The myths and utopias of two nationalisms

Indian Express

30-06-2025

I have been following the fascinating conversation of ideas between Yogendra Yadav ('The nationalism we forgot', IE, May 27 and 'The rediscovery of nationalism', IE, June 5), Suhas Palshikar ('Who stole my nationalism?', IE, May 31) and Akeel Bilgrami ('An alternative nationalism', IE, June 16). I add here my thoughts as a back-bencher.
'Nation', in its earliest Latin sense, meant 'people', referring to their birth, origin, breed, race, or tribe — somewhat like the Indian kula, gotra and vansha. Its earliest meaning in English was 'a people or an ethnic community with a shared language'. After the emergence of John Locke's political theory, the connotation changed to 'a political society — subjects or citizens — inhabiting a defined territory within which its sovereignty is exercised'. That foregrounded the people's identity as citizens and the sovereignty of the political order they adopt, a fundamental shift from the term's original meaning, bringing it quite close to the Indian term rashtra.
The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) prioritised sovereignty in the arena of international relations. Yet the evolution of the term 'nationalism', based on the root 'nation', had a long wait in store. The League of Nations was established in 1920 and, as a result, the term 'nation' assumed a somewhat defined and universal meaning. 'Nationalism', which until then was confined mostly to Western Europe's politics and history, acquired global currency as a dominant political philosophy during the 1920s. In the India of the 1920s, the Indian term rashtra and the European 'nation' jointly formed the semantic ground for India's nationalism.
What had until then been the 'freedom struggle' became India's national freedom movement. It was around the same time that Essentials of Hindutva (1923) by V D Savarkar was published, defining the Hindutva brand of nationalism. It brought together the concepts of pitrubhumi (fatherland) and punyabhumi (sacred geography). Hindutva nationalism primarily drew upon 19th-century European developments that had led to the unification of Italy and the formation of a German-speaking nation. The term pitrubhumi, for instance, shows the deep imprint of the European unification movements on Hindutva nationalism.
The national independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi and others had a different orientation. It equated nationalism with freedom. It, too, was inspired by various movements outside India such as the American War of Independence, the French Revolution, the Irish struggle for independence and even the Russian Revolution, but its understanding of how India as a 'nation' was to be constituted differed radically from the Hindutva idea of the nation. In the 1920s, Congress established Prantik Samitis, region-specific committees, and articulated the idea of India as a federation of people speaking many different languages. During the years of World War II, Rabindranath Tagore, Sri Aurobindo and Gandhi alerted the world to the dangers of self-engrossed nationalism. The Constitution of India was shaped in light of that vision of India. It described India, that is Bharat, as a 'union of states'. All through the 1950s and 1960s, Indian territories were reorganised as linguistic states, collectively forming the Indian federation.
The nationalism inscribed in the Constitution and Hindutva nationalism have remained at variance from their very inception. The main points of difference between the two were neither patriotism nor sovereignty. It has been the affiliation of citizens to the nation on an equal footing. The ideology of Hindutva nationalism is deeply suspicious of the patriotic loyalties of citizens whose punyabhumi is not geographically part of India. The constitutional notion of nationalism accepts all those who live in India as entirely legitimate and equal citizens. Owing to its peculiar reconstruction of history, Hindutva nationalism puts forward a narrative of Indian society in terms of the 'original' and the 'subsequent' citizens. In that view of history, Sanskrit is depicted as the 'mother' of Indian civilisation and its genealogy is stretched to the pre-Indus Valley civilisation.
Many professional historians do not accept the Hindutva historiography as the overwhelming bulk of available archaeological, genetic, linguistic and historical evidence points to its deeply tendentious nature. Hindutva nationalism has, therefore, depended more on propaganda and conversion of the gullible to its vision of history. It has attempted to claim all that was in ancient, proto-historic and prehistoric times as a single and continuous efflorescence of 'Hindu' theology and philosophy, flattening all ancient debates and disagreements and all social tensions in India's past. Similarly, in order to push the thesis about the 'suspected loyalty' of those whose cultural geography does not overlap with India's physical geography, Hindutva nationalism depicts the entire post-Sanskrit mediaeval period as an era of darkness. History shows that both these claims are factually untenable.
Archaeology and linguistics tell us that some of the earliest parts of the Vedas were composed in present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. Similarly, medieval India produced a powerful Bhakti Movement that challenged the varna system and social inequality. In fact, the cultural residues of the Bhakti Movement, which had spread in mediaeval centuries across most languages of India, inspired many leaders of the freedom struggle, such as Tagore and Gandhi. Any mention of that historical fact infuriates proponents of Hindutva nationalism.
The nation, not as a people but in its subsequent ideological forms, gradually came to include the past of a people as well as their future. The past, when imagined as being spread over a very long span of time, becomes a challenge to memory and begins acquiring the form of myth, really an irrationally compressed and transformed version of the past. The future, spread over an endless time, becomes a challenge to the imagination and acquires the form of fantasy or utopia. Every brand of nationalism in every part of the world has attempted to generate its myths and its utopias.
In India, both versions of nationalism have shaped their own myths and utopias. Constitutional nationalism is based on the idea of a past that was culturally and philosophically diverse, while also being wounded by caste and gender discrimination. The Hindutva version is that of a once-upon-a-time vishwaguru, deeply hurt and humiliated by outsiders who came here. Constitutional nationalism aims at correction; Hindutva nationalism seeks revenge and retribution. Can one of the two be obliterated forever? Can the two versions ever meet? Perhaps India will have a secure future when the nation — the people — manages to go beyond nationalism.
Devy is the author of India: A Linguistic Civilization (2024)