Nation

Topic: Nationalism and National Self-determination · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Nationalism"

Meaning

A nation is a large group of people who believe they belong together. They are bound by shared beliefs, a sense of a continuing history, a homeland, shared political ideals and the wish to govern themselves. No single one of these traits is enough to make a nation, and most members never meet one another.

This matters because nations are "real" to their members. People value them and are even willing to die for them. Nations are also the base for claims to self-government and statehood.

Explanation

What holds a nation together

• A nation is not a casual crowd, like passengers on a train. Five things together hold its members:
• Shared beliefs: members believe they are one people.
• A sense of a continuing history: members see themselves as carrying on a common past into the future.
• A homeland: a territory they think of as their own.
• Shared political ideals: common values about how they should live together.

• The wish to govern themselves: the hope for their own political life, usually through self-government.

• NCERT's team analogy shows how this works:

• A cricket team is more than eleven players standing on a field.
• It exists only while the players see themselves as one unit that plays together.

• In the same way, a nation exists while its members believe they belong together. If that belief fades, the nation weakens.

• Nations are not like mountains or rivers. A mountain exists whether or not anyone believes in it. A nation exists only because its members believe in it.

How a nation differs from other groups

Group	What binds members	Do members know one another?
Family	Face-to-face relationships	Yes. Everyone knows everyone personally.
Tribe / clan / kinship group	Marriage and descent (being born into the same family line)	Mostly. The links can be traced person by person.
Nation	Belief in belonging together, plus political aims	No. Most members never meet, and they need not share descent.

The nation as an "imagined community"

• Benedict Anderson, an Irish political scientist, called the nation an "imagined community" in Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983) [2].

• "Imagined" does not mean fake. It means the group exists through what people believe.

• The four parts of Anderson's definition:

• Imagined: members never know most of their fellows, yet they feel a closeness ("communion") with them.
• Limited: every nation has borders. No nation claims to include all of humanity.
• Sovereign: the nation wants to rule itself, with no higher power above it.

• Community: members feel an equal, deep comradeship, even where real inequality exists.

• Print capitalism (printers selling books and newspapers in local languages for profit) helped spread this image:

• Thousands of strangers read the same news in the same language at the same time.
• Readers began to picture themselves as one "people".

• So the idea of the nation grew [2].

• Anderson argued that nationalism grew in the Americas earlier than in Europe, driven by capitalism and print media [2].

• Other thinkers:
• Ernest Renan, "What is a Nation?" (1882): a nation is a "daily plebiscite". A plebiscite is a direct vote of the people, so members renew their choice to stay together every day. A nation rests on shared memories and also on shared forgetting of violent or divisive events. It depends on consent, not on race, language or religion.
• Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (1983): industrial society needs a literate workforce that shares one culture, taught through mass schooling. This need produces nationalism, and nationalism creates nations, not the other way round.
• Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (1983): many "ancient" traditions are recent and were made on purpose. For example, the mythical hero Ossian, bagpipes and kilts were used to build a new Scottish national identity in the 18th century [3].

Limits: no common set of traits

• No single feature appears in every nation, whether it is language, religion or ethnicity:
• Canada has both English speakers and French speakers.
• Switzerland has four national languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh.
• India has many languages, religions and regional cultures, yet it is one nation.

• Pakistan (1971): a shared religion (Islam) did not hold the country together. East Pakistan broke away and became Bangladesh.

• Lesson: "objective" traits (outward traits anyone can observe) cannot define a nation. What makes a nation is what its members believe and want.

• Two schools of thought:
• The primordialist view says nations are ancient and natural, built on fixed inherited traits such as blood, descent or long cultural difference [4]. Its weakness is that it cannot explain how groups form and change.
• The modernist view (Anderson, Gellner, Hobsbawm) says nations are modern creations of industry, print and the state. Its weakness is that it can underrate older ethnic roots.
• The instrumentalist approach grew from criticism of primordialism. It sees identity as a tool that leaders use to unite and mobilise people [4].

In the Constitution and practice

• The Indian Constitution does not base nationhood on one language or one religion. It builds on shared civic ideals instead.
• Preamble: it opens with "We, the People of India". It aims at fraternity (a feeling of brotherhood among citizens), "assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation" [6].

• So the nation is held together by a felt bond among citizens, not by one shared trait.

• Article 51A(e), a Fundamental Duty (a moral duty of every citizen):

• It asks citizens "to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities" [5].

• Article 51A was added by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976. It was later amended by the Eighty-sixth Amendment Act, 2002 [5].

• How it works in practice:

• India's unity rests on shared constitutional ideals, which fits the idea of the nation as a civic, imagined community.
• The 1971 example: Pakistan's split shows the opposite case. A shared religion alone could not keep one nation together, and Bangladesh was born.
• The cartoon test (NCERT): cheering for the national team is compared with voting, paying taxes and obeying the law. Real belonging means doing a citizen's duties, not just showing emotion.

Don't confuse with

• State: a state is a political and legal body with territory, people, a government and sovereignty (supreme power). A nation is a community of belief and feeling. A nation may exist without its own state, and one state may hold many cultural groups.
• Nationalism: nationalism is the belief or movement that a nation should have its own political life. In Gellner's view, nationalism creates nations, not the reverse.
• Tribe / clan: a tribe or clan is bound by marriage and descent, and its links can be traced person by person. A nation's members never all meet and need not share descent.
• "Imagined" vs "fake": "imagined" means the nation exists through belief, not that it is unreal. People are willing to die for it.

Prelims Hooks

• Imagined Communities (1983) → Benedict Anderson. The nation is an imagined, limited, sovereign community spread by print capitalism. He argued nationalism first grew in the Americas, before Europe [2].
• Nation as a "daily plebiscite" → Ernest Renan, "What is a Nation?" (1882).
• "Nationalism creates nations, not the reverse" → Ernest Gellner (1983). "Invented traditions" such as kilts and bagpipes in Scotland → Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983) [3].
• Trap: "A common religion is enough to make a nation." False. Pakistan split in 1971 and Bangladesh was born.
• Switzerland has four national languages. Canada has English and French speakers. So no single language defines a nation.
• Article 51A(e): common brotherhood transcending religious, linguistic and regional diversities. It was added by the 42nd Amendment, 1976 [5]. The Preamble's fraternity assures the unity and integrity of the Nation [6].

Mains Points

• India as a civic nation: India has many languages and religions, so its unity rests on shared constitutional ideals rather than one culture.
• Its constitutional anchors are the Preamble's fraternity and Article 51A(e) [5][6].

• This disproves the primordialist claim that a nation needs one language or one faith. Pakistan in 1971 is the counter-example.

• "Imagined" does not mean unreal, but the nation must be renewed. In Renan's words, a nation lasts only while people keep "voting" for it every day.

• For policy: inclusion, fair sharing of resources and respect for regional identities strengthen the nation more than forced sameness does.

• The modernist warning: if traditions can be invented, they can also be misused.

• Leaders may build an exclusive "national past" that leaves out minorities.
• This links to Tagore's critique, which warned against a nationalism that places the nation-state above humanity.
• Real nationalism means doing a citizen's duties, such as voting, paying taxes and obeying the law, not just showing symbolic loyalty.

Related concepts

• Imagined community

Read more

• What makes a nation: an imagined community