Nationalism as an ideology can be both salutary and harmful. Critics describe it as an exclusivist emotion. So, is nationalism a force for good or evil? Is it divisive or a uniting force? These are the main questions that I address in this article.
Is nationalism divisive?
Nationalism by itself is not a divisive force, strictly speaking. In “Stories My Country Told Me: Eqbal Ahmed on The Grand Trunk Road,” Mubashir Hasan states that nationalism “divides people rather than unites. It inculcates religious, ethnic, and linguistic hatred.” However, I think hatred is born before nationalism. Perhaps nationalist struggles arise because people in a country are already divided. For example, Muslims and Hindus lived peacefully in India for many years.
Only after communal violence broke out and people from both communities began practicing racial discrimination, did Muslims realize that they needed to protect their self-interests. And only then, Muslim nationalism in the form of the Muslim League was born. So, Muslim nationalism solely did not create in the hearts of Muslims a deep resentment of Hindus, or vice-versa. Hence, divisions among people foster nationalism, not the other way round.
Will people incessantly keep fragmenting?
The documentary also presents that one should not adopt ideologies of difference as there is no end to these. It suggests that people will continue to group themselves into infinitely smaller units. However, in my opinion, nationalist struggles can end. If you treat all communities equally and share power in a democratic manner, you could create national cohesion and integration.
Also, the state can “level down” ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and historical differences and thus promote national unity [Anwar H Syed in “The Idea of a Pakistani Nationhood”]. So, the question of there being nationalism, and subsequently secessionist movements, on the basis of language, ethnicity, etc. wouldn’t exist. Therefore, if you treat culturally diverse people fairly, without one group dominating the other, they might not want to fragment.
Should we do away with nationalism?
Moreover, Mubashir Hasan also states that we should do away with nationalism. In my opinion, this is unrealistic: if you treat the members of an entire community as second-class citizens, a sense of nationalism will involuntarily develop, and they will naturally want to break away. Also, you keep people already claiming to be separate nations together by force e.g. through authoritarian rule, there is no guarantee that this will, in fact, preserve the country. History seems to suggest otherwise: Operation Searchlight carried out by West Pakistan in East Pakistan aimed to curb the Bengali nationalist movement. Instead, the killings resulting from the operation further angered the Bengalis and ultimately served to produce Bangladesh later the same year.
Does nationalism bring about disaster?
Furthermore, the documentary gives the impression that nationalism brings about nothing but disaster. It states that “perhaps a million lives might have been saved had Lord Mountbatten not hastened the partition of India.” However, one should point out that had partition not taken place, the ever-increasing tensions among the Muslims and Hindus would have paved the way for incessant violence, with each group aiming to ‘get back’ at the other, and many more people would subsequently have been killed. Even today, India and Pakistan cannot warm up to each other; had India never been partitioned, the sheer amount of violence that would have taken place would have been unimaginable.
The takeaway
Nationalism, as applied in the subcontinent, has helped people work toward common goals: it has freed Muslims from Hindu political domination and oppression, the Bengalis from inequality and unfair treatment, and has generally brought more peace to the region than there would otherwise be. It is not an evil force that seeks to divide. It merely represents a demand for equal rights and opportunities for the people who employ it. In this sense, I believe nationalism does more good than harm.
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