What Makes a Nation? A Historical Perspective-Part-III

What emerges from our discussion above is that a nation is not pre-ordained, it has emerged through a historical process with political conditions bringing together previously isolated groups; it then invents a shared past invoking shared culture, religion, economic life, shared space, etc; it may begin as an elite consciousness but it gets transformed into a mass consciousness.

The emergence of national consciousness in the post-colonial states is bound up with the freedom struggle of a people who discovered their nationhood in some common thread of cultural, spiritual, religious, etc invoked from their past. It is thus a historically integrating process of groups isolated by separate ethnic identities. As Ernest Renan has pointed out, a nation cannot be taken for granted, his exact words being, “nations are not something eternal.”

There is a hint in his article that given new conditions other forms of union may replace nations (he hinted about a European Confederation, almost coming closer to the idea of the European Union.) As nation-making is an integrating process, so there may be a process that disintegrates the nation also. This has happened in recent history.

The germ of disintegration being in integration itself, without a sense of strong national bond, the other identity formulations may take precedence through the gap of national unity. Those nations which achieve national unity overriding separate ethnic identities of the groups that came to form the nation may start remembering their ethnic differences if the national aspirations either fail short of their ethnic aspirations or if a dominant majority marginalizes the other ethnic groups.

Even in Europe where nationalism seems to have taken firm roots in most nations, there has been instances of failure of nation-building. One glaring instance is former Yugoslavia, which was promoted as a nation state after the world war, got broken up within half a century after ethnic assertions, both religious and cultural, led to bloody war amongst the constituting ethnic communities.

When Yugoslavia emerged as a nation-state, the people of its territory often used to claim, “ Our race, variously known as Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, is nevertheless, in spite of three different names, but one people- the Yogoslavs.” Yet ironically, when the break up came it was the separateness of the three ethnic communities that was asserted. This came because one group, the Serbs tried to marginalize the other two groups.

In Czechoslovakia, the 1920 constitution pronounced the checks and the Slovaks as a single ‘Czechoslovak nation.’ It was the Nazis who first exposed the hollowness of nation-forming in Czechoslovakia by playing the Slovaks against the Czechs and occupying their territory. After the Nazi defeat both ethnic communities came together again under ideological influence of the Soviet Union, only to break into two nations once again after the fall of the Soviet Union. In South Asia, a glaring example of religion failing to act as a strong glue in nation-building is in the break-up of Pakistan in 1971.

The basis of the Pak nation was Islamic religion. This ingredient was so strongly promoted that the builders of Pakistan nation ignored other identity forming ethnic ingredients that differentiated East Pakistan from West Pakistan. The domination of the Urdu speaking Punjabis on the Bengali speaking Bengalis brought about serious chasm between the two halves of the then Islamic nation and Bangladesh came into existence on the principle of Bengali nationalism.

In present-day Pakistan, there are very strong ethnic differences between the Sindhis and the Punjabis but here religion as a nation-building glue has so far proven to be stronger than other ethnic ingredients like language and culture. In Baluchistan where tribal identity is still very strong, Islamic nationalism has been under the challenge of tribal ethnicity. So far, religion and a strong army has been the main response against this separatist tendency of that region of Pakistan.

Was India a Nation before the British brought the land comprising the sub-continental mass under it's rule? In pre-colonial India the consciousness of being a nation was not arguably politically present as areas were ruled by many different monarchs in different parts, even under Mughal rule which had brought a large part of it under it's rule. But a linguistic nationalistic sentiment was present among it's various people speaking their own languages. The tribal communities had their ethnicity and related traditions and customs separating them from each other.

The British colonialism brought these diverse people under one political umbrella and introduced western education. This action fostered the feeling amongst these diverse people being under one political roof. All such diverse nationalities became conscious of belonging to one nation while fighting the British imperialism, and after Independence Indian Constitution fostered it strongly. But under this rubric, separate linguistic subnationalism (Amalendu Guha calls it Little Nationalism) has remained strong and many states have even adopted National Songs for the state to be sung/played on state occasions.

Hindu Nationalism is a new idea militating against Secular Nationalism that has been guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. I feel that for the Indian State with diverse regional aspirations, differentiated linguistic unities and a sense of ethnicity that overlays on cultural practices of many tribal people Hindutva will provide only a divisive wedge causing social disintegration at some time or other. Lessons are there in the breaking away of Bangladesh from Pakistan and its Baluchistan region's fight for Independence.