The "N" word
July 29, 2018
It is surprising how a small concept
that we come across can mean so much to something else which is remote to the
former. This is being explained through various theories like the chaos theory
and even I have already written something related to connections in this blog
earlier, so I’m going to conveniently skip about the most exciting thing in the
universe (connections) and continue with what I have to say this time.
It always feels good to be on the winning side. Most of us
find our niche within a group and place our conscience outside our personal
self but inside the group. So everyone in that specific group looks for what is
common within their group and act to believe by that means. Like I said
earlier, everyone likes to be on the winning side. This characteristic of our
human community is what psychologists like to call the mob psychology and it cannot be more right. From small things to
larger than life things, we find our small or big group and place our
conscience within that group.
In a country like India with a huge mass of land and an even
bigger population, the mob psychology has been exploited left right and center
by everyone and in all aspects of life. The “N”
word is one such bomb which has a lot of takers. Through history this bomb has
incited revolutions, destroyed worlds and created many republics including
India.
The “N” word I’m referring to here is, Nationalism. What is nationalism? Whom do we call a national? Why
does nationalism grow? All these questions could have multiple answers but I
could only think of one striking fundamental reason, Mob Psychology. All other reasons are just subsidiary to the fact
that we want to be a part of the group which is winning.
With each person defining nationalism with their own terms,
the popular opinion is of the group which has the most number. Majority nationalism could be anything.
It could be religion, language, race or whatever. But in a nation state, with
much visible disparities, what we call as communalism
can take precedence over nationalism.
In a democratic multiethnic state, the majority and minority
can be easily separated. If that separation is based on nationalistic views,
then rationalistic thinking would be in no place else than in the bin. A group
would place their conscience within their group or sometimes in their leader
and follow the popular opinion through an emotional
feeling. When majority group which obviously has the number wins, the
rationalistic thought and the minority
feeling are taken for a ride. This makes me think that democracy in itself is overrated.
In the Indian sense, with outgrowing disparities, vertical
and horizontal, the Indian man surges to create an identity for himself. But
because he has his conscience lost in a group, the identity that he finds is not
his personal one but of the group to which he belongs. When the group is based
on religious or racial discrimination, then the sense of democracy is shattered
into pieces.
The Hindu
nationalists pan India and the Thamizh
nationalists in Tamil nadu, pose the same level of threat to the harmonious India.
Both showcase the same ideology of exclusiveness
which religions around the world professes and it should be noted that this
sphere of exclusivity in religions is the principal cause for various violent
demonstrations that shook the world. Calling a person anti-national or accusing
them of not belonging to the majority race is, I think, an outright absurdity.
The present is the result of the past, but when we can’t be sure of the past,
what does it say about the present?
Jawaharlal Nehru refers India to be a palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought had been inscribed
and yet no subsequent layer had completely hidden or erased what had been
written previously. This means that no single race or religion or language can be generalized upon this
magnificent country that India is. India is what its people are, diverse and
yet united. The diversity in races are quite complex as the civilization itself
dates back to very long periods than we can have records for. With the records
that we have, Veerapandya Kattabomman,
the famous rebel from Tamil nadu was in fact from place that we now call
Andhra. So does it make him a less Tamil than anyone who are now boasting the
pure “Tamil pride?” Did Tipu sultan who lost everything in his
fight against the British suddenly become an outsider? Where do we place the mighty Cholas when we learn that Kulothunga was the son of the Chalukyan king Narendra who married the then
Chola princess Ammangadevi? Are they not “pure
Tamizhs”?
Countries or nations are called “imagined communities” where we do not know if every single person
belongs to the same community yet we assume or imagine them to be from a single
community. Only then would a country work. Only God knows which particular race one belongs to but this single
sentence would create debates on whose God
would know, the Aryan or Dravidian (the Indian case). Thus more
inclusive we are, the more growth we get to yield. Someone can again ask, if
nationalism is bogus, then why did we revolt against the British? History
teaches us everything. In the past when many rulers and races infused into the
subcontinent, they became one within the others and thus created India as we
now know it, but most of the Britishers remained as foreigners till the end and
it is safe to say that they had vested interests. The nationalism depends on
the interest towards the people, because India is what its people are.
So I think there is no point in debating about the past when
we have so much to do in the present. We have to accept and fight the
ideological war rather than racial lynching which feels like ruminating over
the feudal period. There are more important economic reasons to brood and then
work upon. So let’s build a more inclusive world where the “N” word is used in its rational sense.
Let’s say no
to hate and yes to love!
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