern nationalism — the nation of the oppressed.

Critiques and Dangers

Nationalism has been criticized by liberals, Marxists, cosmopolitans, and postcolonial theorists. The critiques cluster around several recurring problems.

Exclusion and Minority Rights

• The minority problem: Every nation-state has minorities who do not fit the dominant national identity. Nationalism tends to demand assimilation, marginalization, or expulsion. The treatment of Muslims in India, Rohingya in Myanmar, Kurds in Turkey, and Palestinians in Israel illustrates this pattern.
• Refugees and statelessness: Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (1951) argued that the nation-state system creates statelessness as a structural problem. When states are defined by nationality, those who do not belong to the right nation lose the right to have rights. The NRC and CAA in India have raised fears of mass statelessness for Bengali Muslims in Assam.

War and Militarism

• Nationalism as cause of war: Nations in competition produce militarism, arms races, and interstate conflict. World War I was the catastrophic result of nationalist rivalry in Europe. The India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir is sustained by nationalist narratives on both sides.
• Internal repression: National emergencies and external threats are used to justify the suppression of dissent, the suspension of civil liberties, and the concentration of power. The Emergency (1975–1977) and the post-2019 Kashmir lockdown both illustrate how nationalism can be weaponized against citizens.

Cosmopolitan Alternatives

• Marxist internationalism: "Workers of the world, unite!" Marxists saw nationalism as a bourgeois ideology that divided the working class. The Communist International (Comintern) attempted to organize global working-class solidarity across national lines. In practice, Soviet communism subordinated international solidarity to Russian national interests.
• Liberal cosmopolitanism: Kwame Anthony Appiah and Martha Nussbaum have argued that we should identify primarily as world citizens, not as members of nations. Our moral obligations extend to all humans, not just co-nationals. The problem is that cosmopolitanism provides little basis for the solidarity, sacrifice, and democratic participation that nations seem to enable.
• Postnationalism: Jürgen Habermas and others argue that the European Union represents a new, postnational form of political organization. Democratic legitimacy can be based on shared constitutional principles rather than shared national identity. Whether this model can work beyond Europe — or even within it — remains an open question.

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