National self-determination

Also called: Right to self-determination · Topic: Nationalism and National Self-determination · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 7 "Nationalism"

Meaning

National self-determination is a nation's claim to rule itself and decide its own future. Usually this means asking other countries to recognise it as a separate state (a body with its own territory, people, government and sovereignty).

It matters because this one idea redrew the map of Europe after 1919 and then helped end colonial rule across Asia and Africa. It also raises a hard question that still troubles diverse countries like India: what should happen when a group inside a free country makes the same claim?

Explanation

How the claim works

• A nation asks for more than other groups do.
• Trade unions, religious bodies or clubs ask for rights inside a state.

• A nation wants international recognition as a separate political unit, usually its own state.

• Who usually makes the claim:

• people who have lived on one piece of land for a long time;
• people who share an identity, such as language, history or culture;

• sometimes people who want a state where their culture is protected or given a special place.

• The claim is political. A shared culture does not make a group a nation. The demand for self-rule does.

Two meanings over time

• One culture–one state (19th-century Europe):
• This is the idea that every cultural group should have its own state, and that borders should follow cultural lines.
• Giuseppe Mazzini, a leader of Italian unification, was one of its best-known voices.

• The US President Woodrow Wilson made the idea popular in his Fourteen Points speech of 8 January 1918 [4]. He said the war should lead to more national self-determination, more open dealings between countries, and disarmament [5].

• Freedom from colonial rule (Asia and Africa):

• National liberation movements (anti-colonial struggles, India's freedom struggle among them) used Wilson's words against colonial powers [5].
• In the colonies, the idea meant freedom from foreign rule for the whole colonial territory, whatever cultures lived inside it. It did not mean one state for each culture.
• These movements wanted dignity, recognition, justice, rights and prosperity.

External and internal self-determination

• External self-determination means a people becomes free of foreign rule, or forms a separate state.
• Internal self-determination means a group gets democratic rights, autonomy and cultural protection inside an existing state.
• The modern trend: existing states accept minorities as equal citizens. They do not create a new state for every group.

Limits and the paradox

• Borders can never be drawn perfectly. Every new border creates new minorities.
• What the Treaty of Versailles (1919) cost:
• Many groups that saw themselves as nations got no state.
• Millions were pushed out of homes their families had held for generations.
• Many people died in communal violence (violence between religious or ethnic communities).
• New states still had minorities who were treated as second-class, such as the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.

• The League of Nations minority treaties tried to protect these minorities, but they had little force.

• Ideals against power politics:

• The treaty was handed to Germany on 7 May 1919, and critics said it went against the spirit of the Fourteen Points [6].

• Britain, France and Italy mainly wanted to make their own positions stronger and keep Germany weak. Wilson accepted almost any compromise as long as the treaty set up the League of Nations [7].

• Uti possidetis (Latin for "as you possess"):

• New states keep the colonial borders they had at independence.

• This stopped a scramble to redraw borders, but it locked many different peoples inside one state.

• The paradox of self-determination:

• States won freedom by using the right of self-determination.
• Minorities inside those states now claim the same right.
• The states resist these claims to protect their territorial integrity.

In the Constitution and practice

• International law:
• UN Charter (1945), Article 1(2): one of the UN's purposes is "to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples" [8].
• Article 55 repeats these words. On that basis, the UN must promote economic and social progress and human rights [9].
• UNGA Resolution 1514 (XV), 14 December 1960: the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (the Declaration on Decolonization). It called for a quick and unconditional end to colonialism [2].
• Results of Res. 1514: about 750 million people were freed, roughly one-third of the world's population at the time, and more than 80 new states came up in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania [2].
• Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24): set up in 1961 by Resolution 1654 (XVI) to check how the Declaration was being carried out [3].

• ICCPR and ICESCR (1966), common Article 1: "All peoples have the right of self-determination." The ICCPR is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The ICESCR is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

• India's position:

• India joined both covenants with effect from 10 July 1979.
• India declared that the right in Article 1 applies only to peoples under foreign domination [10].

• It does not apply to sovereign independent states or to a section of a people or nation, which India called "the essence of national integrity" [10].

• Inside India: answering internal claims without breaking up the state.

• Federalism and linguistic states give regions self-rule.
• Fifth and Sixth Schedule areas give special protection and self-government to tribal areas.

• Articles 29-30 protect the culture, language and educational institutions of minorities.

• Key instances:

• Versailles (1919): created or recognised Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, along with the Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania).
• Partition of India (1947): borders were redrawn along community lines. As at Versailles, the result was mass migration and communal killing, on a larger scale.
• Biafra (1967-70): the Igbo-majority south-east tried to break away from Nigeria. It lost the civil war that followed.
• Secessions that succeeded: Bangladesh from Pakistan (1971), Eritrea from Ethiopia (1993), East Timor (Timor-Leste) from Indonesia (2002), South Sudan from Sudan (2011).

Don't confuse with

• Group rights within a state (trade unions, religious bodies, clubs): these groups ask for rights inside a state. A nation asks for international recognition as a state.
• One culture–one state: this was only the 19th-century European form of the idea. In the colonies, self-determination meant freedom for the whole colonial territory, not one state for each culture.
• Internal self-determination: this means autonomy and cultural rights inside an existing state, such as linguistic states or the Sixth Schedule. External self-determination means freedom from foreign rule or a separate state. India accepts only the external kind, and only for peoples under foreign domination [10].
• Uti possidetis: this is not a form of self-determination. It is a rule that keeps colonial borders after independence, and so it puts limits on self-determination claims.

Prelims Hooks

• "Equal rights and self-determination of peoples" appears in UN Charter Article 1(2) and Article 55. Trap: it is not in Article 2 [8][9].
• UNGA Res. 1514 (XV), 14 December 1960 = Declaration on Decolonization. It freed about 750 million people and led to more than 80 new states [2].
• C-24 (Special Committee on Decolonization) was set up in 1961 by UNGA Res. 1654 (XVI) [3].
• Common Article 1 of the ICCPR and ICESCR (1966) gives all peoples the right to self-determination. India's declaration (effective 10 July 1979) limits it to peoples under foreign domination [10].
• Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points: 8 January 1918 [4]. Mazzini is linked with one culture–one state. The Sudeten Germans were the minority left inside Czechoslovakia after Versailles.
• Order of events: Biafra failed (1967-70). Bangladesh (1971), Eritrea (1993), East Timor (2002) and South Sudan (2011) succeeded.

Mains Points

• Limits of one culture–one state:
• Versailles (1919) and Partition (1947) teach the same lesson. Drawing borders along cultural lines leads to mass expulsion and communal violence.

• It also leaves new minorities behind. Protecting minority rights inside a democratic state is safer than creating a new state for each group.

• The paradox for post-colonial states:

• Countries that used self-determination to end colonial rule now refuse it to their own minorities (Biafra 1967-70).
• India's 1979 declaration on Article 1 makes its position clear: freedom from foreign rule is legitimate, but secession by a section of the people is not [10].

• The UN-era law, from Res. 1514 to the 1966 Covenants, produced more than 80 new states [2]. Even so, it stopped at uti possidetis, and colonial borders stayed the same.

• The way forward for diverse states like India:

• Federalism, linguistic states, regional autonomy (Fifth and Sixth Schedules) and cultural rights (Articles 29-30) meet internal self-determination claims.
• These tools give groups dignity and self-rule while keeping India's unity and integrity.

Related concepts

• One culture-one state
• National liberation movements

Read more

• National self-determination: from Versailles to decolonisation