Indian Subcontinent was never a single state in the entire history. Some big empires were there but still they did not cover entire India.
British empire was spread across the subcontinent, but 1/3rd of the area of princely states was not ruled by British. So there was not a single state rule over subcontinent. When India became free, again it was with the partition based on two-nation theory. But majority chunk of subcontinent is ruled by Indian State.
The question is whether it is a nation-state?
What is nation-state at the first place?
For that we need to understand the difference between nation and state. Nation and states are two separate entities. Nation formation takes place when various people and societies realize commonality amongst themselves on the basis of eternal and perennial bonding they have. So it is just a feeling of coexisting together based on certain bonding. This bonding can be provided by language or culture.
When such nation demands a state, no-one can decline such demand. Indian freedom struggle was nothing but a formation of nation. But unfortunately in its last phase, the scope of this nationhood was restricted on the basis of religion. The two nation theory was proposed which stated that hindus and muslims are two different nations.
The so called scholars like Jinnah, Savarkar, Ambedkar accepted this concept of two nations.
Savarkar and Ambedkar, though accepted two nations, wanted a single state to administer it, while Jinnah wanted two states for two nations.
Congress never accepted the two-nation theory. Due to communal violence Gandhi agreed upon the two states. So India was partitioned. But the India remained as not a hindu nation. Its nationhood was described by Nehru as 'Unity in Diversity'. It is essentially a cultural nationalism on which Indian nation stands today.
RSS names it as 'Hindutva' (this is very different from Savarkar's hindutva which was based upon religio-geographical hindu identity).
The issue of Kashmir is therefore more important to India. Kashmir is proof that Indian nationalism is not just a hindu nationalism. The presence of so many Muslims in India also proves the same. The two-nation theory was proved wrong when Bangladesh was formed.
India today is a nation-state and all Indians are proud of that.
Showing posts with label nation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nation. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Religion, Society and Polity: Indian Context
India is multicultural, multiethnic, multireligious and multilingual nation. There are some historical-geographical-economical-environmental reasons for that.
Right from the ancient times, many people came to India and settled over it. If one goes by the racial features, Indians are show features of all the races except that of Red Indians.
Indians developed a peculiar kind of society, lifestyle and outlook towards the life. Some good and some bad traditions got established in our society. The caste system developed with the lack of formal education system in the vocational subjects. The vocational knowledge transferred within the family from parents to their children and the hence next generation continued the same business which their predecessors did. This established the caste system all accross the India.
The institution of religion did not start formally anytime in India. There were many scholars who debated, deliberated and proposed their ideas and their philosophy on spiritual concepts and the code of conduct for an individual in his personal life. Each of these scholors got many followers and hence we find numerous sects in India. Most of these sects derived their philosophy from Vedas. Each one had its own interpretation.
But there were certain sects which did not accepted the supremacy of Vedas. The most prominent amongst them were jainism and buddhism. These sects became popular due to the simple philosophy and lifestyle they proposed. Especially the buddhism spread across the world because it did not impose any restrictions on day to day activities and food habits of people.
As the concept of religion became popular and religious identity became necessary the rest of the Indian sects (i.e. non-buddhists and non-jains) were called as Hindus, a regional term. So the hinduism started as a conglomeration of different sects and with it started the process of unification of all those sects. Hence hinduism became more liberal in terms of philosophies and accepted all the new thoughts and changed drastically with time. Even buddhism came under its fold in India and hence buddhism lost its identity as religion in India, though it is a main religion in China, Japan and other East asian countires.
There were many scholars like Manu who commented on the social conduct and structure and provided reference of the religious literatures to provide basis to their societal philosophy. Especially the Manusmirti became very popular and was accepted all over India and it became sort of constitution for Indian society.
With Indian lifestyle the societal life became so important that the personal lifestyle and personal code of conduct got assimilated with the societal code of conduct. This societal structure and code being similar throughout the India and accross all the sects, it became peculiar characteristics of hindus and slowly and slowly became the part of hinduism.
The societal code of conduct was also applicable for the ruling class. The caste system played an important role in Indian polity with certain people got the rights to rule heredetorily. This turned India into a feudal polity with many small chieftains ruling over small geographic area. With this it became easier for foreigners to Invade India. Though there were empires, the nature of the polities of these empire-states was not central. These empire-states were dependent on the loyalty of the small feuds to hold their geographic sway over the India. These feuds constantly fought with each other and this made even the empire-states vulnerable to foreign invasions. And because of such polity, the sense of nationalism never grew in the people of India.
The first such attempt to create a Hindavi Swaraj (nation of hindustanis) was made by Shivaji. He abolished the feaudal intervention in the state polity and structured his kingdom and its policies for the welfare of the people. He was successful, but his nation-state remain small due to his limited military power. But the power of this nation was seen when Mughals attacked his kindgom in full sway after his death. Th people fought for his kingdom and big mughal empire even after 30 years of continuous war couldn't defeat the small kingdom founded by Shivaji. The emperor Aurangjeb personally led this war, but was unsuccessful. But the Shivaji's legacy was not continued by his successors, they extended the sway of his kingdom all over the India, but were unsuccessful in developing the feeling of nationhood in its people.
The second such attempt was made by Mahatma Gandhi. His political movement against british empire really transformed India into a nation. But for that again he used the symbolism of hindu religion alienating the other people of other religions. Hence his appeal was limited to mainly to the hindus, but was sufficient to start the process of nation building as hindus were more than 80% in India.
After the Independence India adopted a decomcratic-republican, socialist, secular amd quasi-federal polity. People are free to practice their religion on the personal level. Even in the societal level the religion can be practised, but only within the limits of the constitution. The importance of religion is declining since then, as people are moving away from spiritualism with the physical advances and socially the laws and constitution are more important. With this the barricades of castes are started breaking, but still this process is going to take lot of time. This is because the political leadership is still coming from the castes. This leadership wants castes to become stronger so that they can secure their votebanks. The caste system has lost its relevance in the modern economy, though its survival is now just not dependent on the economic facotrs. There are religious and political context to it. So caste system will stay in india atleast for some decades.
With the new form of polity and society getting established in this land, the religion of the land should also accomodate this change. Let's see whether hinduism can show the same amount of flexibilty which it shown historically to adopt new ideas. Same is the case for other religions.
It will take time for everyone to adjust with the new polity and new social structure and till that India will have to face many riots based on religion and castes.
Right from the ancient times, many people came to India and settled over it. If one goes by the racial features, Indians are show features of all the races except that of Red Indians.
Indians developed a peculiar kind of society, lifestyle and outlook towards the life. Some good and some bad traditions got established in our society. The caste system developed with the lack of formal education system in the vocational subjects. The vocational knowledge transferred within the family from parents to their children and the hence next generation continued the same business which their predecessors did. This established the caste system all accross the India.
The institution of religion did not start formally anytime in India. There were many scholars who debated, deliberated and proposed their ideas and their philosophy on spiritual concepts and the code of conduct for an individual in his personal life. Each of these scholors got many followers and hence we find numerous sects in India. Most of these sects derived their philosophy from Vedas. Each one had its own interpretation.
But there were certain sects which did not accepted the supremacy of Vedas. The most prominent amongst them were jainism and buddhism. These sects became popular due to the simple philosophy and lifestyle they proposed. Especially the buddhism spread across the world because it did not impose any restrictions on day to day activities and food habits of people.
As the concept of religion became popular and religious identity became necessary the rest of the Indian sects (i.e. non-buddhists and non-jains) were called as Hindus, a regional term. So the hinduism started as a conglomeration of different sects and with it started the process of unification of all those sects. Hence hinduism became more liberal in terms of philosophies and accepted all the new thoughts and changed drastically with time. Even buddhism came under its fold in India and hence buddhism lost its identity as religion in India, though it is a main religion in China, Japan and other East asian countires.
There were many scholars like Manu who commented on the social conduct and structure and provided reference of the religious literatures to provide basis to their societal philosophy. Especially the Manusmirti became very popular and was accepted all over India and it became sort of constitution for Indian society.
With Indian lifestyle the societal life became so important that the personal lifestyle and personal code of conduct got assimilated with the societal code of conduct. This societal structure and code being similar throughout the India and accross all the sects, it became peculiar characteristics of hindus and slowly and slowly became the part of hinduism.
The societal code of conduct was also applicable for the ruling class. The caste system played an important role in Indian polity with certain people got the rights to rule heredetorily. This turned India into a feudal polity with many small chieftains ruling over small geographic area. With this it became easier for foreigners to Invade India. Though there were empires, the nature of the polities of these empire-states was not central. These empire-states were dependent on the loyalty of the small feuds to hold their geographic sway over the India. These feuds constantly fought with each other and this made even the empire-states vulnerable to foreign invasions. And because of such polity, the sense of nationalism never grew in the people of India.
The first such attempt to create a Hindavi Swaraj (nation of hindustanis) was made by Shivaji. He abolished the feaudal intervention in the state polity and structured his kingdom and its policies for the welfare of the people. He was successful, but his nation-state remain small due to his limited military power. But the power of this nation was seen when Mughals attacked his kindgom in full sway after his death. Th people fought for his kingdom and big mughal empire even after 30 years of continuous war couldn't defeat the small kingdom founded by Shivaji. The emperor Aurangjeb personally led this war, but was unsuccessful. But the Shivaji's legacy was not continued by his successors, they extended the sway of his kingdom all over the India, but were unsuccessful in developing the feeling of nationhood in its people.
The second such attempt was made by Mahatma Gandhi. His political movement against british empire really transformed India into a nation. But for that again he used the symbolism of hindu religion alienating the other people of other religions. Hence his appeal was limited to mainly to the hindus, but was sufficient to start the process of nation building as hindus were more than 80% in India.
After the Independence India adopted a decomcratic-republican, socialist, secular amd quasi-federal polity. People are free to practice their religion on the personal level. Even in the societal level the religion can be practised, but only within the limits of the constitution. The importance of religion is declining since then, as people are moving away from spiritualism with the physical advances and socially the laws and constitution are more important. With this the barricades of castes are started breaking, but still this process is going to take lot of time. This is because the political leadership is still coming from the castes. This leadership wants castes to become stronger so that they can secure their votebanks. The caste system has lost its relevance in the modern economy, though its survival is now just not dependent on the economic facotrs. There are religious and political context to it. So caste system will stay in india atleast for some decades.
With the new form of polity and society getting established in this land, the religion of the land should also accomodate this change. Let's see whether hinduism can show the same amount of flexibilty which it shown historically to adopt new ideas. Same is the case for other religions.
It will take time for everyone to adjust with the new polity and new social structure and till that India will have to face many riots based on religion and castes.
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