Two Nationalisms

As India celebrates its 67th Republic Day, a part of the country is on streets seeking justice for a student’s suicide whose actions were deemed ‘Anti National’ by some. Against this backdrop, here is my journey on the slippery slope of ‘Nationalism’.

A week ago, I was attending a seminar in one of the premier colleges of Delhi University where an intellectual from Pakistan was speaking to enlighten the crowd on the current political situation in Pakistan. Once finished with his lecture, the floor was opened to the gathered audience which was a mixture of college students and teachers, for questions and comments. Interesting as they were, one stood out particularly for me. A girl in a headscarf, seated right in front of me, asked a question pertaining to life in Azad Kashmir and while asking the question, she referred to Kashmir as we know it as ‘India occupied Kashmir’. As innocuous a question as it may have seemed, those three meticulously chosen words made it more than a question. It was a statement.

To say the least, those three words strung together stung me at first. So here was a woman studying in one of the top colleges of the capital directly defying the Indian state in front of a Pakistani national with her little maneuver of words. I, for some reason, found her words so revolting that if given a chance to question her at that very instant, I would have taunted her defiance by asking why to avail the facilities of a state university when you detest the state itself? Thankfully, I got no such chance and the conversations flowed on.

As my rage at that question grew calmer, I began to process things with a little more clarity. I then realized what had happened. My nationalism was hurt. It’s the same nationalism that demands justice for 26/11 and Pathankot attacks. This nationalism of mine is one of revenge and retribution, and somewhere, I suspect, deeply imbued in ideas of male virility.

But when this nationalism took a backseat and the hike in the blood pressure was arrested, I began to try to look at things from the perspective of that girl in the headscarf, still seated right ahead of me. Her abhorrence towards the Indian state made sense to me when I thought of life in the valley. The years of struggle for an identity, everyday curfews and blackouts, enormous human rights violations all under the massive fear and terror that flows from the barrel of the guns of those gun toting strangers, that’s life for many Kashmiris.

I felt a little ashamed when I realized how so many of us join our voices for justice for attacks on Mumbai an Pathankot but develop historical amnesia when it comes to human rights violations in Kashmir. I couldn’t know if the words of the girl were fueled by anti state sentiments, but what her statement was, was definitely a critique of the state. And a critique of the state is as much a form of nationalism as its chest thumping valorization. Every critique is actually laced with a hope of change and betterment from the current state of things. Critiquing the state is as important an ingredient of a flourishing democracy as any. A state that can take criticism in its stride without calling it seditious will always have better claims to be called nationalistic. And as a citizen, f you’re not pointing out what’s wrong with the nation or the state, you’re slowly but invariably pushing it towards a state of degeneration.

This nationalism stands apart from the nationalism discussed above, or my nationalism that had got hurt initially. It is ready to reject the idea that the nation is perfect and recognizes the internal vulnerabilities of this nationalism. It is ready to transcend the seemingly natural inside-outside boundaries of the state. This nationalism is rooted in the understanding of pluralities of identities within a nation. Sensing its potential as a double edged sword, it doesn’t always take pride in the hard power of the nation-state and instead, considers it one of the elements constituting the nation. 

So, these are the two nationalisms that can be found in interplay in modern societies of sovereign nation states like India. I would like to call the nationalism of the first type, the nationalism with a greater emphasis on protection of borders than those who reside within it, the ‘nationalism of the brawn’. It’s the mainstream nationalism and has a tinge of jingoism about it. It’s the same nationalism which erupts in joy when India defeats Pakistan in cricket. It’s the same nationalism that blames Pakistan for everything wrong in Kashmir and China for everything wrong in North-east. It likes to see the nation as a singular flawless uniform entity and finds the enemies outside the borders. Its that nationalism which, on the face of it, looks all inclusive while silently pushing demands for recognition to the periphery. It’s the nationalism sold to us by the military and political establishment in the country. The faces in power will always be happy as long as the buyers for this nationalism outnumber those with the nationalism of the other kind.

The other or the second kind of nationalism is what I call the Nationalism of the brain. It emanates from the ruins of the false understanding of the nation as a singular homogenous unit. Unlike the nationalism of the brawn, the nationalism of the brain is inward looking. It is made up of scathing critique of the state and its actions wherever it goes wrong, be it on the basins of Narmada or hostels of central universities. Sensitive, this nationalism prefers to talk and not shout.  Often dissed by the state, the nationalism of the brain, to use the words of Noam Chomsky, becomes a ‘responsibility of the intellectuals’ in the society. Democracy is a dialogue between the nationalism of the brawn and the nationalism of the brain.

While my nationalism of the brawn was hurt by the woman’s words initially, it was thankfully overtaken by the nationalism of the brain to respect her statement of dissent.

(The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his private capacity.)