Nationalism and Globalization

• Study notes on nationalism and globalization.

Benedict Anderson's Theory and the Indian Context

• Print capitalism and its connection to national consciousness may not apply to India.
• Without the need for capitalism, the hypothesis could be applied to colonial India.
• Print existed on a smaller scale in colonial India.
• Print played a vital role in the growth of nationalist ideas.

Ernest Gellner's Theory of Nationalism

• Gellner opposed the idea that imagination of nations always precedes the creation of states.
• Gellner suggested that the creation of stable state boundaries created the precondition to creating a relationship between the state and subjects.
• The development of early capitalist industrial economies was essential to Gelner's ideas.

Gellner and the Indian Context

• The early development of capitalist industries was a condition for the emergence of nationalism, according to Gellner.
• Gellner's theory may not explain the origin of nationalism in India, as there was limited industrial development until the 1960s.

Definition of Capitalism

• Capitalism is an economic system where the means of producing goods or services are privately owned for profit.

The Mentality of Nationalism

• States producing nations would be discouraging to Indian nationalists, according to Geller's ideas.
• Indian nationalists spoke about the nationalism of Italy and Germany due to their utility.
• Italy and Germany were places where a sense of national identity led to political unification.

Cultural Identities in the Pre-Modern Period

• Pre-modern collective identities were cultural, not political.
• People recognized narratives and religious doctrines.

Collective Cultural Identities examples

• Northern and southern artists discussed common literature in the public sphere of Sanskrit literature.
• Common culture can be complicated.

Layers of Cultural Commonness

• There is a first and second degree of cultural commonness.
• Both are based on the speaking and understanding of language.
• Tamil speakers might understand parts of Hindi, but may not speak it fluently.

Importance of Commonness

• People were aware of first and second degree commonness.
• Bengali and Gaudiya Vaisnavas share commonness, within the same region.
• Followers of Vaisnava faith in other regions share second commonness.

Teleological Narrative

• The political interest of Indian nationalism lay in highlighting aspects of past history.
• Explaining the nationalist period meant taking certain parts and creating a seamless story of it.
• The modern history period could be viewed as a seamless process of preparation for Independence.
• Teleological approaches explain things based on the end purpose.

Problems with a Teleological Narrative

• The teleological narrative hides the differences between stages of the growth of a nationalist imaginary.

Early Phases of Indian Nationalism

• The revolt of 1857 may be regarded as the 'first war of national Independence or beginning of Indian nationalism.

Characteristics of Nationalism

• Opposition to colonial rule is the fundamental criterion for deciding what is nationalism.
• Since the Indian National Congress was loyal to the British, the beginning of the Indian National Congress cannot be recognized as the start of nationalism.

Development of Nationalism: First Phase

• The factors that helped nationalism develop in the first phase are:
  • A growing sense of specialness amongst people.
  • A politicization of this idea, and extension to the belief that people could not remain politically colonized by foreign rulers.

The Feeling of Specialness

• Importance in traditional Indian society was based on controlling land, military or religion.
• Some members of the traditional elite used their literacy skills to learn English and work for the British.

Educated Indians

• A regional division existed between regions introduced to western education, and those that were not.
• The modern elite in Bengal and Madras Presidency helped the British professionally.

Religious Patriotism vs Nationalism

• The modernist elites felt that they had affinity with the British since they were literate.
• People from neighboring areas like Bihar and Assam were considered culturally backward.
• Modern Bengali elites did not move towards the idea of a nation.
• There was a shift towards belief in regional patriotism for Bengal and Bengali language and literature.

Perception Change

• In the 1860s, discontent with the British appear in Bengali literature.
• Discontent targeted slow economic growth.
• Lack of representation in the government was pointed out.

Role of Literature

• Colonial administration kept watch over seditious activity.
• The direct expression of political ideas was difficult.
• Literature was a means to express discontent secretly.
• It used words that were difficult for the colonial administrator to understand, especially those who did not know Bengali.

Bankim's Role

• His historical fiction showed that people should believe in something bigger than the territorial expanse of Bengal.
• He told educated Bengalis to see Indians of other regions as essential parts of their nation, rather than backward 'others'.

Mobilizing the Nation: Gandhian Movement

• Forms of expressing discontent against British rule differed.
• Gandhi's mass movements combined the elites and the masses.
• Gandhian nationalism enabled an imaginative connection between the elites and the masses.

Ideological Positions on Religious Identity

• The India nation state needed to be founded on a common identity.
• Religious communities could provide that identity.

Mahatma Gandhi on Religion

• Each person's religion was significant, so then other people would understand the importance of religion.

Jawaharlal Nehru on Religion

• Religion should be a matter of private observance, and public institutions should be secular.

Cultural Commonness

• First and second degree cultural commonness were adapted to modern political construction by Indian nationalism in the twentieth century.

Post-Independence

• There were different ways to imagine Indian nationalism.
• The Indian solution was not to deny the religious identity.
• A new (national) identity was added to the existing identities to create a plural society.

Linguistic Reorganization

• The States Reorganization Act of 1956 reformed the boundaries of Indian states on the basis of language.
• Maharashtra and Gujarat were created in 1960.

Banal Nationalism of the 1970s

• The close association of the state to nationalism had certain implications.
• Marginal groups (low caste groups) asked whether it was their state or not.
• From the 1970s, political groups based on lower-caste identities asserted that constitutional promises of reform did not address caste based inequalities.

Globalization

• The entire world has different forms of capitalist economy.
• Economic globalization holds certain common goods, like the environment, that can never be divided.
• They must be commonly managed by nations.
• New ways of thinking about nationalism in the context of globalization are taking place.