What is Nationalism?

Nationalism as defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary means “loyalty and devotion to a nation. Especially: a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on the promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.

Encyclopaedia Britannica defines Nationalism as an ideology based on the premise that the individual’s loyalty and devotion to the nation-state surpass other individual or group interests.

Difference between Nationalism and Patriotism

Nationalism and patriotism are two sides of the same coin but there is a thin line demarcating both ideologies.

Patriotism is an attachment to a homeland. The love and adoration for the place where an individual is born and brought up, and the nation that place belongs to. These attachments can be related to ethnic, cultural, political, or historical. Patriotism is also being proud of a country's virtues but with an eagerness and readiness to correct its deficiencies to be better. Patriotism acknowledges the patriotism of citizens of other countries and respects their virtues.

An excess of patriotism in the defense of a nation is called chauvinism or jingoism.

The difference between patriotism and nationalism is simple - a patriot loves his country and is proud of it for what it does whereas a nationalist loves his country and is proud of his country NO MATTER WHAT IT DOES.

Quite clearly, patriotism nurtures a feeling of 'responsibility' in the citizens while nationalism breeds blind arrogance or ignorance, and it often leads to conflict.  

Nationalism in India (a brief historical timeline)

Indian nationalism developed as a concept during the Indian independence movement fought against the colonial British Raj.

In India, the growth of modern nationalism is connected to the anti-colonial movement. Due to colonialism, many different groups shared bonds together, which were forged by the Congress under Mahatma Gandhi.

In January 1915, Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa and started the movement Satyagraha. Satyagraha emphasised the power of truth and the need to search for truth. According to Mahatma Gandhi, people can win a battle without non-violence which will unite all Indians.

In 1919, Mahatma Gandhi launched a nationwide satyagraha against the proposed Rowlatt Act. The Act gives the government enormous powers to repress political activities and allowed the detention of political prisoners without trial for two years.

According to Mahatma Gandhi, British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and hence if we have to achieve complete swarajya he proposed the non-cooperation movement. It should begin with the surrender of titles that the government awarded, and a boycott of civil services, army, police, courts and legislative councils, schools, and foreign goods.

In January 1921, the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat Movement began. In this movement, various social groups participated, but at that time the term meant different things to different people.

The Non-Cooperation Movement spread to the countryside where unrest between peasants and tribals was brimming in different parts of India. The peasant movement started against talukdars and landlords who demanded high rents and a variety of other cesses. It demanded a reduction of revenue, abolition of beggars, and a social boycott of oppressive landlords.

For plantation workers in Assam, freedom means the right to move freely in and out and retaining a link with the village from which they had come. Under the Inland Emigration Act of 1859, plantation workers were not permitted to leave the tea gardens without permission.

In February 1922, the Non-Cooperation Movement was withdrawn because Mahatma Gandhi felt that it was turning violent.

In December 1929, under the presidency of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Lahore Congress formalised the demand of ‘Purna Swaraj’ or full independence for India. It was declared that 26 January 1930 would be celebrated as Independence Day.

On 31 January 1930, Mahatma Gandhi sent a letter to Viceroy Irwin stating eleven demands. Among the demands, the most stirring of all was the demand to abolish the salt tax which is consumed by the rich and the poor. The demands needed to be fulfilled by 11 March or else Congress will start a civil disobedience campaign.

Nationalism spreads when people begin to believe that they are all part of the same nation. History and fiction, folklore and songs, popular prints and symbols, all played a part in the making of nationalism. Finally, in the twentieth century, the identity of India came to be visually associated with the image of Bharat Mata. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay created the image and in the 1870s he wrote ‘Vande Mataram’ as a hymn to the motherland.

Rabindranath Tagore painted his famous image of Bharat Mata portrayed as an ascetic figure; she is calm, composed, divine, and spiritual. In late-nineteenth-century India, nationalists began recording folk tales sung by bards and they toured villages to gather folk songs and legends. During the Swadeshi movement in Bengal, a tricolour flag (red, green, and yellow) was designed which had eight lotuses representing eight provinces of British India, and a crescent moon, representing Hindus and Muslims. By 1921, Gandhiji designed the Swaraj flag, a tricolour (red, green, and white), and had a spinning wheel in the centre, representing the Gandhian ideal of self-help.

In the first half of the twentieth century, various groups and classes of Indians came together in the struggle for independence. The Congress under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi attempted to resolve differences, and ensure that the demands of one group did not alienate another. In other words, what was emerging was a nation with many voices wanting freedom from colonial rule.

The Indian Political Transition

The biggest political change in India in the last decades has been the demise of the once all-powerful Congress Party and the rise of regional-based parties and the Hindu nationalists. Like all political parties that remain in power too long, Congress fell into corruption and cronyism. Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi - no relation to the Mahatma - brought India as close as it has ever come to dictatorship in 1975 when she declared "Emergency," suspending democracy, and threw many of her opponents into prison. It is to India's credit that democracy eventually prevailed. But Indira Gandhi saw India and the Congress Party as a family enterprise. After her assassination her son, Rajiv, became prime minister - only to be assassinated himself. Today, the head of the Congress Party in opposition is Sonia Gandhi, Rajiv's widow, who is an Italian trying her hardest to appeal to Hindus.

The Congress Party's demise has seen the rise of the saffron nationalist BJP. It is India's most powerful political force, but it rules through a coalition that has necessitated a softening of the party's more militant Hindu positions.

The battle between Nehru's secular India and what the historian Burton Stein called the "distorted particularisms and intolerance" of religious-based nationalism comes just as a new, market-oriented and tech-savvy India is trying to be born from the old, socialist, and inward-looking country that was, ironically, also Nehru's legacy.