People get branded as anti-national, not always because they do anything wide of the mark against the country, but their position as a Dalit, Muslim, Christian, or Kashmiri attracts it; the list could go on to LGBTQ+ activists, rationalists, environmentalists, journalists, etc.
Saji P Mathew OFM
Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav: we are celebrating our 75 years of Independence at a time when Russia-Ukraine war of global consequences is in its sixth month, China is gathering arms and other war facilities around Taiwan, millions around the globe are refugees and migrants in lands which they can’t call their own. In times like these, the possibility of living in a sovereign, self-governed, self-reliant country is a luxury. We owe our gratitude to the great selfless souls who fought our wars of independence; we owe respect to people who lead this country with vision, bravery, and passion. Different governments, present and past, have done a lot of good in our country; at the same time no government has been flawless.
We are a young country
As a country we are looking forward than looking backward; which is a simple enough reason to say that we are still young. The phases of one’s age is perceived by how many more years to go, or how much more to learn, realize, and grow. According to various studies, India has a high growth potential compared to many other developing nations.
On the economic and sustainable developmental front, McKinsy & Company have identified areas in which India has great opportunities to achieve; and move up from poverty to empowerment that would ensure acceptable living standards for all. Have Sustainable urbanization to take advantage of Indian cities. By 2025 India will have 69 cities with a population of more than one million each. There is of course an economic growth possibility; but how sustainably are we approaching it? India must manufacture quality goods for India to tap into large and growing local market. India must harness technology to take advantage of the digital wave. Last but not the least, India must radically unlock the potential of Indian women. Women now contribute only 17 percent of India’s GDP and make up just 24 percent of the workforce, compared with 40 percent globally. Movement toward closing the gender gap in education and in financial and digital inclusion need further progress.
Inclusivity: the greatest Indian Challenge
In 1946 Jawaharlal Nehru said that India is four hundred million separate individual men and women, each differing from the other, each living in a private universe of thought and feeling. Today we have 1.26 billion separate individual. Numbers have grown, and with it fragmentations too. The Indian reality is one of a kind in the world with so many myriads of languages, cultures, and religions. Majoritarian political parties are pushing for a single dimensional nationalism. The result being that many sensing a strong lack of belonging; and in real life the minorities experience exclusion.
Religious Nationalism
In the past in India and elsewhere in the world, nationalism has brought people together. Nationalism has helped in winning wars, and perhaps have helped in fighting for one’s freedom and liberties. But today, by its very identity, India cannot experiment with a single dimensional nationalism, however romantic and empowering it may sound to the majority. Experimenting with religious or linguistic nationalism will be detrimental to the very idea of India. Many great souls, understanding India, had grasped it well in advance.
Rabindranath Tagore in 1917 itself had cautioned India that nationalism is a menace. He had identified it to be the single cause that motivates all the problems of India. Tagore shuns nationalism saying, my refuge is not nationalism; my refuge is humanity. I will not allow patriotism to triumph over humanity. At this juncture of our country it is strengthening to remember the prayer of Tagore in Geethanjali, “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free; where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls... Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. The prayer is not that my country must conquer the entire world. Not that the world must get filled with my country, but he prays for a space, a world, to where our country and every country also must raise up to. Scientists like Albert Einstein to actors like Charlie Chaplin have spoken vehemently against single dimensional nationalism.
Benedict Anderson speaking about nationalism says that it is the imagination of a people that they belong, that they are together. Anderson used the phrase, ‘imagined communities’ to communicate nationalism. By itself it is okay; but if a majoritarian religion or group uses it for petty gains, then nationalism gives rise to sponsored violence. And, at an extreme end, unchecked nationalism can become a breeding ground for fascism. People get branded as anti-national, not always because they do anything wide of the mark against the country, but their position as a Dalit, Muslim, Christian, or Kashmiri attracts it; the list could go one to LGBTQ+ activists, rationalists, environmentalists, journalists, etc.
Nationalism will divide people across imagined and reinforced narratives and borders and the union build up through centuries will be questioned and put at risk. Nationalism is the most gripping, most potent idea in modern history. An idea becomes a material force when it grips the masses, said, Karl Marx. Nationalism is such an idea, an imagination, which has potential stronger than armies and weapons. For freedom, for liberties, nationalism cannot be the end aim of a country. Bernard Shaw says, patriotism, an accepted variant of nationalism, is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.
In contemporary times Indian nationalism has taken on interesting twists and turns; giving emergence to neo-nationalism. It is the idea of a nation where you emotionally belong to, you belong there with your beliefs but you are least bothered whether all in the country belong there.
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