> I’m an independent person; I’m apolitical. We want to unify India.
I've started noticing more in the world how sometimes, people promote their stances as "apolitical", "independent", or somehow outside of politics. This has the powerful effect of implying that those stances are natural and un-opposable.
If you want to advocate some policy or cause you first establish your independence to imply non-biased consideration.
If you want to criticize some policy or group you first establish that you were previously an advocate of that policy or group, or currently still are part of that group, implying that the criticism is so undeniable that even someone predisposed to bias and self-interest can't reject it.
We all do this. For example, "I actually like Rust and use it daily, BUT...."
And the BJP today under Modi is considered a "Hindu nationalist" after 70 years of Independence.
This is in sharp contrast to Pakistan which started killing millions of Hindus & Sikhs, and has more or less completely wiped out their non-muslim population. This ethnic cleansing started even before they were created as a country.
So perhaps the "Hindus" should have a say in the only country meant for them.
Pardon me for saying this but Christian and Islamic values have been enforced on much of the world, which includes India much of whose laws and education are Christian/Leftist leaning.
As for those who are not aware, "Hindu" (of India) is the catch all phrase for anyone who did not fit into the other major faiths. And the "Hindus" themselves mostly consider anyone who are not openly inimical to their pluralistic practices as being in the fold.
Social media can whip people into a frenzy and create a tyranny worse than what the government can do because there is virtually no accountability. The court of public opinion doesn't let you appeal your sentence.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nationalism
> loyalty and devotion to a nation especially : a sense of national consciousness (see CONSCIOUSNESS sense 1c) exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups
1. The refugee crisis that Germany brought in not only on itself but on the rest of the EU.
2. The same Germany has recently spearheaded a trade deal with the devil.
Germany used nationalism for the wrong reasons (short term gain and long term pain)
India without Indian Nationalism is Syria on Steroids.. You do not want to go there.
Interesting times.
At the time, ruling over different culture and languages was a sign of power. Chandragupta's empire included Bengali and people from Deccan, and i think it extended beyond the hindus (Sorry if it the the english term, i'm not fluent enough to read history books in english). I would be VERY surprised if any of those considered themselves as Indian before anything else.
The states that brought Germany down in both world wars were just as nationalistic at the time. Even the commies brought it back when they needed it the most - and it worked.
Also, since the country in question here is India - without nationalism, they would still be a colony.
The problem is that the BJP is advancing a conception of Indian National Identity that flattens distinctions and is predicated on a caricature of Indian minorities. Hindutva sees Muslims, Christians and others as second-class citizens -- it is a nationalism that comes at the expense of diversity, and sometimes at the expense of the safety of Indian minority communities, free expression & speech, and democratic norms.
Creating an identity from a subcontinent filled with dozens (if not thousands) of languages and ethnic groups is an immense challenge, but the project of Hindutva is an unbelievably blunt attempt to resolve this tension.
I should add that I am an Indian American, and a St. Thomas Christian from Kerala. My community is ancient, thoroughly Indian, and yet is an affront to Indian Nationalism as conceived by the Hindu Nationalist right.
I am surprised to even hear Thomasites who are one of the socio-econmic mores facing persecution in a state where BJP has no footprint.
Perhaps you are surprised because he didn't say that!
Being a "Christian" is about actually accepting the bible, the first words that people hear from god is to kill the non-believers and idolators.
I understand where you are coming from, but I am fairly certain 99% of the Hindutva groups would be fine as long as you do not hold such extreme views.
So what is your take on the aggressive evangelism (mostly American) going on in India.
And what do you think of the RSS definition of Hindu which includes all Christians & Muslims who consider India their cultural source.
Nationalism is an idea and movement that promotes the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people),[1] especially with the aim of gaining and maintaining the nation's sovereignty (self-governance) over its homeland. Nationalism holds that each nation should govern itself, free from outside interference (self-determination), that a nation is a natural and ideal basis for a polity[2] and that the nation is the only rightful source of political power (popular sovereignty).[1][3] It further aims to build and maintain a single national identity, based on shared social characteristics of culture, ethnicity, geographic location, language, politics (or the government), religion, traditions and belief in a shared singular history,[4][5] and to promote national unity or solidarity.[1] Nationalism seeks to preserve and foster a nation's traditional cultures and cultural revivals have been associated with nationalist movements.[6] It also encourages pride in national achievements and is closely linked to patriotism.[7][8][page needed] Nationalism is often combined with other ideologies such as conservatism (national conservatism) or socialism (left-wing nationalism).[2]
Arguably, the things that have kept those exclusionary narratives somewhat at bay in the last half century have been
(1) the memories of the previouos horrors committed in the name of nationalism (though they are fading)
(2) advances in common welfare after WWII due to the the combination of industrial/technological advances and the government policies.
For example, would we have had the civil rights movement in the US if the standard of living for many white Americans didn't dramatically increase in the decades just prior? Hard to say for sure, but I doubt it. This is why growing inequality is so dangerous - it makes people less amenable to "healthy" nationalism and far more susceptible to "unhealthy" kinds.
Unfortunately, in 2021, we've lost that collective nationalism, and I'm not sure we're better off for it.
A somewhat exclusionary tribe that extends across an entire diverse country? Not likely. The only thing more tribalism will do is strengthen the existing stark tribal groups we have (which are primarily racial, religious, and class).
> In the United States, we venerate the Constitution. We have a pantheon that includes founding fathers, Neil Armstrong, MLK, etc.
As important those famous figures are, you (correctly) describe it as a pantheon, AKA the idolization of these individuals more for their surface appearance than what they represent. The amount of lip service paid to MLK in particular is astounding, especially by politicians who actively undermine his movement for racial and economic justice.
I agree that having such a pantheon is part of a national identity, but at best it is set of symbols that matter only because of an underlying broadly shared sense of economic well being.
> We have shared objects of derision, such as French “surrender monkeys.”
I think this is the example you are presenting as "exclusionary", but I'm not sure what makes it redeeming as a basis of national identity, nor is it as widely shared an object derision as you suggest.
I half agree with you, but I think it's the side of the aisle you're probably not talking about that's paying "lip service".
MLK's entire philosophy was peaceful civil disobedience as contrasted with Malcolm X's approach of radicalism ("So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise"). Today, I'm afraid that we've lost sight of MLK's philosophy and have decided to try Malcolm X's approach to solving our social problems. Time will tell if that was a wise choice.
It's also not clear if MLK ever believed in enforced equality of outcomes (as opposed to just equality of opportunities). In some circles today, not judging people "by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character" and not believing in strictly equal outcomes is insufficiently anti-racist.
"Equality of outcome" is a popular straw man for many who take the highly incredulous position that equality of opportunity exists today.
Simply ending the use of rhetorical racism would do little to remove structural racism that gives rise to the inequality of opportunity that persists.
I think this is itself a straw man, because it ascribes onto any criticism of “equality of outcome” approaches to problem-solving the underlying conception that “equality of opportunity” already exists in the most perfect form. The most good-faith argument against the current rhetoric around racial issues is the following: we have neither equality of outcomes nor equality of opportunities, but the solutions we’re uncompromisingly implementing are the wrong ones because they focus on attaining equality of outcomes rather than attaining equality of opportunities. That’s the steel-man, engage with that.
> Simply ending the use of rhetorical racism would do little to remove structural racism that gives rise to the inequality of opportunity that persists.
You’ll find that a lot of people agree that there exists structural racism (the extent is debatable). Where the disagreement lies is on what the solutions should be. Leaving aside whether this stuff is correct on the merits, when hyper-activists amplify a “my way or the highway” approach to solving these problems, they aren’t just drawing attention to the problems, they’re prescribing a particular solution.
Taking several steps back, we’ve found ourselves to be litigating yet again whether it was MLK or Malcolm X that had the right idea about how to combat the very real evils of racism. The point that I’m making is that the political side that’s allegedly the most devoted to rooting out racism has taken ironically the most racialized and segregationist approach to solving those problems — an approach that MLK steadfastly opposed. MLK is a part of the aforementioned American pantheon precisely because his rhetoric was the one that was not only effective, but also had the broadest support. We need more MLK’s today, but unfortunately we have too many Malcolm X’s.
This argument, whenever it shows up, is usually a thinly veiled attack on affirmative action, which is aimed increasing the equality of opportunity - university education being far more an opportunity than an outcome.
The thrust of current civil rights efforts: ending disproportionate police violence against POC, bolstering public education in poor neighborhoods, healthcare as a right, these are all about the equality of opportunity.
First of all, I’m not sure it’s “thinly veiled”; being opposed to affirmative action is a legitimate position with its own set of arguments. The confidence with which you declare your opinion about affirmative action as though it is some settled fact makes discussing these issues extremely difficult. Ultimately, you’re entitled to your opinions, but they’re still opinions.
“University education being an opportunity than an outcome” is extremely debatable. Is your first job out of college also an opportunity rather than an outcome? Where we draw the line is something society needs to litigate, and it’s by no means a settled issue. For example, one might argue that while attending university is an opportunity that everyone ought to have, attending Harvard University (or other selective institutions) isn’t. The reality is that adolescents are rewarded for their academic achievements by being accepted to prestigious institutions (and yes “legacy admissions” are anathema to this); that can be considered an outcome rather than some random opportunity. In fact, you lose all of the nuances, edge cases, and asterisks associated with the messiness of reality when you make blithe declarations like “university education is an opportunity not an outcome”. It’s like lossy compression; we lose information and the discourse is worse off for it.
> The thrust of current civil rights efforts: ending disproportionate police violence against POC, bolstering public education in poor neighborhoods, healthcare as a right, these are all about the equality of opportunity.
Sure, and in any grab-bag of policy positions, you’re bound to find positions that most of society would agree fall under the “equality of opportunity” bucket. There are disagreements as to how best to achieve all of those things, but by and large most people agree that “everyone having access to better education” is the goal or “everyone having access to better and cheap healthcare” as a goal. If you’ll notice, I never said “public education” or “x is a right” because those declarations start to become more prescriptive as to what the solution should be — and I encourage you to try to understand the steel-man arguments against those specific prescriptions.
While most people support increasing equality of opportunity opportunity, it should be noted that decisive majorities oppose treating people differently based on race to do it. For example, the majority of people of every race oppose using race as even a “minor” factor in college admissions: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ... (73% of all adults, including 62% of Black adults, oppose using race as even a “minor factor in college admissions”).
As to the thrust of current civil rights efforts—it’s not just the end goals that matter, but also the means. (That has always been true and will always be true.)
Race-neutral interventions can remedy disparate outcomes. For example, baby bonds could halve the Black-white racial wealth gap even even if offered in a race-blind way. Policing, public education in poor neighborhoods, and healthcare are all areas where racial disparities can be remedied through race neutral approaches.
Even as to race-based interventions, they can be targeted and judicious. A significant fraction of the “equality of outcomes” camp wants to impose discrimination based on race in a pervasive way. Choosing who gets vaccinated based on race, choosing who gets to return to in-class instruction based on race, etc. Apart from being unconstitutional, judging. H the experience of other countries these approaches are likely to lead to massive social unrest if adopted at scale.
Worked fine for most of the US history.
You have to also keep in mind, when you're asking for nationalism to take the form of unification, to Hindus in India that sounds like asking victims to accommodate their oppressors, given hundreds of years of invasions and brutal occupation of India by Islamic powers and then Western colonial powers. The push from Western actors like America to push for a secular India is equivalent to saying "indigenous people in America need to make way for the occupiers that perpetrated their genocide".
Meaning you believe gay people need to be stoned to death and still be gay? Or is it the other way round.
Even in this case the comparison is unfair considering that Hindu children can be killed or kidnapped and married to an old muslim man just because they are non-muslim.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/how-fasc...
My take away was fascists gain compliance by nationalism above anything including basic human rights.
India is not a monolith but a diverse country with a rich history and trying to force an entire country to 'fit in' to this narrative of 'nationalism' does more harm than good for society moving forward IMO.
As for your second question, I don't know enough to give a definitive answer on whether nationalism is always or almost always negative but in this case I feel it is.
Communists, Christians & Islam has cultural cleansing as their core instrument. As simple scan of the world will let you clearly classify nations as catholic, protestant, sunni or shia.
Projecting problems of western ideologies into false equivalences in Eastern thought does no one any good.
Laws against LGBTQ was imposed by the British and it was removed by the current BJP government after 70 years of independence because the BJP does not give in to fundamentalist Christian/Islamic voices.
As someone on hn I am sure you know how much more nationalist and mono cultural much of the world is.
I am from TN, the amount of power these "minority" religions hold is unbelievable.
As an example, Loyola college in Chennai is totally under the control of the church so much so that being a Christian gives one preferential admission or skip the queue.
What many people do not know is that the campus property belongs to a temple and the salaries are paid by the tax payers. The Church has disproportionate control of an institution to which its contributions is practically zero.
India has not completely decolonised.
What I also don't like is people influenced by one (Hindutva) ideology of Modi turning into fascists slowly, and anyone who criticises Modi for unrelated (eg economic) reasons is called anti-national. Being strong Hindutva ideology shouldn't give him a pass in other areas.
Never mention Savarkar's "Hindu Atheist" progressive ideology shadowed by current RSS activism and them using all kind of religious sentiments to get high PR. Congress is fucked up minority appeasement party, I am not a Congress supporter. But what I am saying is BJP is not doing much better.
This has been going on for centuries.
The BJP is just a reflection of the sentiment of the people.
For instance temple taken over by the state, what used to be run by unique communities is now run in a uniform way.
There is also an attempt to Abrahamise Hinduism by the left and the educated elite/judiciary. To defend itself in an unfair battle field, Hinduism is taking on the shape of a monoculture.
To simply understand this point, forcing exclusive use of Hindi in Central government institutions gives an undue advantage to people from North India.
You mention in principle, but in practice the opposite happens. I am an East Indian who has spent all his life in South India I speak both Hindi and a South Indian language along with my native tongue. When North Indians come to South India, and stay for a long time a majority of them refuse to learn the local language whereas every South Indian who has spent time in the North picks up Hindi.
Hindi translates easily to tamil, compared to English. I do not approve of forcing a language, however I do not see it being forced in anyway.
Contrast that with forcing native people to fill bank forms in English, or the fetishization of urudu.
Forcing is unnecessary as people are understanding the utility of hindi.
* People start to believe propaganda which they want to believe - spread of nationalistic feelings helps this. People value these feelings over science. Boomers were reading whatsapp forwards and thinking "Ayurvedic" honey and ginger will cure COVID19 during the pandemic. You might be labelled anti national for saying Ayurveda is pseudoscience and not reliable. The mainstream nationalist narrative is so anti-science, and further, this propaganda is being used to build a cult of personality around Modi.
* Because the ruling party can portray themselves as patriotic and nationalist, and get the media skewed towards perpetuating that viewpoint, people ignore the economic and policy failures of the government. Currently Petrol/Diesel prices are rising in India but most of the India is silent about it. If it was during last govt, there sure would be riots and what not.
I am neutral regarding Indian politics. The opposition party (Indian National Congress) is fucked up due to nepotism and minority appeasement tactics too. But nationalism is a valid concern.
https://qz.com/india/1534754/modis-namo-app-spreads-pro-bjp-...
iirc BJP (Modi's political party) was also a big client of Cambridge Analytica and various whatsapp based troll farms. I remember rumors from around the time of the last American election that some of Modi's tech advisors were helping the Trump campaign on how to use whatsapp groups, but I'm not sure if that's true.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/us-presidential...
It seems that connecting a billion more people to the internet in the past few years has accelerated the rise of ultra-nationalism via memes and fake news.
There are real consequences to such acquiescence. Not everyone agrees with American progressive worldviews and Twitter obviously enacts one-sided censorship based on those views. As an example of the kind of topic that would be treated differently in Western social media versus other platforms, consider that India has historically treated transgendered people as a third gender (by my understanding). This feels more logical to me than trying to forcefully redefine existing genders or creating an infinite proliferation of genders, but under Twitter or Facebook's rule, any such opinions or debate would be deleted and users sharing such views would be banned. So why should recent rapid changes in Western culture take precedence over long-lasting local culture in this instance? I'm not claiming that either is right or wrong, but simply that the increasing degree of censorship and control enacted by American tech companies reflects the views and desires of a narrow minority globally - and therefore they shouldn't be given the power that they have.
In the case of the farmers protests, I think there's an "other side of this issue" for the very problems you are alluding to. Factual errors, widespread misleading claims, meme-ification, and trolling are common tools of those who are on the side of the Punjab farmers and those on the other side. To call out only one side feels misleading to me.
Peak virtue signaling.
Creating siloed media platforms that lets such ideas fester and grow is probably the worst thing that can happen.
The thing is that even gently challenging these ideas (with some folks I know back home) leads to an aggressive defence strategy that is pretty much focused on some variation of nonsense arguments rooted in 'talking points' being pushed by nationalists that aren't rooted in any fact.
Some variations I've experienced: it's foreigners trying to stir the pot, farmer protests have nothing to do with farmers but it's to do with destroy India's unity by fringe groups, etc. On Greta/other celebrities shining light on farmer protests: they're being paid money by third parties to meddle in local politics, etc.
Other scary things I've seen are pretty much labelling anyone that disagrees with you as the other (this includes the opposition party Indian National Congress, etc.) and instead of listening to valid points being brought up, there's this Meme-fication of the person/party that's worse than trolling and borders on attacking every trivial detail from the person's life.