Nationalism and National Self-determination

1. Nationalism and the nation-state

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• Nationalism is a political belief built on loyalty to one's nation. Over two centuries it has united people and divided them. It has freed colonies and caused wars, broken up empires and redrawn borders. It has both a constructive and a destructive side. Class 11, Nationalism notes that it is hard to define precisely.
• Its phases:
• 19th-century unification: Italy (1861, with Rome added in 1870) and Germany (1871). New states also formed in Latin America, and local dialects grew into national languages.
• Early 20th century: the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires broke up.
• Decolonisation: the British, French, Dutch and Portuguese empires ended.

• From 1960: separatism grew inside stable states (Quebecois, Basques, Kurds, Sri Lankan Tamils). Pan-Arab nationalism tries to unite states, while the Basque and Kurdish movements try to divide them.

• A nation-state is a state that claims its borders mark a unique culture and shared history, not just a piece of land. The idea arose with the French Revolution (1789).

• Westphalian sovereignty comes from the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which ended the Thirty Years' War. It means each state has full authority over its territory and internal affairs, all states are legally equal, and outsiders should not interfere. UN Charter Art. 2 states these rules today.
• Nation vs state: a nation is a people joined by belief and identity. A state has population, territory, government and sovereignty. Many of the UN's 193 members are multinational, such as India, the UK, Spain and Canada.
• Is nationalism still relevant? NCERT's cartoon says yes: Indians cheer the cricket team, and Indians abroad still watch Bollywood. Today's trends pull both ways:
• The EU pools sovereignty, but the UK left it (Brexit referendum 2016; exit on 31 January 2020).
• Economic nationalism is rising ("America First", tariffs, India's Atmanirbhar Bharat).
• The Responsibility to Protect (2005) limits the rule of non-interference.

2. What makes a nation: an imagined community

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• A nation is a largely imagined community. It is held together by shared beliefs, a sense of continuing history, a homeland, shared political ideals and the wish to govern itself. No single trait defines it.
• How a nation differs from other groups:
• In a family, everyone knows everyone face to face.
• In a tribe or clan, members are linked by marriage and descent, and the links can be traced.

• In a nation, members never meet most fellow nationals and need not share descent. Yet nations are real to the people who live in them and value them.

• No common set of characteristics is found in all nations:

• Canada has both English and French speakers. Switzerland has four national languages.
• India has many languages and religions.

• A shared religion did not keep Pakistan together in 1971.

• Imagined community (Benedict Anderson, 1983): members will never know most of their fellows, yet each carries a picture of their togetherness. Print capitalism (newspapers and books in a shared language) spread that picture.

• Other thinkers:
• Renan (1882): a nation is a "daily plebiscite" (a vote renewed every day), built on shared memories and shared forgetting.
• Gellner (1983): industrial society produces nationalism, and nationalism then creates nations, not the other way round.
• Hobsbawm: many national traditions are "invented".

• These modernist views oppose the primordialist view that nations are ancient and natural.

• Shared beliefs: nations are not like mountains, which exist whether or not anyone believes in them. NCERT compares a nation to a team: it exists only while its members believe they belong together.

3. History, homeland and shared political ideals

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• History: nations see themselves stretching from the past into the future. They draw on memories, legends and records. Indian nationalists pointed to India's long, unbroken civilisation.
• Unity in diversity: India has deep oneness beneath great variety. Nehru wrote in The Discovery of India (1946) of "diversity and infinite variety" with "that tremendous impress of oneness". Caution: history used to build a nation is selective, and disputes over the past can turn into conflict.
• Homeland: the land a nation sees as its own through long shared living. It is called motherland, fatherland or holy land.
• The Jewish people, though scattered, claimed Palestine as the "promised land" (Balfour Declaration 1917; Israel created in 1948).
• The Indian nation identifies with the subcontinent's rivers and mountains.

• When two peoples claim the same land, it becomes a major cause of conflict (Israel-Palestine, Kashmir).

• Irredentism: a claim to land held by another state, because "our" people live there or it once belonged to us. The word comes from the 19th-century Italian claim to "unredeemed" lands. Other examples are Greater Somalia and Russia's annexation of Crimea (2014).

• Shared political ideals are what separate nations from other groups. Members share a vision of the state they want to build, and of values such as democracy, secularism and liberalism.
• In a democracy, these shared values are the most desirable basis of a nation. Citizens recognise each other's rights, and this creates duties. Accepting those duties is "the strongest test of loyalty to the nation".

4. Civic versus cultural nationalism

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• Cultural nationalism bases the nation on a shared language, religion or descent. A shared culture makes talking easier and gives common festivals and symbols. Class 11, Nationalism gives two reasons why it threatens democracy:
• Religions are internally diverse. Each has sects that read its texts differently. A nation built on one religion becomes authoritarian and oppressive.

• Most societies are culturally mixed. Forcing one religion or language on everyone excludes some groups. It limits their religious freedom or disadvantages those who do not speak the national language.

• Civic nationalism sees the nation in political terms. People belong through citizenship, through loyalty to values written in the Constitution (democracy, secularism, liberty), and through duties to fellow citizens. Examples are the French republic, the American creed and India's Constitution. NCERT prefers the political basis.

• Examples of cultural nationalism:
• The German Romantic thinkers Herder and Fichte.
• Sri Lanka's Sinhala Only Act (1956).
• The two-nation idea behind Pakistan.

• In India, Savarkar's Essentials of Hindutva (1923) argues that a shared civilisational culture underlies Indian unity. Critics say this excludes minorities and dissenting sects.

• Hans Kohn (1944) split nationalism into a "civic West" and an "ethnic East". He is criticised because civic nations also have a cultural core: a language, holidays and a founding story.

• Constitutional patriotism (Dolf Sternberger, 1979; Jürgen Habermas): loyalty should attach to the rules and values of a liberal-democratic constitution, not to ethnicity. It is close to Ambedkar's idea of "constitutional morality". Critique: it may be too thin to make people willing to sacrifice.

5. National self-determination: from Versailles to decolonisation

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• National self-determination is a nation's claim to govern itself and shape its own future. It seeks international recognition as a separate state. The claim usually comes from people who have lived long on one land, and sometimes they want a state that protects or favours their culture.
• One culture–one state: the 19th-century European idea that each culture should have its own state (Mazzini).
• Wilson's Fourteen Points (January 1918) made self-determination popular.

• The Treaty of Versailles (1919) used the idea to redraw borders and created new states such as Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

• Its costs:

• Not every demand could be met.
• Millions were forced out of homes their families had held for generations, and many died in communal violence.
• The new states still held minorities, who were often disadvantaged (for example, the Sudeten Germans).

• The only gain was political recognition for groups that saw themselves as nations.

• National liberation movements: anti-colonial struggles in Asia and Africa, including India's, claimed self-determination to win dignity, justice, rights and prosperity.

• International law:
• UN Charter Arts. 1(2) and 55.
• UNGA Res. 1514 (14 December 1960) on independence for colonial countries and peoples.
• Common Art. 1 of the ICCPR and the ICESCR (1966).

• The rule of uti possidetis kept colonial borders unchanged after independence.

• The paradox: states that won freedom by struggle now resist their own minorities who claim the same right (Biafra, 1967-70). A few new states did succeed: Bangladesh (1971), Eritrea (1993), East Timor (2002) and South Sudan (2011).

6. Separatism and sub-nationalism: the Basque case and beyond

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• Separatism: a demand by a group or region for its own independent state. Examples are the Quebecois (Canada), Basques (Spain), Kurds (Turkey and Iraq) and Tamils (Sri Lanka).
• Basque nationalist movement: the Basque Country is a hilly, prosperous region of northern Spain. It is an autonomous region under the 1978 Constitution and the Statute of Guernica (1979).
• Its claims: its own language, Euskara, which is unlike Spanish (only about a third of residents understand it); a distinct landscape; and self-rule since Roman times, with its own justice, administration and finance.
• Its history: the movement began in the late 19th century, when Spain tried to abolish these arrangements. Franco cut self-rule further and banned Basque even at home.
• Opponents say the separatists are exploiting an issue that is already settled.

• Update (NCERT: "till recently, violent means"; now: the armed group ETA declared a ceasefire in 2011, disarmed in 2017 and dissolved itself in May 2018).

• Comparative cases:

Case	Key facts
Quebec	Referendums in 1980 and 1995 (50.6% No). Supreme Court of Canada, Reference re Secession of Quebec (1998): no one-sided secession, but a duty to negotiate after a clear majority on a clear question. Clarity Act 2000.
Catalonia	2017 referendum; Spain suspended its self-rule under Art. 155 of the Spanish Constitution
Scotland	2014 referendum (55% No)
Kurds	Iraqi Kurdistan referendum (2017); PKK decided to disband in 2025 (verify current)
Kosovo	Declared independence in 2008; ICJ advisory opinion in 2010

• Internal self-determination means self-rule and rights within a state. External self-determination means secession.
• Sub-nationalism: a strong regional, language or ethnic identity within a nation. Examples are the Tamil Dravidian movement and the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation, the Mizo Accord (1986) and the Naga Framework Agreement (2015, verify current). India grants statehood and autonomy but does not negotiate on secession. The 16th Amendment (1963), prompted by the DMK's secession demand, allowed limits on Art. 19 freedoms in the interest of "sovereignty and integrity" and added these words to constitutional oaths.

7. Nationalism and pluralism: group rights and accommodation

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• Pluralism: once the one culture–one state idea is dropped, many cultures must survive and thrive in one state. This needs group rights and an inclusive national identity that values every community's contribution.
• Group rights (Class 11, Nationalism):
• Constitutional protection for minority languages, cultures and religions.
• In some cases, group representation in legislatures and state bodies.

• Justification: members get equal protection of the law, and the group's identity is protected.

• Self-determination reinterpreted: a separate state for every nationality is impossible and also undesirable. It would create states too small to survive economically and politically, and it would multiply minority problems. The right now means democratic rights for a nationality within a state. Handling statehood demands democratically needs "considerable generosity and skill".

• Politics of recognition:
• Charles Taylor (1992): misrecognising a group's identity is a real harm.
• Kymlicka (1995): separates national minorities from immigrant groups. He lists three kinds of rights: self-government, polyethnic and special representation.

• NCERT's caution: accept identity claims, but do not let them cause division, violence or intolerant, homogenising nationalism.

• Multiple identities: every person has many identities (gender, caste, religion, language, region). If all can be freely expressed, no single one needs special political recognition. The identity of citizen should include them all.

• India's toolkit:

Area	Provision
Minority rights	Arts. 29-30
Language	Arts. 343-351 (incl. 347); Art. 350A (primary schooling in the mother tongue); Art. 350B (Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities); Eighth Schedule, 22 languages (92nd Amendment, 2003 added four)
Linguistic states	SRC (1953-55); States Reorganisation Act 1956
Tribal self-rule	Fifth and Sixth Schedules
Special provisions for some states (asymmetric federalism)	Arts. 371-371J
Reserved seats	Arts. 330, 332

8. Tagore's critique of nationalism

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• Tagore's critique of nationalism: "Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live." The quote is usually traced to a 1908 letter to A.M. Bose (verify).
• His stand on British rule:
• He opposed colonial rule and backed India's right to independence.
• British colonial rule had no place for "upholding of dignity of human relationships", although British civilisation itself valued this idea.

• He gave up his knighthood after Jallianwala Bagh (1919).

• Imperialism vs civilisation: opposing Western imperialism is not the same as rejecting Western civilisation. Indians should stay rooted in their own culture but learn freely from abroad.

• His fear: rejecting the West in favour of "Indian tradition" could turn into hostility towards faiths long present in India: Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Islam.
• His works:
• Nationalism (lectures in Japan and the USA, 1916-17; published 1917) attacked "the Nation" as a machine of power and commerce.
• Gora (1910) and Ghare Baire (1916) show the excesses of the Swadeshi movement.

• He founded Visva-Bharati (1921) as a meeting place of East and West.

• The Tagore–Gandhi debate (1921): Tagore's "The Call of Truth" against Gandhi's "The Great Sentinel" on non-cooperation and burning foreign cloth. Gandhi: "I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any."

• Cosmopolitanism: all humans form one moral community and deserve equal concern, so we have duties beyond borders. Sources include Diogenes ("citizen of the world"), Kant's Perpetual Peace (1795) and "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" (India's 2023 G20 theme). Orwell's "Notes on Nationalism" (1945) separates patriotism (love of a place) from nationalism (the will to power). Rooted cosmopolitanism joins both ideas.

9. Indian nationalism: civic, plural and constitutional

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• Anti-colonial nationalism was largely civic and plural. Examples are the Congress's inclusive platform from 1885 and Gandhian mass movements such as Khilafat–Non-Cooperation unity.
• Composite nationalism: Indians of all religions form one nation.
• Madani, Muttahida Qaumiyat aur Islam (1938), argued this against Iqbal.
• Azad made the case in his Ramgarh address (1940).

• It opposed the two-nation theory of the Muslim League's Lahore Resolution (1940) and Hindu nationalist ideas. Partition (1947) was its defeat.

• The Constitution builds a civic nation:

• The Preamble opens with "We, the People". Fraternity assures "unity and integrity" ("integrity" added by the 42nd Amendment, 1976).
• Art. 1: "India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States." Under Arts. 2-4, India is an indestructible union of destructible states (Parliament can change state borders).
• India has single citizenship and a secular state.
• There is no national language. Hindi is the Union's official language (Art. 343, from the Munshi–Ayyangar compromise; Official Languages Act 1963; three-language formula).
• Fundamental Duties, Art. 51A: (c) sovereignty, unity and integrity; (e) harmony and common brotherhood; (f) composite culture.

• National symbols: Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act 1971; Flag Code 2002; Naveen Jindal (2004), which held that flying the flag is a form of expression.

• Current debates:

• Patriotism by choice or by force: in Bijoe Emmanuel (1986), the Court protected children who stood for the anthem but did not sing it. Shyam Narayan Chouksey (2016) made the anthem compulsory in cinemas; in 2018 it was made optional.
• Dissent and the "anti-national" label: sedition has been replaced by BNS s. 152.
• J&K: the Art. 370 abrogation (2019) was upheld in In re Article 370 (December 2023).
• North–South tensions over language and delimitation.

• Vande Mataram's 150th anniversary has been commemorated since November 2025 (verify current).

• NCERT's conclusion: a democratic nation rests on loyalty to shared constitutional values, not on everyone being the same.

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Exam angles

Prelims — high-yield facts and traps

• Thinker–idea pairs: Anderson – imagined communities (1983); Renan – "daily plebiscite" (1882); Gellner – Nations and Nationalism (1983); Hobsbawm – invented traditions; Kohn – civic/ethnic split (1944); Sternberger/Habermas – constitutional patriotism; Taylor – politics of recognition (1992); Kymlicka – Multicultural Citizenship (1995).
• Tagore: Nationalism (1917), Gora (1910), Ghare Baire (1916), "my refuge is humanity". Nehru: Discovery of India (1946), "impress of oneness".
• Dates: Westphalia 1648; French Revolution 1789; Fourteen Points 1918; Versailles 1919; UNGA Res. 1514 in 1960; ICCPR/ICESCR Art. 1 in 1966; ETA dissolved 2018; Quebec referendums 1980 and 1995; Scotland 2014.
• Movement–country pairs: Quebecois–Canada; Basques and Catalans–Spain; Kurds–Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran; Tamils–Sri Lanka; Scots–UK.
• Composite nationalism (Madani 1938, Azad 1940) vs the two-nation theory (Lahore Resolution 1940).
• Provisions: Arts. 29-30 (minorities); 350A (mother-tongue schooling); 350B (Special Officer for Linguistic Minorities); Eighth Schedule (22 languages; 92nd Amendment, 2003); 51A(c), (e), (f); "integrity" added by the 42nd Amendment, 1976; 16th Amendment, 1963 (sovereignty and integrity).
• Cases: Bijoe Emmanuel (1986) – anthem and conscience; Naveen Jindal (2004) – flag as expression; Shyam Narayan Chouksey (2016, modified 2018); In re Article 370 (2023); Reference re Secession of Quebec (1998).
• Traps:
• "A common language or religion is found in all nations" – FALSE (no common set of characteristics).
• "India has a national language" – FALSE (Hindi is the official language of the Union).
• "NCERT prefers a cultural basis of nationhood" – FALSE (it prefers a political basis).
• "Territory is what separates nations from other groups" – FALSE (shared political ideals do).
• "Self-determination today means a separate state for every nationality" – FALSE (it now means democratic rights within a state).

Mains — GS-II themes

1. Civic vs cultural nationalism in a plural democracy: can shared constitutional values alone hold a nation together? (also Essay)
2. Self-determination vs territorial integrity: when is secession legitimate? Can internal self-determination through federalism and autonomy settle such claims? (Quebec reference, Kosovo, Catalonia)
3. How India accommodates sub-nationalism through linguistic states, the Sixth Schedule and Art. 371: successes and limits (link to GS-I regionalism).
4. Nationalism's two faces, liberation and exclusion: examples from Versailles, decolonisation and Biafra/Bangladesh.
5. Tagore's humanism vs narrow nationalism; patriotism vs nationalism; rooted cosmopolitanism (Essay, GS-IV).
6. Nationalism and dissent: BNS s. 152 replacing sedition, compelled patriotism, the "anti-national" label.
7. Globalisation and resurgent nationalism: Brexit, economic nationalism, migration and the future of Westphalian sovereignty.

Current-affairs hooks

• Secession and autonomy news from Scotland, Catalonia and Quebec; the Kurdish peace process; recognition of Palestine by Western states (verify current).
• Language rows over the three-language formula (NEP 2020) and Hindi imposition; the delimitation debate after the next census.
• J&K statehood demands after the 2023 verdict; North-East peace accords and the Naga talks (verify current).
• Court cases on the anthem, flag and national symbols; the Vande Mataram 150th anniversary; Har Ghar Tiranga.
• The global rise of ethno-nationalist and populist politics, and of tariff and trade nationalism.