Nationalism !

I wrote this while i was in 3rd semester of my Post Graduation. 

The whole idea of the nationalism is the product of the European history. The colonized communities made nationalism as a protagonist idea around which their movements were organized to evolve into freedom. The idea of nationalism in Europe was different. The idea of nationalism in the Europe had the elements of modernity and progress which were driven by the forces of industrial revolution which expanded the scope of economic and political activities in the continent.

Jumping to the other places on the planets, this has not been the case everywhere. Looking the Asia and Africa, the nationalist sentiments and movements had revolved around the traditionalism, religious fundamentalism, apartheid, or anti-modern ideologies where Europe had the complete different scenario. The liberal theorists have created a dichotomy in explaining the differences between these two scenarios. They call a normal type of nationalism which the classical and orthodox and shares the same material and intellectual premises with the European enlightenment and on the other hand the special type emerges under different historical circumstances. This kind of nationalism is more complex.

The early nationalist thoughts or the constitution of nationalist discourse itself has its history. The chronological linage of the successive displacement of different ideologies inside the idea of imagination is difficult to explain here. Specifically, taking the recourse of the history and taking the response of the traditional intelligentsia into consideration to the modern and new principles that were introduced by the British authority in the county, the responses were critical in nature. These new principles do not carry meaning in them because of the difference in the language, race and complete lack of direct communication between the people and the officials. The very principles of modern state were alien to the Indian administration.

The nationalism in the country emerged with the emergence and rise of an entirely new educated intelligentsia which was a product of colonial rule, the new system of western education, thoughts and ideologies. To them the new and modern principles of statecraft were no longer incomprehensible as we see in the earlier Persian writing at the noble court of Nawab of Bengal that how they regarded the English as natural unsociableness and inaccessibleness in particular. This entirely new group of people didn’t simply over-threw the traditional principles rather this was done through a whole course of history which is far more complex to understand.

 The country was never weaved in a single thread of culture rather it was a nest of more than five hundred princely states, thousands of societies, languages and culture. Comparing India with Europe, it is found that the political-economy and sociology was greatly influenced by the philosophies of positivism and utilitarianism. In the context of India- there lies the two arguments; Indians don’t have a natural desire for power and liberty and some Indians believe that independence is better than subjection and the second is India lacks solidarity and there is no single minded devotion to the interests of the nation.

The present form of nationalism in India is the product of the encounter between the patriotic consciousness and the framework of the knowledge imposed by the colonial powers. This form of nationalism certainly creates to a kind of elite intelligentsia which identifies its roots in the regeneration of the national culture. In the earlier time, the pinnacle of the colonial rule could not find any viable political means to accomplish itself and instead it became a dream: a fanciful political community in which the nation was regarded as mother which was once glorified as wealth and now in full frocks and tatters of nationalistic uniform.