Interrogating Nationalism
“The apostasy from Christianity will not come about openly by everybody renouncing Christianity; no, but slyly, cunningly, knavishly, by everybody assuming the name of being Christian, thinking that in this way all were most secured against . . . Christianity, the Christianity of the New Testament, which people are afraid of”
Søren Kierkegaard
Nationalism. The assertive declaration of allegiance to the nation.
Loyalty expressed as a banality ; banality expressed as loyalty.
The project to inoculate Indians with the neo-nationalism vaccine has been in full swing for the last four years. It’s first flush surfaced with India’s own mini spring; The Anna movement. For the first time in the history of post-emergency India, educated; urban automatons got off their fat surpluses and catalyzed their own existential angst into a movement. The end result of that movement, the Lokpal bill now lies in the dustbin of our political history; covered with the stench of political propaganda and meaningless rhetoric.
The second flush of the inoculation started after May 2014. Only this time, it came as full-bloomed dogmatism. Nurturing the political and ideological worker bees and generating the nectar of divisiveness that’s proved too sticky to shake off. Even as it gets crusty amidst the heat and dust of our daily lives, it extracts its pound of flesh every time we tug away at it.
An inoculation, that’s actually a wound.
Conceptions of Nationalism
In a society that cannot distinguish between the real and the representation of the real; nationalism is often confused with patriotism.
Ashis Nandy, in his essay ‘Nationalism, Genuine and spurious’, defines nationalism as “…an ideology — not in the sense in which Karl Marx and Karl Mannheim defined the term “ideology” but in the sense in which psychologists use the term: as an identifiable pattern of attitudes, beliefs, values, and needs in human personality. Even those who use the term “nationalism” without caring about its ideological contents end up imbibing some of the contents. This is because they have to constantly interact with those who carry the ideological baggage of nationalism and are affected by such consensual validation. Nationalism, thus, is a more specific, ideologically tinged, ardent form of “love of one’s own kind” that is essentially ego-defensive and overlies some degree of fearful dislike or positive hostility to “outsiders.”
Nandy’s definition of patriotism clarifies the contrast between the two concepts and their social manifestations. He defines patriotism as “…an emotional state, bonding, or investment; it is a sentiment. Nonspecific, nonideological territoriality — of the kind seen in many species of nonhuman mammals and in some species of birds and insects — is the basis of patriotism. Such feelings of territoriality are seen as natural to human beings, both by those who share the feelings and by those who claim that they do not.”
George Orwell, in his brilliantly argued essay on nationalism draws his own distinction between nationalism and patriotism. In Orwell’s own words “ By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’(1). But secondly — and this is much more important — I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.”
While Nandy and Orwell both distinguish between nationalism and patriotism, the social anthropologist Ernest Gellner does not. Gellner views Nationalism as a phenomenon of the industrialized world where; nationalism appears and becomes a sociological necessity due to the nature of work becoming increasingly technical. This increasingly technical nature of work demands more impersonal and context-free communication and as a result; cultural standardization. It is in this context that nationalism emerges as an instrument of cultural standardization.
In a society where almost everyone invokes Orwell’s 1984 in mostly unrelated contexts, the fact that the distinction between nationalism and patriotism is lost on most people is a reflection of our own conceptual and political illiteracy.
Nationalism as Political Currency
The ubiquity of nationalism as political currency should be a cause for concern in any democratic society. But since we are so dispositionally hallucinated when it comes to our politics, it doesn’t concern most of us. We never even consider the possibility that this currency, through its repeated use and misuse might one day render the very concept of a nation obsolete. We use this currency to score ideological points over others; mainly as a disguised instrument of our own resentment towards them. In doing so, we also become complicit in the crime of reducing the nation as a marketplace. A marketplace where simulated instruments of commitment are used for personal and ideological compensation.
The very fact that we use nationalism as an instrument of expression of our resentment towards others is an indication that we have transcended what Orwell referred to; not the metaphorical lake we sink our individuality into; but the metaphorical river that provides our personal narratives a legitimate retributive meaning. In other words, our use of nationalism as an instrument is not meant for securing power and prestige for the nation, but as an instrument which helps us project our own power and status onto others.
A form of sly trickery of the individualistic moral universe.
Nationalism in the world of ‘Apps’
While Gellner’s view of nationalism holds true for industrialized societies, it merits a revisit in the new socio-technological reality of our times. The increasing displacement of social interactions from natural environments to simulated technological environments of e-meetings, chat rooms and social media have also transformed notions of nationalism as a sociological necessity. Communication is no longer impersonal and context free. Communication is increasingly personal and contextual.Only in our times; the personal and contextual nature of communication is a simulated one. We increasingly live in a simulated world where the boundaries between reality and the representation of reality are blurred every day. Where propaganda displaces thoughtful discourse and rhetoric displaces meaningful debate. Where it is almost impossible to distinguish between truth and the illusion of truth.
It is in this context that the simulated image of nationalism displaces the meaning of nationalism. Nationalism is reduced to Facebook rants, twitter hashtags, Whatsapp forwards and prime time television shouting matches.
Nationalism as a concept has become a banality.
Banality expressed as loyalty
The nature of our political discourse, our hallucinated view of our sociopolitical reality and the simulated environment of our everyday life have all contributed towards turning nationalism into a cliche’. A cliche’ used as a surrogate for loyalty; in a world where notions of loyalty are understood only through the grammar of uncontrolled narcissism. Nationalism therefore only acquires meaning when it helps further our own self-love. It does not become an enabler of understanding of the self in relation to the society. It becomes a facilitator of self- promotion in the society we do not care to understand. And this self-promotion acquires a collective form when it becomes a distinguishing feature that is used to identify fellow ideological travelers and then; is used collectively to muster social affirmation at the individual level.
In other words, the medium of expression of the banality is disguised narcissism; and the outward expression of it is loyalty. But the loyalty as it is expressed actually means loyalty to one’s own self-image, not to the nation.
Loyalty expressed as a banality
The loyalty to one’s own self- image and the usage of nationalism to express it renders the whole concept of nationalism meaningless. Nationalism therefore becomes a placeholder for ragged individualism. Outside of that context, nationalism is gobbledygook. An unintelligible absurdity of modern times. A proverbial mosaic of individual selfies, projected as national conscience.
Apostasy and the Faith
Kierkegaard’s account of new testament Christianity was one where he challenged the dogmatism of the faith in its new avatar. His challenge was centered around the belief that the dogmatism of new Christianity would eventually cause irreparable harm to the relation between God and the believer.
The recent strain of Indian Nationalism, analyzed in the same light; as the dogmatic assertion of loyalty to the nation; leads us to one horrifying conclusion. The repeated invocation of a coercive, dogmatic neo-nationalism will mean that in the near future, a normative and sterilized social view of the nation itself will become more commonplace. This view will increasingly superimpose itself upon the inherent plurality and sumptuousness of our magnificent diversity. The challenge to this neo-nationalism will not come from vocal, organized and visible antagonists. In fact, there will be no challenge to it at all. The current set of antagonists will be systematically purged and discredited through organized programs of social alienation. The de-recognition and targeted abuse of these antagonists will be incentivised and rewarded. The appropriation and propagation of neo-nationalism will be carried out by the sly, cunning and knavish characters who will put on the cloak of nationalism, in order to camouflage their diabolical programs of social divisiveness and economic hegemony. The neo-middle class, many of whom share visions of a sterilized identity for the nation will increasingly become more participative and vocal in their support for this program. In order to sustain their support, such characters will be subsidized through focused government schemes which bolster their social and professional status.
In other words, the neo-nationalists will increasingly use nationalism as an instrument to destroy the idea of the nation itself. While this specter has played out before to limited success; it is acquiring a larger, coherent canvas now.
It is this larger and coherent canvas that will metamorphose into the third flush of the new Indian Nationalism.
In this third flush, the fence-sitters; proverbial agnostics in our society will do what they do best; use this strain of nationalism as a means to protect themselves against it. Invoking it as a protective shield to seek the safety of the herd and avoid getting metaphorically shot in the gut. A gutless surrender to save the gut; the safety mechanism of the coward.
In the process, the evolution of the nation as a diverse social and cultural collective will be impaired. The salad bowl nation will increasingly look like the melting pot nation; an idea that is already widely socialized and accepted. The nation will become a melting pot where one dominant flavor overrides all others; and the eventual outcome will not be a synthesized delicacy, but a monotonous insipidity.
Kirkegaard is supposed to have remarked once: “In a place where all are Christians ipso facto none are Christians”
He could very well have said: “In a country where all are nationalists; ipso facto none are nationalists.”
Are we going to be that country?
