Future strategic scenario for the Indian Subcontinent

[samuel]

I want to ask if language is the right debate to at this stage of nationalism discussion. I am ok if it is, but we will very likely be discussing just that topic because it needs a lot of space. On the other hand, is this a discussion that can be avoided to reach out for other low hanging fruit? Such as, for example, helping create a nationalist mosaic from individual narratives across the country (we used to have a discussion like that, don't know what happened).

S

[brihaspati]

Samuelji,

I want to ask if language is the right debate to at this stage of nationalism discussion. I am ok if it is, but we will very likely be discussing just that topic because it needs a lot of space. On the other hand, is this a discussion that can be avoided to reach out for other low hanging fruit? Such as, for example, helping create a nationalist mosaic from individual narratives across the country (we used to have a discussion like that, don't know what happened).

We can definitely avoid this debate of language now. But on the other hand, language is indeed an issue. I have found that the elite control over a common language has simply not allowed communication at all levels to develop. The elite of course see no reason to relish communication between disparate regions at "lower levels" as that jeopardizes their chances of carving out niches out of regional support while reserving the power to negotiate with other regional elite using English among many other devices.

But creating a national mosaic from individual narratives is a good method. Maybe we can even adapt the Thaparite technique of raising new narratives interweaving the old.

[SwamyG]

Slightly OT onlee,

But Jupiter guru's ken and posting style remind me of a certain S.Valkan we had grace the phorum not that long ago...

Sudhir garu it reminds me of a BRF member who had written a book on Goa.

[John Snow]

The first step to revitalize and realize the latent nationalism is to write in Vernacular press (fora) all the perfidy of Gang of Five (P5) and the collusion of Indian Made foreign leaders at the helm of affairs.

BR versions in Hindi, Gujarathi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu Kannada Malyalam would be a small step but that can have far reaching impact.

There is really a vast amount of nationalism and love for the country to be channeled. At the same time there is lot of cynacism and mistrust of any organization.

[RayC]

I wonder if language has been an inhibitor of the ''elite''.

Mayawati like people are considered the elite and they hardly can converse in English!! But that does not mean that I vouch that they are intelligent.

Sonia Gandhi's English or Hindi is hardly understandable and so is the case of others. Yet, they are the ''elite''!

Knowledge, intelligence and communication of idea is what makes a person intelligible!

[Keshav]

Can someone please explain to me what Indian nationalism is?

Everyone has apparently come to the conclusion that nationalist thinking is required for strategic thinking and Brihaspati mentioned that Indian nationalism need not be Hindu nationalism. So, someone tell me, what is Indian nationalism then?

The reason I'm a skeptic is because of the recent elections. No one voted on the terror issue which shows that for someone in Bengal or Tamil Nadu, Mumbai is still a far off place, while the Communists, Bangladeshis, and Sri Lanka are much closer. People have openly rejected a national vision for one that deals with their dady to day struggles. And there isn't anything inherently wrong with this.

Let's cosider the French Revolution for a minute - that is, the first formation of the nation state. The nation state was an attempt to remove the identity of adherence to a king or aristocrat, to one of the land which encompassed all those people who were "French". Our dissolution of the landlords, aristocrats, and kings did not coincide with national thinking, but Nehruvian universalism and our own Indian history, which has no popular concept of nationhood. In those days, some guy or girl living in rural France had no concept of French nationhood. He most likely spoke some dialect that would be unintelligible to Parisians but the differences between the Parisian and the random French person was little.

What should we unite on? The only thing we can unite on is political boundaries or we can go the American route - unite on ideas. And that's where it is imperative we have universal ideas about justice, social welfare, etc. That's where the idea of the nation will be built over time through discussion and possibly fighting.

You can't build it on heroes because many of our battles have been either communal or entirely meaningless. The only pre-British war I can think of that has any moral weight in our modern times is the Shivaji/Aurangzeb dualism which can easily be seen as tolerance vs. fanaticism. You might add Vikramadityas battles against the Sakas and Huns, but read on to see why this doesn't work.

And here's my most important point, we should build the nation based on the possibilities of the future not the failures and possible glories of the past. Let's admit it, while our ancestors were great people, they simply weren't smart, willing, or compromising enough to create a cohesive, long lasting government or for that matter, industrialize. All this harping on the past is going to get us into trouble. I'm not suggesting that we simply forget about it but how can we honestly say that ancient, post-Mauryan empires (with the exception of people like Samudragupta) had any idea of the nation. They were just busy trying to expand their own empire for their own good, not for the nation.

And all this talk about "The Golden Age" under the Guptas is well and good if its "The Golden Age of North India", but what about South India? That's not really a golden age, now is it? That happened primarily under Pandyas, Cholas, Vijaynagar and Hoysalas. So do we have three golden ages? (on a side note, we could call Vijaynagar the Southern Renaissance and it would make sense but to be honest we don't need to be slaves to Western historical categories).

Let's try an experiment:
In your own words, I would like each member here to post what Indian nationalism means to them.

[BSR Murthy]

To me nationalism means respect for and fondness of one’s own country and its cultural, linguistic and religious ethos. It is a spirit of commonality that connects all of us and makes us think beyond self. It is a sense of pride in your country’s peoples and collective history. Nationalism is a creed that unites all of us in a patriotic duty to fight external and internal threats.

[AKalam]

Hello, I am new here. I am from the sub-continent but not from India. Very interesting discussions in this topic and relevant for pretty much everyone in the sub-continent.

[Muppalla]

Hello, I am new here. I am from the sub-continent but not from India. Very interesting discussions in this topic and relevant for pretty much everyone in the sub-continent.

Mr./Ms. Curiosity - What is the problem is revealing the nation from the sub-continent? Just curious.

[John Snow]

Welcome, Curiosity killed the cat they say, our Admins do it.

Please change your name to some people sounding or Planet sounding name. Like Shani pathi, Skura pathi Guru Pathi etc you may choose to be Guru sathi also

[Rishi]

Hello, I am new here. I am from the sub-continent but not from India. Very interesting discussions in this topic and relevant for pretty much everyone in the sub-continent.

username changed to AKalam. The name "curiosity" did not conform to forum guidelines.

[AKalam]

I am from Bangladesh.

[Muppalla]

I am from Bangladesh.

Welcome to the forum.

[Yogi_G]

Samuelji,

I want to ask if language is the right debate to at this stage of nationalism discussion. I am ok if it is, but we will very likely be discussing just that topic because it needs a lot of space. On the other hand, is this a discussion that can be avoided to reach out for other low hanging fruit? Such as, for example, helping create a nationalist mosaic from individual narratives across the country (we used to have a discussion like that, don't know what happened).

We can definitely avoid this debate of language now. But on the other hand, language is indeed an issue. I have found that the elite control over a common language has simply not allowed communication at all levels to develop. The elite of course see no reason to relish communication between disparate regions at "lower levels" as that jeopardizes their chances of carving out niches out of regional support while reserving the power to negotiate with other regional elite using English among many other devices.

But creating a national mosaic from individual narratives is a good method. Maybe we can even adapt the Thaparite technique of raising new narratives interweaving the old.

We will have to re-visit language later because it most definitely is an important factor in "building" homogeneity. I agree we can let it go for now because a) it is too huge a topic to fit into our current discussion b) It is also the most difficult to achieve, for e.g. proposals to come up with a single WORKING national language is close to impossible in India be it Hindi or Sanskrit, the unofficial language is English...

[Abhi_G]

You can't build it on heroes because many of our battles have been either communal or entirely meaningless.

Keshav, while I agree with many of the points you raise, I do not understand why you use the word communal for our battles. Our kings led a late charge on the invaders to save our national way of life and belief. How is it communal then? Hinduism if seen from the western prism of "separation of church and state" is bound to lead one to wrong conclusions. It is just my assumption that you have not given sufficient thought on this. Maybe I am wrong.

We had many successful golden ages when the arts flourished, The sculptures of our temples bear testimony to that and the sculptures (much of it is preserved in the south) are based on similar themes. Why is it so? Our emperors could have come up with any random works of art but why so much admiration for Krishna or Vishnu or Shiva or Ram? It is because these characters are etched in the memory of so many successive generations that they come back again and again in the arts. As the Sanskrit shloka goes Vishnu is the ideal for a benevolent raja. Also, the temples were not just centers for worship but towns and cities and centers of learning grew around them.

After these came the invasions when our people saw what they considered sacred being defiled and destroyed to the extent that no ancient temple exists in north India anymore. Our kings led a late charge and fought and preserved what they could. Otherwise everything would have gone for a toss. In fact Maharana Pratap's friend's lamentation about the setting sun of Hindu Dharma (more experienced BRFites may please provide a source) if Pratap accepted Akbar's suzerainty again proves the point that the consciousness of an existing ideology being trampled by foreign invaders was pretty much present. It may not have developed a clarity but evidence of a cultural destruction was too much evident to ignore.

Added later: Why would Maharaja Ranjit Singh try to resurrect Somnath? Was it just a mere show of charity or does it show that his thought process was molded by the ways of life of the ancient Raja Chakravartins and the kings who fought the invasions before him?

[AKalam]

Since cultural destruction is being discussed, if I may interject, I was wondering what people think of V S Naipaul's concept of "Wounded Civilization" in his book "India: A Wounded Civilization" and his support of the rise of Hindutva as a welcome and necessary factor in the process of recuperation.

[shiv]

Nationalism is the state of loyalty to, or owing of allegiance to a nation. It is the definition of the nation that has changed over centuries. In early human history, your tribe was your nation.

Let me talk philosophy before I define what I think Indian nationalism is. and possibly needs to be.

How do you recognise a human being?

Normally this is easy - and the question of "recognizing" a human arises only to differentiate from say a chimpanzee. Two arms, standing on two legs, characteristic size and position of head on body, flat face, no snout.


How do you recognise a friend?

For an ordinary human being - the mind is able to grasp only a few points of recognition. You see the shape of the head, the hair, the eyes, mouth, cheeks, hear the voice and perhaps recognise a characteristic stoop or a defining gait.

How do you recognise your mummy or your child?

Apart from all the characteristics for "human" and "friend" above, you will know little details. You may recognise the pattern or wrinkles on an elderly mother's hand. You may recognise the scar from a pimple your dad had 50 years ago. You will know the mole on the left buttock of you son.

The point I am trying to get at is that if there are 10 points to recognize a human, there may be 20 to recognise a friend, but there will be 50 or 100 to recognise a very close relative.

Due to information overload, humans can only get close to and really familiar with every little detail of a small number of people. This makes it easy for all humans to get close to, and identify with one's extended family. And remember, your extended family is your tribe. Those outside your tribe could be your enemies.

This latter point became a big problem when human populations increased. Both Christianity and Islam aimed to end inter-tribal conflict by setting rules about visible or audible characteristics for humans who should be recognised as "friend". By ignoring fine details to find out who is a friend, Christianity and Islam set about defining the behavior and appearance of "friend" as following a narrow set of rules. Ethnic differences were sought to be suppressed with the overarching goal of declaring every follower of one religion as "friend". The idea was a good one because in theory, it would allow intermarriage and eventually a whole lot of different ethnic groups would become "extended family" (as in ummah)

But this idea was not completely successful. Ethnic differences were still important. You might be Muslims, but if you were a taller, fairer Pakjabi - you considered yourself superior to a fellow Muslim who was a darker, shorter Bangladeshi who ate rice and fish. Both Islam and Christianity could not solve the fundamental problem that humans do find ethnicity important in their day to day lives. Ignoring ethnicity and trying to suppress it artificially could only go so far in creation of a united "nation" of Christendom or Islam. But the nations that were created were fascist like in saying "if you are not Christian/Muslims - you are my enemy". The idea of religion as nation was good for a moderately large number of people.

But when human populations became even larger, Islam and Christianity both failed as creators of unity under one nation. Christianity has accepted that defeat and Christians have changed, but Muslims (and the non Muslim world) are only now seeing the narrowness that religion demands.

So the real problem about "nationalism" is "How to define the nation?"

Defining the nation on very narrow terms - eg "extended family" creates the smallest nations, prone to break up in family feuds. Defining the nation on linguistic terms, extending beyond family creates small to medium nations prone to break up or fight on linguistic differences as well as family feuds. Defining the nation in religious terms creates medium sized nations prone to break up on family, linguistic and religious grounds. In other words, the larger you make your group, the greater its chances of finding differences to fight over. if you can prevent such fights, your group (nation) will be very strong.

How to prevent such infighting? Unity on the basis of language is not good enough. Unity on the basis of religion is not good enough.

India had taken its own route in the centuries before Christianity and Islam. In the first place there was no single "nation" that sought to narrow down difference to a single dumbed-down set of rules. Neither language, nor religions were utilized in a fascist fashion to force a "with me or against me" national identity. Every religion and every language was allowed to survive. Those who were different were allowed to stay different. The only things that became "common" were things that were not forced - things that people accepted as being OK to live with. These include a worship and respect of nature and literature and folklore that extend across the subcontinent.

Ethinicity, language and religion can never be unifying factors for a nation like India. (just like they cannot be anywhere in the world. they work only for smaller units - smaller nations)

Until humans invented the concept of democracy and common consent of most people there was no way in which a country like India could become one nation except for short, forced periods of time under powerful rulers. Democracy is the only system that can cross barriers of ethnicity, language and religion, and yet define a nation state by means of a definite geographical boundary.

One needs to understand a few things about democracy in order to see how it works.

• It does not use language, ethinicity or religion as unifying factors
• It demands the imposition of a nation with a physical border. making that border smaller or larger requires the consent of the people within that democratic nation
• It survives on an idealistic set of rules written in a constitution
• That constitution must be defended by a strong "core" or central government that controls a loyal military.

Indian nationalism is only aided by our common ancient heritage, but Indian nationalism is diluted and weakened by our acceptance of diversity and the power and leeway India gives to its own diversity.

Indian nationalism is likely to work ONLY as democracy which is the best known governance system for mankind invented until today. But for that democracy to work Indians and the Indian government is duty bound to respect its constitution and geographical boundaries. Unlike language, ethnicity and religion, democracy can work only withing a fixed geographic area.The fixed rules (constitution) apply to fixed geographic area only, and even the people in that area have to agree to come under the rules. This makes it essential to have immigration control.

Indian leaders who do not respect its boundaries and allow free immigration are diluting Indian nationalism by damaging democracy. But "Indian nationalism" in the short to medium terms i firmly fixed to and protected by Indian democracy.

Thanks if you got so far.

[shiv]

Since cultural destruction is being discussed, if I may interject, I was wondering what people think of V S Naipaul's concept of "Wounded Civilization" in his book "India: A Wounded Civilization" and his support of the rise of Hindutva as a welcome and necessary factor in the process of recuperation.

Hindutva will always be a problem for those people who see their god threatened by Hindutva.

Those people who understand that being "Hindu" was never about god will have no problem with that.
Hindu was the old, archaic, obsolete word for "Indian". By being Hindu was not saying " I pray to this particular god".

This is a system that people who are born and brought up to define their identity and being as being a follower of one god find it difficult to understand. It is also true that being Hindu is also being pagan or a kafir. Democracy in general does not have any problem with this. It is only rule systems that disallow the existence of pagans or kafirs that have a problem with state of being Hindu, or Hindutva. But by definition all gods were allowed in India and accepted by Indians as such

[Rahul M]

it is high time we stopped being defensive about utilising english as a national integrator.
we have had a long and well-regarded line of contributors to the english language and control one ascendant stream of the language. not to mention that Indian english is already a recognised branch.
also, let's not forget that if an Indian language is defined as the mother tongue of any group of Indians, the anglo-Indian community can definitely put forward that claim.
By now at least, english is an Indian language.

[brihaspati]

John Snow wrote
The first step to revitalize and realize the latent nationalism is to write in Vernacular press (fora) all the perfidy of Gang of Five (P5) and the collusion of Indian Made foreign leaders at the helm of affairs.
BR versions in Hindi, Gujarathi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu Kannada Malyalam would be a small step but that can have far reaching impact.
There is really a vast amount of nationalism and love for the country to be channeled. At the same time there is lot of cynacism and mistrust of any organization.

Thus idea is excellent - if we can we should have versions in regional languages. I would request not to use the the term "Vernacular" - the ancestors of modern Italians - the "great" Romans meant by this "slave-speak". The British simply copied it for use in India in their attempt to forget that they themselves were enslaved under Romans. I am just concerned, that individual forums in different regional languages will not be able to interact with each other, and may drift along regional "winds" - we do need them to share in a common discourse. Automatic translations perhaps?

RayC wrote
I wonder if language has been an inhibitor of the ''elite''.
Mayawati like people are considered the elite and they hardly can converse in English!! But that does not mean that I vouch that they are intelligent.
Sonia Gandhi's English or Hindi is hardly understandable and so is the case of others. Yet, they are the ''elite''!
Knowledge, intelligence and communication of idea is what makes a person intelligible!

Mayavatiji does not need to speak English, she has plenty to speak in that language for her, (but I think she has had her aurobiography translated intio English) and she has not yet felt the "wanderlust" to the South - probably fearing an Agastyajatra. In the north, elite needs to speak in some broken form - one of the various "khichri" flavours of Hindi, but that again does not seem to be necessary - look at "Panu-da", I wince at his attempts to speak either Hindi or English - but nevertherless a real fish of the "old muddy waters school" - since a BD member is now present on the forum, - a real "raghob bo-aal". The elite has its own communication device, money perhaps - "brighter than sunshine/sweeter than honey/" and one of the most reliable looseners of tongue. But my main point is that the elite can afford to have "non-vocal" communications (the most potent "tirchi najryia ke baan" perhaps) - but by not establishing a common language like English for all children to learn, it has used language-hostilities to keep the commons in our regions apart.

Keshav wrote
Can someone please explain to me what Indian nationalism is?
Everyone has apparently come to the conclusion that nationalist thinking is required for strategic thinking and Brihaspati mentioned that Indian nationalism need not be Hindu nationalism. So, someone tell me, what is Indian nationalism then?

I mentioned that it need not be "Hindu" nationalism from very clear-cut reasons I have given earlier: I avoid the word "Hindu" - we Bharatyias did not call ourselves Hindus until the late medieval - this was the name given to us by Arabs and Persians, for that matter even Indian is perhaps an overlap of various sources - a Greek corruption of the Persian and its copying by the Europeans. Thus Hindu carries in it a reactive sense, a forced-to-take-up connotation. Bharatyia refers to all the concepts concerning, nation, state, philosophy and most importantly relationships between the individual and the state as laid out primarily in the two epics, and Upanishads. The two epics are themselves narratives of state - the story is simply a matrix to elaborate and explore concepts of state and nationhood. It does not have to be a Hindu nationalism - bringing in a lot of baggage we can do without - but it definitely has to be a Bharatyia nationalism.

The reason I'm a skeptic is because of the recent elections. No one voted on the terror issue which shows that for someone in Bengal or Tamil Nadu, Mumbai is still a far off place, while the Communists, Bangladeshis, and Sri Lanka are much closer. People have openly rejected a national vision for one that deals with their dady to day struggles. And there isn't anything inherently wrong with this.

I am not so sure about the rejection angle - was there any national vision at all being placed? Were those who perhaps tried to place the national vision, clear and concrete about what they would contribute to this national vision? Why should the people trust them more than any others as regards the national vision? I am not saying that "these people" do not have or did not have a national vision - but a national vision has to include a comprehensive format - which incudes tackling terror as one of the most important issues, but getting clean drinking water is also a part of the same national vision, getting some healthcare is also part of this same national vision - all these issues are equally important, was that sense of urgency conveyed?

Let's cosider the French Revolution for a minute - that is, the first formation of the nation state. The nation state was an attempt to remove the identity of adherence to a king or aristocrat, to one of the land which encompassed all those people who were "French". Our dissolution of the landlords, aristocrats, and kings did not coincide with national thinking, but Nehruvian universalism and our own Indian history, which has no popular concept of nationhood. In those days, some guy or girl living in rural France had no concept of French nationhood. He most likely spoke some dialect that would be unintelligible to Parisians but the differences between the Parisian and the random French person was little.

Well as far as I know, things were quite complicated there - I dont think there has been any revolution in the last 400 years in which the majority of the society directly participated. It was always a case of one determined minority winning out over others in a battle in which the majority did not not participate in favour of anyone. All revolutions were hotly contested, and opposition were not so weak as represented afterward by the victors. As far as I remember, there were some departments of France which actively rebelled against the rebellion in Paris. The French, and the European revolutions of 1830's and 1848's or (1870) were all primarily city based uprisings which succeeded if the countryside remained indifferent to the plight of the existing rulers. (The peasant revolution used and then betrayed by Martin Luther is a different issue, just as the Pugachev and Razin uprisings in Russia). French nationalism really took off when the fledgling Directory flattered the "citizen" to raise an army against invading royalist forces, and over time degenerated sufficiently quickly so that it needed protection from an young Mediterranean artillery officer to disperse the Paris mob and launch his career with a "whiff of grapeshot". The officer in due course became a very popular emperor. France united to become a nation (1) under threat of foreign invasions directed not at a king but at the state and its citizens (2) under a dictator.

What should we unite on? The only thing we can unite on is political boundaries or we can go the American route - unite on ideas. And that's where it is imperative we have universal ideas about justice, social welfare, etc. That's where the idea of the nation will be built over time through discussion and possibly fighting.

We unite on ideas, but these ideas have to be sufficiently rooted in the cultural language of the people to be conceivable and within acceptance range. You can talk revolution, but in the language of tradition.

You can't build it on heroes because many of our battles have been either communal or entirely meaningless. The only pre-British war I can think of that has any moral weight in our modern times is the Shivaji/Aurangzeb dualism which can easily be seen as tolerance vs. fanaticism. You might add Vikramadityas battles against the Sakas and Huns, but read on to see why this doesn't work.

Battles are neither communal nor entirely meaningless. Battles are there for survival. War is costly, and is never undertaken lightly - it does mean survival for one group or another. But maybe we can elaborate on this later.

And here's my most important point, we should build the nation based on the possibilities of the future not the failures and possible glories of the past. Let's admit it, while our ancestors were great people, they simply weren't smart, willing, or compromising enough to create a cohesive, long lasting government or for that matter, industrialize. All this harping on the past is going to get us into trouble. I'm not suggesting that we simply forget about it but how can we honestly say that ancient, post-Mauryan empires (with the exception of people like Samudragupta) had any idea of the nation. They were just busy trying to expand their own empire for their own good, not for the nation.

We can only build on the possibilities of the future by acknowledging the debts of the past. We are what we are now, with all our faults, weknesses, and stengths because of what happened in the past. Without a proper understanding and refusing to see how that past is still shaping us, we will make grave mistakes. Having said that the past should not bind us.

Let's try an experiment:
In your own words, I would like each member here to post what Indian nationalism means to them.

I can try - but I think I will be tempting more than one admin to give the chop!

[brihaspati]

nationalism is a very simple concept to define, but difficult to realize in practice - nationalism is a sense of belonging to a group of human beings who share a mutually recognized and acknowledged set of ascriptions that takes precedence over blood-relations, kinship, and necessarily conatins a concept of a physical "centre", a natural habitat or a "homeland". In the case of India, sifting down the sand of ascriptions to a golden few on which the majority can agree - is the difficult task, as is evdient on this forum!

[samuel]

Well, I am not sure how fruitful it is to engage in a discussion defining nationalism because we sorta know it(?). If we are looking for who an Indian Nationalist is, then that is a fair issue. If we are looking to characterize the Indian nation, that is ok too, but we can start we with what we've got, which is pretty good. But if the question really is about nationalism per se, there must be a text book for this sort of thing, nonetheless, in my "personal view," I think of it as action that sustains a nation. Left implicit is the word indefinitely. Left open is an objective description of sustainability. Informally, I think of it as similar to Hinduism, which is all that sustains the Hindu.

Indian nationalism is about sustaining India. Hindu nationalism is about sustaining a Hindu nation. Bharatiyata is about sustaining Bharat. There are differences between all three, and let me say that it is probably more interesting to pick one of them than trying to figure out which one makes most sense. Let's go with Indian Nationalism, which I posit are actions to sustain India (indefinitely), and rally around that.


****************
Regarding English etc., I am going to take a pass on that discussion and will be happy to listen in after this. For what it's worth, I think English has gotta go.

****************
Regarding writing articles for regional audiences, there was a guy by the name RamaY who seemed to have proposed something similar along with Rahul, if memory serves and I think it is a beautiful idea.

Another, I've been working on is to create a list of actions that we think are in the best interest of sustaining India and make the public aware of that, rate governments by it, and spawn more action. It was, in fact, motivated by something wonderful BSR Murthy wrote down once, and we have gone a reasonable way along that route.

I think there are many options for pursuing ideas related to awareness, media watches and so on...

What I think we can do on this thread is to create a set of ideas that wrap around India and help sustain it...i.e. become Indian Nationalists.

That discussion (and hopefully no more than a debate) is not easy or for the faint. We have had issues with insufficient knowledge of History come in our way, but for the first time, I think we may have the ability to intellectually moderate, self-moderate and, if that does not work, use one of the moderatistas.

[BajKhedawal]

Totally agree that there is this tremendous amount of dormant nationalism long neglected, and one of the prime causes is the cross cultural barriers. Language being the main culprit, sure English is a national integrator but it is not understood and/or appreciated by majority of populace. For a person, organization, or an idea to be articulated across the vast reach of our country Hindi is more readily accepted as opposed to English.

Point being, we all know there is no dearth of nationalism in the country but the bonding agent is missing. John Snow rightly pointed out that not all nationalistic organizations will be seen as such, case in point being: some will always view RSS and Bagrang Dal with bias eyes.

Another problem is the medium by which such an entity relates to its audience. Seeing that the target audience in this instance is the entire populace of India, Internet is not the preferred medium. I feel a weekly if not daily patrika in local language would better serve the purpose. I believe BR is in a unique position to fill this void of communicating existing nationalistic sentiments across the board.

1) There are a lot of excellent minds from different spheres of vocations, bringing with them authentic information from their area of expertise.

2) Many are very talented in articulating information mentioned above and have the very good editorial skills. Case in point “Bharat Rakshak Monitor / Security Research Review” blog.

3) Bharat Rakshak is seen as an informal portal of our Armed Forces with no political or religious biases.

4) Bharat Rakshak is in partnership with Lancer Publishers & Distributors Ltd. So nether printing nor distribution is a issue.

Like “Lakshmic” here I freely initiate the willing and quote Bharat Rakshak as and when needed: dinner conversation, office gup, arguments with dhimmies, or just plain psy ops with momins.

I hope the likes of Sheetal, Shiv, Rammana, Narayan, et al give this a thought.

[John Snow]

nationalism is a very simple concept to define, but difficult to realize in practice - nationalism is a sense of belonging to a group of human beings who share a mutually recognized and acknowledged set of ascriptions that takes precedence over blood-relations, kinship, and necessarily conatins a concept of a physical "centre", a natural habitat or a "homeland". In the case of India, sifting down the sand of ascriptions to a golden few on which the majority can agree - is the difficult task, as is evdient on this forum!

Actually it is very simple
(did not mankind use circle to make chariot wheels or more so develop asoka chakra before des cartes came with co ordinate geometry /equation circle)

There are two components to nationalism which is nothing but conduct of two parties
1) Ruled (praja)
2) Ruler(s) Raja

All they have to do is follow the dharma, that is the laws as in constitution which is document that elders representing(hope) the praja have formulated.

when these two entities follow the rule of law and also the enforcers of law follow the dharma thats nationalism.
Its as simple (transactional analysis as )

I am OK! You are OK.

Rest all is complications and semantics.
(by the way most of the time that is how the US workd internally, inspite of right wing extremists like Southern Baptists or Evanjihadis)

All other forms of Jack boots and stiff salutes bring bad name to nationalism, you know what I mean

[enqyoob]

2) Many are very talented in articulating information mentioned above and have the very good editorial skills. Case in point “Bharat Rakshak Monitor / Security Research Review” blog.

Someone I know was/is a Senior Fellow at a very prestigious Security-related university Center in GreatSatanstan. Through patient effort, managed to convey to the mullahs there that BRM/SRR have peer review procedures and reader feedback processes that leave all other "peer-reviewed" journals in this area in the dust, because our reviewers combine true field and academic expertise, come from all over the world, get reviews done extremely fast and fairly, and that the post-publication forum discussion of the paper by anonymous postors is completely without parallel.

BUT... this requires ppl to contribute articles, and GET THE REVISED ARTICLES TO THE EDITOR

3) Bharat Rakshak is seen as an informal portal of our Armed Forces with no political or religious biases.

Thank you for that wonderful observation. Again, this is an absolutely peerless feature of this forum. I have seen far too many well-intentioned e-initiatives degenerate into beer brawls because there is not the consensus or discipline to keep the discussion clean.

While the "BENIS" and its successor, "Khabar-e-Pingreji" give pause to even my acquaintance, I think he has concluded that this is again an unparalleled way to present the realities of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan with the light-heartedness required to present those horrible realities without degenerating into verbal or actual violence. Anyone who REALLY wants to understand the Ummah as manifested in Pakistan, cannot do better than to see the extensive information there. Not that we do not tolerate degeneration of the Khabar into generalizations of any religion or to followers of any religion outside Pakistan.

Like “Lakshmic” here I freely initiate the willing and quote Bharat Rakshak as and when needed: dinner conversation, office gup, arguments with dhimmies, or just plain psy ops with momins.

Of course, so do I, and see absolutely no reason to be shy about it. Some fools will sneer at the "non-secular name" ("Bharat" is not secular enough for some idiots) and some Non-Prollotullahs have tried dissing us as "nationalist Indian pov" and only ended up enhancing our credibility, and giving publicity to our exposure of the NonProllotullahs.

Now that I have been in way more than enough "seminars" and "presentations" involving Ambassadors on down, I see no reason to be shy of the quality of our discussions or papers, and every reason to be proud of the clear thinking, open discussions and free-swinging jhapads.

While I DO hope that desi eye-eph-ess types use our forum at least to gauge some of the spectrum of well-informed public opinion here, and maybe derive some good comebacks to use in discussions, or, miracle of miracles, some vertebral-support in presenting India's case and articulating courses of action, well... getting them to pay attention is something waaaaay out of my area of competence. I can't even get the &*^%&^* Consulate to reply to emails when I need urgent assistance.
[/quote]

[AKalam]

To unify and increase cohesiveness among a diverse population of many ethnic groups, culture, religion, language etc. most modern nation states promote some form of nationalism. While kept in balance it can be a positive force, but very often once the wheels start moving its difficult to control a runaway freight train.

I personally believe that continuity of historical entities such as ancient cultures are positive and their disruption by external forces are negative. So I agree with V S Naipaul that the advent of Islam in the subcontinent was a disruptive force and the partition of 1947 was another more recent and unfortunate disruption that surgically separated a historically undivided entity to alleviate a problem (or a non-problem made up to be one) created from the earlier disruption. In this latest disruption, it seems the right wing traditionalists have been dead set against partition, whereas the moderately religious, though vehemently opposed to it, eventually reluctantly accepted it and the secular/liberal leaders seem to have either promoted it or accepted it. In retrospect, only the right wing traditionalists seem to have been correct in their foresight.

Hindu nationalism to bring a renaissance of Hindu culture is something I support as positive and necessary and consider Maoist or other ideologies that have no root in the recent or ancient history of subcontinent as disruptions with future negative consequences for the disrupted communities.

I would like to find out forum members opinion about Cosmopolitanism as an alternative to territorial Nationalism. To me preservation and continuity of the multitude of historical cultures, small or large are positive and necessary for the long term health and survival of each community. Although I agree that some form and degree of territorial Nationalism is not without merit, Cosmopolitanism seems to foster a much more comfortable ecosystem for coexistence and continuity of diverse cultures.

I would also like to find out opinions on EU style regional blocks. While SAARC seems to have not much of a future, is there any potential for an Asian Union for example. In the great Eurasian landmass from Pacific to the Atlantic, EU already has staked claim in the European part of it. African Union is making progress in Africa. A Unasur and NAFTA is making some headway in the Americas. But in Asia we have ASEAN and few others, but we are also staring at the face of resurging Nationalism in 4 largest economies - China, Japan, India and Russia. Islamism (as different from historical Islam) is the other transnational new Nationlism that has become resurgent in a not so healthy manner, but without a powerful and stable nation state of some size as its home base, its future prospect is doubtful. When increased trade and free flow of goods, free travel (not free migration) and cooperative regional management of natural resources seem to help productive communities, that bring peace and prosperity for all and resolve conflict situations, then is it not worthwhile to consider larger EU like entities in Asia. Much of the intra-Asian rivalry and hostilities are of course a great source of power and opportunity for non-Asian powers and in a similar vein, much of the South Asian rivalry is great opportunity for non South Asian powers.

The future is unknown to us, but with many transformational technologies coming up everyday, it probably will not look much like the past. Nationalism of the territorial kind seem like an old solution that may have already become obsolete in the emerging new world we are moving towards.

In a democracy, where an overwhelming majority can control all aspects of passing laws and amendment of constitutions, majority opinion can be imposed on a vulnerable minority, in fact this is one of the problems of a democratic system, how to protect and ensure the rights of vulnerable minorities. So constitutional democracy as a form of government and importance of Nationalism and its form, I believe, are separate issues for debate.

About English language, after 1971 in Bangladesh, English was replaced with Bangla as the medium of instruction at schools, colleges and universities and as the official language in all govt. offices. As a result, several generations have lost proficiency in English. Today English as a medium of instruction and a subject of study as a 2nd language has made a come back in Bangladesh, as it is essential for any kind of jobs, local or overseas. In hindsight, it was probably better to not impose Bangla and break a language system that the British Raj had put in place and was working for some centuries, following the principle of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", although minor modifications, adjustments and improvements could help, I believe.

[vsudhir]

Liked John Snow's definition a lot. Thought a bit over what nationalism *should* mean (in a normative sense) and arrived at conclusions not dissimilar from his.

To amend slightly what shiv has written, nationalism is an affirmation of allegiance to an ethical nation. (Not just any nation. And I write ethical instead of dharmic, to avoid terminological confusion though Dharmic fits the bill way, way better, IMHO).

Take an example.

Truth is ethical and Dharmic and mother's milk. Should someone be prepared to lie for/about their country under the guise of nationalism if such prevarication appears to amplify national prestige?

What does it mean for a North Korean or a chini to be 'nationalistic' today (Am not even mentioning Pakistan)? Is swearing allegiance to a murderous, amoral, unethical state == unswearing loyalty to the core nation?

Would a nationalist chinese admit that Mao murdered millions under his misplaced longmarch and cultural revolutions - thereby decrease the prestige of PRC and still be a nationalist in China? Or a north korean nationalist admit to kim yong mentally-ill's excesses and starvation breeding policies and be considered a nationalist in his country?

The problem here is that the state that now owns the country in these cases is built on unethical, indefensible premises - that the people exist for the state and not vice versa, in so many words. Loyalty to such a state cannot be genuine nationalism.

A nationalist press wouldn't distort, deny or hide the truth about the country in a 'patriotic' fit because allegiance to truth cannot contradict that to an ethical nation. Similarly, the core ethics - truth, liberty, sustainability, tolerance - are immutable and ought to embody the nation.

And so on for nationalist citizens too.

Hey, just my 2 paise.
/Have a nice day, all.

[enqyoob]

"COSMOPOLITANISM" is a great concept in theory, but it generates people who are missing something at their core - moral strength. Look at the young Indian urban class in Dilli and Mumbai and Bengalooru for example. It's really scary. In fact, Pakistanis are far better in this respect because they have SOMETHING that they take pride in, and hold to be sacred, as horrible as that might be.

[munna]

"COSMOPOLITANISM" is a great concept in theory, but it generates people who are missing something at their core - moral strength. Look at the young Indian urban class in Dilli and Mumbai and Bengalooru for example. It's really scary. In fact, Pakistanis are far better in this respect because they have SOMETHING that they take pride in, and hold to be sacred, as horrible as that might be.

Narayanaji don't you think its this class of people who tend to re-discover their beliefs after having a gala time with babes, booze and Pink Floyd in their youth. I mean look at the evanjehadis and all other assorted "oh I found god again" types. I think the situation might turn on its head in a short while especially with the rise of tier 2/3 towns.

[samuel]

Just as islamism is in existence irrespective of its morality or moral rating, so does nationalism.

If action leads to sustenance of the nation, then we may hindcast said action as nationalist or not. There is a forward reference here that requires one to become aware of all of time at all scales. This is impossible of course, and so we must make local approximations. Thus, who is a nationalist now may not be tomorrow and what is nationalism now is not tomorrow. There is no morality necessary per se, just survival or sustenance, and the polarity of morality can change as the local neighborhood transforms.

The notion that action that sustains a nation, the nationalism, must be dharmic action, is copyright of Hindus. It may be that dharmic action is both necessary and sufficient for sustaining a nation, but that, like P=NP, is un resolved. It is a wonderful belief, I wholeheartedly believe in it.

S

[brihaspati]

We are now into the devils fork : (1) what is nationalism per se (2) what is "our" nationalism?
The second question assumes that the first has been resolved conclusively. This is the reason I wanted to bypass the question of nationalism per se, and started out from the concept of a core and periphery that retains a spatial sense of "centre", a set of common ascriptions broadly felt by members of the core, and a sense of the "other", the "other" that does not belong to the "core", and an awareness of an intermediate gray zone, the periphery - that separates the core and the "non-core". This does not limit us by geographical boundaries, makes the whole concept a fluid and dynamic concept that can accommodate expansion of both space and ideology. Limiting ourselves to the debate about nationalism itself limits us in what we really need to look at, and we bog ourselves down in specifics that change over time and context.

"truth" can be relative, and Dharmic should have linguistically meant the neutral "characteristic" or "that which binds/holds". We are always struggling with the "truth" - we hear of "truths" being handed out by historians - who suppress and misrepresent from their own beliefs and agendas, consciously or subconsciously. "that which binds" could actually contain elements that really "binds" and does not let us move forward. We have to be very careful when we discuss such historical elements in our "nationalism" - for we can make mistakes in both direction.

I notice that there are two opposing positions - (a) one which is suspicious of all "dharmic", or "Hindu" components of "nationalism", (b) one which thinks of "non-Hindu" or "non-Dharmic" elements as incompatible with "nationalism" (for example any language that historically did not belong in the "nation" before a certain period,e tc.)

I would like to suggest a majjhim pantha - decide on a core set of values, principles sourced from long standing strands of thoughts within the populations broadly making up the current "core" (those we include as the majority residing within the approximate teritorial expanse of the subcontinent). These are going to be our foundational principle at the moment.

We should not try to make these principles binding forever into the future - this is the mistake made by micromanaging religions like Christianity or Islam - they impose what appeared to (or claimed to) have worked for a certain group of people, at a particular time, in a particular place, as forever strictly enforced. In following such arguments we deviate, from what I feel is my personal reading of the Bharatyia philosophies - the Upanihsadic principle of "Charaibeti" - never become stationary, even in your beliefs and understandings - constantly upgrade and reexamine past realizations and understandings, for at any given moment we are always limited by current bounds of knowledge. I have tried to say before also that the Bharatyia philosophies never micromanage, they are simply at most "meta-religions" - a framework of thought, and analyis of methodologies to arrive at religions perhaps but not religions themselves.

However, if we do not source our principle for moving forward, from these existing strands within Bharatyia philosophies and practices, we cannot move the "people" - this is the language that they will understand most readily - the reason so many of us here feel the need to have a regional language version of BR - communication is not a one way process, we have to speak a language that the "other" understands.

So I think we should clearly place our starting principles of characterizing the core, from the long standing strands of thoughts sustained within the core "populations" - however being careful to try and avoid all that were specific to a certain period and people or social system no longer relevant.

[brihaspati]

AKalam, welcome to the forum and for your very relevant thoughts:

I personally believe that continuity of historical entities such as ancient cultures are positive and their disruption by external forces are negative. So I agree with V S Naipaul that the advent of Islam in the subcontinent was a disruptive force and the partition of 1947 was another more recent and unfortunate disruption that surgically separated a historically undivided entity to alleviate a problem (or a non-problem made up to be one) created from the earlier disruption.

Islam's record has not been shown to be disruptive in the middle east - primarily because it wiped out all contary voices. In two places Islam had a problem - because it could not complete its military agenda and wipe out all opposition - in Spain/Eastern Europe and in India. Islam's problem is that if it fails militarily it becomes the problem forever for others. In the whole of the subcontinent, the reasons for the modern confusion about the impact of Islam is primarily becuase of two factors : (1) Indian Thaparaite School of history's regime backed reconstruction that erased all records of non-Muslim military resistance and eventual military reversal of Islamic forces, as well as the persistence of this resistance right from the first advent of Islam, off from public discourse and education. They also paint a false picture of the spread of Islam by completely peaceful means mainly at the hands of Sufis who were always very non-militarist and peaceful in their preaching. I am not discussing the reasons for this behaviour here. However, as you are from BD, I am sure you know that the early Sufis were far from peaceful - they used military tactics not only to impose their faith, but also collected brides in this way (even though these stories are later on represented as love stories which happen on the eve of the battle or immediately afterwards) - and in BD definitely they fought against Buddhist or Vaishnava kings and societies, unused by principle and practice to Jihadi warfare (which at least one preacher from the middle east was quite experienced in). But the majority of non-Muslims did not convert, because they escaped into more remote regions, or retreated into more difficult terrain from where they could continue to fight and hold on to their culture - Islam occupied the more easily accessible, and fertile regions. A big part of our current problems stem from this determination of non-Muslims not to go under Islam, and Islam's brutal tactics of winning converts - this is a memory sustained by oral traditions handed down over the generations and is outside the control of regime sponsored historians. This has created divides that need a coming together of the peoples, bypassing the "theologians", and it will be more difficult from the Islamic side, rather than the Hindu side.

In this latest disruption, it seems the right wing traditionalists have been dead set against partition, whereas the moderately religious, though vehemently opposed to it, eventually reluctantly accepted it and the secular/liberal leaders seem to have either promoted it or accepted it. In retrospect, only the right wing traditionalists seem to have been correct in their foresight.

I hope you mean the Right-wing traditionalists from the "Hindu" side, for at least people like Moududi, or the Nawabs of Dhaka from the right-wing of Islam were instrumental in the precursors to the Partition.

Hindu nationalism to bring a renaissance of Hindu culture is something I support as positive and necessary and consider Maoist or other ideologies that have no root in the recent or ancient history of subcontinent as disruptions with future negative consequences for the disrupted communities.

Rather not touch this tinder-box right now!

I would like to find out forum members opinion about Cosmopolitanism as an alternative to territorial Nationalism. To me preservation and continuity of the multitude of historical cultures, small or large are positive and necessary for the long term health and survival of each community. Although I agree that some form and degree of territorial Nationalism is not without merit, Cosmopolitanism seems to foster a much more comfortable ecosystem for coexistence and continuity of diverse cultures.

I can see you are an authentic BD now . Probably you did your bit in the recent charge of the urban youth brigade in the Crimean war of BD elections? Apologies if I have offended you. Urbanization can lead to both more disruptions or more homogenization depending on how inclusive it manages to remain. For example, I am sure just asn in India, Pakistan, BD laso generates frustrations in a lot of youth forced to go through the madrassha system/or otherwise not able to gain skills needed to compete successfully in a modern knowledge based economy, and male frustration compunded by the increasing assertion of women to have control over their own bodies. Significantly in comparison, Islamic teaching will provide hints of a much easier way of life, where Jihad promises land, wealth and women in return for military inputs only.

I would also like to find out opinions on EU style regional blocks. While SAARC seems to have not much of a future, is there any potential for an Asian Union for example....But in Asia we have ASEAN and few others, but we are also staring at the face of resurging Nationalism in 4 largest economies - China, Japan, India and Russia. Islamism (as different from historical Islam) is the other transnational new Nationlism that has become resurgent in a not so healthy manner, but without a powerful and stable nation state of some size as its home base, its future prospect is doubtful. When increased trade and free flow of goods, free travel (not free migration) and cooperative regional management of natural resources seem to help productive communities, that bring peace and prosperity for all and resolve conflict situations, then is it not worthwhile to consider larger EU like entities in Asia. Much of the intra-Asian rivalry and hostilities are of course a great source of power and opportunity for non-Asian powers and in a similar vein, much of the South Asian rivalry is great opportunity for non South Asian powers.

Wholeheartedly supported, but as a future target - this is practically one aspect of what I meant as expansion of the core, and what is now a periphery should one day become part of the core - this is a process of mutual absorption and inclusions after coming to commonalities, and not conquering of one nations by another. In our core-periphery model, there are not strict national delimitations and boundaries.

In a democracy, where an overwhelming majority can control all aspects of passing laws and amendment of constitutions, majority opinion can be imposed on a vulnerable minority, in fact this is one of the problems of a democratic system, how to protect and ensure the rights of vulnerable minorities. So constitutional democracy as a form of government and importance of Nationalism and its form, I believe, are separate issues for debate.

What is minority within a particular nation-state is probably a majority within the larger core-periphery context and so on - more imprtantly a certain core set of principle should take precedence over all other rights - right to equality before the law, right to free speech without any restraint, gender equality, right to education and social security, duty of defence and productive input should take precedence over all other rights including religion and culture - irrespective of minority or majority. These rights and duties are relevant for the modern period - and no one, majority or minority should be allowed to hide behind obsolete excuses to maintain exploitative forms.

My dear friend, if one day BD and us can agree on these basics, we will have an Union, no doubt about it!

About English language, after 1971 in Bangladesh, English was replaced with Bangla as the medium of instruction at schools, colleges and universities and as the official language in all govt. offices. As a result, several generations have lost proficiency in English. Today English as a medium of instruction and a subject of study as a 2nd language has made a come back in Bangladesh, as it is essential for any kind of jobs, local or overseas. In hindsight, it was probably better to not impose Bangla and break a language system that the British Raj had put in place and was working for some centuries, following the principle of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", although minor modifications, adjustments and improvements could help, I believe.

Yes I also advocate English as a practical adaptation, and is part of what I mean relaxation of "hard" binds to tradition and the past that really does not effectively impinge on our identity as long as the regional languages are continued to be encouraged and spoken.

[AKalam]

"COSMOPOLITANISM" is a great concept in theory, but it generates people who are missing something at their core - moral strength. Look at the young Indian urban class in Dilli and Mumbai and Bengalooru for example. It's really scary. In fact, Pakistanis are far better in this respect because they have SOMETHING that they take pride in, and hold to be sacred, as horrible as that might be.

Please let me clarify my post a little further, I support the strengthening of cultures and traditions with some historical roots, recent or ancient, which includes, Hinduism (Sanatan Dharma), Vaishnavism, Shikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam (historical version as opposed to more recent variants), Goan Catholicism etc. as they are not an insignificant shield to guard the youth (as you mentioned) from cultural imperialism. Regional languages, as the living vehicle of ancient cultures and thoughts, are something I feel should be nurtured and protected, but then common languages such as Hindi and English should continue to play effective practical roles (as brihaspati mentioned), as they create commonality in regional and global level.

I mention Cosmopolitanism not as an alternative to the resurgence and strengthening of above cultures, which I think are essential, but as an alternative to "Territorial Nationalism" or political Nationalism which is a very recent construct that gave rise to nation states in Europe and then in the rest of the world. Our pre-1947 leaders in their fight towards independence were imbued with this form of Indian Nationalism and claimed sovereignty and independence from the Empire based on this principle. Unfortunately for us, there was this little thing of "Two Nation Theory" that came up and a lone operator (with instigation and help of others of course) was quite effectively able to whip up support for a separate home land for the "other nation", also as a result of this kind of political Nationalism, which essentially says that every "nation" has to have a home land (nation state). Although Wikipedia is not a reliable and comprehensive source, but it is not bad as a quick refresher and reference point, for more on Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism please look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitanism

I think "Territorial Cosmopolitanism" or political Cosmopolitanism protects and creates a fertile ground for all varieties of individual cultural nationalism, be it based on Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism etc. and at the same time makes us ready for the next transformation which is to merge with EU like larger entities such as a future Asian Union, since it avoids excessive glorification and dependence on a particular territory. Please note that transition from monarchies and empires to nation states and political nationalism associated with it caused much grief in Europe and were probably not unrelated to the two great wars, but eventually Europeans, once they lost their colonial holdings, found that to compete with a large homogeneous entity like the US, they also need to merge and create a bigger unit.

If you think about it, this takes away the difficulty of defining a Nationalism based on an arbitrary territory as is evident in this thread and gives the role and importance of Nationalism back to individual traditional cultures, I thing where it rightly belongs, of course with some sense of practical balance.

Cosmopolitanism points towards an eventual world government, it may or may not happen eventually, in the interim, I think it is time for continent wide Unions as they are already taking shape in different continents.

In general, I believe in two important themes, continuity of cultures and moving towards practical and feasible larger units.

[Keshav]

Keshav, while I agree with many of the points you raise, I do not understand why you use the word communal for our battles. Our kings led a late charge on the invaders to save our national way of life and belief. How is it communal then? Hinduism if seen from the western prism of "separation of church and state" is bound to lead one to wrong conclusions. It is just my assumption that you have not given sufficient thought on this. Maybe I am wrong.

Rest assured, I fully understand what secularism means in the Indian context ("equal representation for all religions" rather than the Western "separation of church and state") and I understand why you're uncomfortable with the word "communal". As an avid reader of history, I know about Privthiraj, the court poet of Akbar, writing his protest poetry to Rana Pratap and the destruction of Somanath.

I was speaking purely in the sense of nation building for all communities. We all want that. In terms of short term gains, you aren't going to convince many people that many of the Muslim kings were rabid fundamentalists by universal standards, which was unfortunately normal for those times (and unfortunately in our times, it seems, every now and then). Or that the original Sufis were fundamentalist Sunnis, much unlike the later ones who were more Dharmic in their philosophical outlook.

Thus, in the common man's perspective, they were all just pointless religious/greedy conflicts. One side won, one side lost. Simple as that. I'm sure there are many Muslims who still believe some of the more infamous Muslim kings (Gauri, Ghazni, Khilji, Timurlane, etc.) were more tolerant than they actually were.

In the larger context, I was saying that they don't really matter. Call me a dhimmi or whatever, but the British gave us history and gave us a narrative that simply does not exist before Shivaji/Aurangzeb. India may have been great in ancient times, but it lost that foundation a long, long, long time back.

Its time to look forward instead of back in the abyss of what India was for much of its history.

I think this conversation is off-topic, but to be honest, I don't know what exactly we're supposed to be discussing.

[brihaspati]

Let us take the bull by the horns: the issues in the core that need sorting ;

(1) relation between the state and practised religions, who prevails over the other in case they clash over a certain point - state or religions, the question of convergence of faiths to a more common ground, acceptable and unacceptable features of any religion allowed to be practised, question of possible reformulation of faiths if necessary, question of reformulated faith of the majority as a starting point or not

(2) question of equality before the law, including gender equality as relevant and feasible (under current limitations of knowledge and technology for example male right to conceive a child physically is not feasible and associated legal rights cannot be claimed)

(3) question of compulsory, common, general education up to a certain level, including one common language to be learnt compulsorily in addition to the regional ones, and the components of that education - including history where unedited, unabridged source material is explicitly inlcuded, and made available to all students.

(4) question of compulsory inclusion in a social security network, including a national health scheme, national insurance scheme, role of incentives

(5) question of right to free speech without restriction, including the right to discuss threadbare any ideology and all religions -and right to all that is mentioned in (2,3,4)

(6) the declared right of the state to intervene anywhere the principles and rights behind (2,3,4) are being violated or overturned, as well as remove any regime that consistently carries out policies aimed at or resulting in disruptions within the core to the principles and rights behind (2,3,4).

(7) duty of always choosing the nation over any non-nation when faced with such a choice, duty to serve the country militarily if required, duty to serve the executive government if required, duty to be productive to the best of abilities, duty to promote national interest over self when faced with such a choice - and the legal right of the state to enforce this.

[brihaspati]

Keshavji,

I think this conversation is off-topic, but to be honest, I don't know what exactly we're supposed to be discussing.

I started the thread with the aim of discussing and debating the current perspectives of the subcontinent under a core-periphery model. I did not explicitly mention nationalism, for the very reasons that I did not want to limit ourselves by the existing political boundaries, or ideologies. I am trying to look at the future, where boundaries will merge, change, and reshape -and we have to think of the total area, comprehensively and not just as India limited by its political boundaries. In this, as I had feared specifics of nationalism has come up, as the basis of the core question. This question is legitimate, and we cannot avoid this question. Our fundamental tactical and strategic paralysis as evident in the Mumbai episode and its aftermath stems from this total confusion, and lack of clarity of what the core means for us - what it stands for, and what it should stand for. These are the questions hopefully we will be able to thrash out.

[brihaspati]

Keshavji wrote
I was speaking purely in the sense of nation building for all communities. We all want that. In terms of short term gains, you aren't going to convince many people that many of the Muslim kings were rabid fundamentalists by universal standards, which was unfortunately normal for those times (and unfortunately in our times, it seems, every now and then). Or that the original Sufis were fundamentalist Sunnis, much unlike the later ones who were more Dharmic in their philosophical outlook.

Thus, in the common man's perspective, they were all just pointless religious/greedy conflicts. One side won, one side lost. Simple as that. I'm sure there are many Muslims who still believe some of the more infamous Muslim kings (Gauri, Ghazni, Khilji, Timurlane, etc.) were more tolerant than they actually were.

In the larger context, I was saying that they don't really matter. Call me a dhimmi or whatever, but the British gave us history and gave us a narrative that simply does not exist before Shivaji/Aurangzeb. India may have been great in ancient times, but it lost that foundation a long, long, long time back.

Its time to look forward instead of back in the abyss of what India was for much of its history.

I disagree with the idea that in the common man's perspective they were all just pointless/greedy conflicts. This is simply not true and unfounded by any comprehensive sociological studies. One example comes to my mind is that of studies made by Jadunath Sarcar about late medieval Bengal, and impact of Mughal and Maratha depredations on the common people as surviving in folklore, persistent songs/poems/sayings/narratives. My own experience is that narratives of religious and state repression sourced by religious claims do survive over generations in most communities - the difference between the Hindu and the Muslim is that of "memory of pain and shame of defeat/torture/rape/abduction/exploitation" and "meomory of past glory of being able to defeat/torture/rape/abduct/exploit and the modern loss of that glory". This is the private part of the narratives - both sides engage in a different reconstruction in their public versions - Islamic academics/media tend to suppress the glorification of past atrocities part in their representations for the non-Muslim world (as that can create political problems given modern standards of expected behaviour) but maintain it within reliable Islamic dissemination circles as a core element for Islamic expansionist agenda - complete erasure of all non-Muslim cultures, by military means, and complete subjugation of all populations to the authority of Islamic theologians (Islam does not separate the state and theology) by militant Jihad remains a core principle. There has been at least one documented study of this dual face in a recent study by undercover video recordings of this strategy being followed in the Islamic institutions in the UK - as shown by Channel 4.

Not facing up to the past, not analyzing the history, and not being aware of the possibility that there could be a persistent agenda of retrogression to whatever justified biological greed in 7th century Arabia, is dangerous for the future of the nation. If these ideologies did not have an agenda into the future, they would not have sought vehement protection behind a claim of immunity from any criticism whatsoever. They would have faced debate or exposure of any or all of their textual claims and expositions without so much concern about negative interpretations.

[Abhi_G]

Its time to look forward instead of back in the abyss of what India was for much of its history.

Which history sorry? British/colonial version?? JNU version??

If everything was so pointless then wonder why commoners fought tooth and nail to protect their ways of life, women jumped in the Jhelum repeatedly to save their honour even during 1948 J&K invasions. Being sold in the heera mandis of lahore would have been much better!

[Keshav]

Kudos to everyone who is involved in putting forth their own individual ideas. This will be one of those game changing discussions on BR and should have been talked about back in '47.

In response to my question, I got the following answers:

1) BSR Murthy: To me nationalism means respect for and fondness of one’s own country and its cultural, linguistic and religious ethos. It is a spirit of commonality that connects all of us and makes us think beyond self. It is a sense of pride in your country’s peoples and collective history. Nationalism is a creed that unites all of us in a patriotic duty to fight external and internal threats.

2) Shiv (summed up): Respect for diversity, clearly demarcated political borders, a solid constitution, as well as people who form a strong central government and a well trained military (obviously formed by people who want to fight) and respect for the law of the land within certain political boundaries.

3) Brihaspati: Nationalism is a sense of belonging to a group of human beings who share a mutually recognized and acknowledged set of ascriptions that takes precedence over blood-relations, kinship, and necessarily conatins a concept of a physical "centre", a natural habitat or a "homeland".

4) Samuel: Actions that sustain the nation indefinitely.

5) John Snow:
All they have to do is follow the dharma, that is the laws as in constitution which is document that elders representing(hope) the praja have formulated.

when these two entities follow the rule of law and also the enforcers of law follow the dharma thats nationalism.
Its as simple (transactional analysis as )

6) vsudhir: nationalism is an affirmation of allegiance to an ethical nation.

Theories for national integration:
Brihaspati: Core-Periphery model
A Kalam: Cosmopolitanism.

--------------------------------------------

(Would like to personally address some of the other responses in the thread)

We unite on ideas, but these ideas have to be sufficiently rooted in the cultural language of the people to be conceivable and within acceptance range. You can talk revolution, but in the language of tradition.

I agree. There's not a person out there who doesn't understand the idea of "azaadi".

Battles are neither communal nor entirely meaningless. Battles are there for survival. War is costly, and is never undertaken lightly - it does mean survival for one group or another. But maybe we can elaborate on this later.

I tried to explain to YogiG that my use of the word of communal was not completely in line with the traditional usage of the word. I think in India of all places, war was very much taken lightly. I suppose they could be seen in the light of survival.

I would like to find out forum members opinion about Cosmopolitanism as an alternative to territorial Nationalism. To me preservation and continuity of the multitude of historical cultures, small or large are positive and necessary for the long term health and survival of each community. Although I agree that some form and degree of territorial Nationalism is not without merit, Cosmopolitanism seems to foster a much more comfortable ecosystem for coexistence and continuity of diverse cultures.

Welcome to the forum! Excellent thoughts all around.

I think the idea of Cosmopolitanism reflects the sub-continent prior to the British and partially during Islamic rule on the sub-continent. In that sense, India was light years ahead of the world in terms of tolerance and diversity, but through the lens of Western history, Indian history is all backwards.

When the West was busy trying to conquer the world, the nation was the most powerful because it utilized all its resources to fight and to conquer (this applies to before the advent of the nation state). Its my assertion that India understood the "balance of power" and therefore Cosmopolitanism and did not attempt to create a unified state many times in its history. It only happened three times, and even then, it was not complete. No one has ever directly ruled over the entire sub-continent.

So after WWII, when Europe was busy trying to fashion some new fangled idea called "the balance of power", India was forced to become a nation. And while Europe is creating the EU and moving away from the strictly defined nation state, here we are trying our best to define ourselves and create a more powerful nation rather then govern some well defined space (lets say for convenience, the Asian Union).

I think ultimately, what will happen is not a radical shift one way or the other, but a moderation between the two ala the EU, where political borders are recognized but rights and the types of governance can be agreed upon and made universal from place to place.

In India and Pakistan more than Bangladesh, you have a situation where the "country" is literally its own continent, with each state representing a completely unique culture. The difference then is that you also have border cultures, such as Marathi people who live in the northwest of present day Andhra, Gujaratis in Maharashtra, etc. That continuity and fluidity, which is not hampered by geological lines (see Tom Friedman's latest article on India for further explanation) can help us with cultural and national integration.

A nationalist press wouldn't distort, deny or hide the truth about the country in a 'patriotic' fit because allegiance to truth cannot contradict that to an ethical nation. Similarly, the core ethics - truth, liberty, sustainability, tolerance - are immutable and ought to embody the nation.

Great point. I think we as BRfites should do our best to uphold this notion. Discussions on the nature of morality are probably not the best for a military forum but it all seems very timely considering our current discussion about national integration as a strategic tool.

"COSMOPOLITANISM" is a great concept in theory, but it generates people who are missing something at their core - moral strength. Look at the young Indian urban class in Dilli and Mumbai and Bengalooru for example.

What do you mean by "moral strength"?

Narayanaji don't you think its this class of people who tend to re-discover their beliefs after having a gala time with babes, booze and Pink Floyd in their youth. I mean look at the evanjehadis and all other assorted "oh I found god again" types. I think the situation might turn on its head in a short while especially with the rise of tier 2/3 towns.

I hope you don't mind if I respond to this. I honestly don't think we should add those moral caveats to the young or the old. Does it really matter if they were or are into babes/booze/bollywood? None of these are pre-requisities or roadblocks to clear thinking. I doubt Arundathi Roy does/did any of this and then consider how much influence she has in India.

There is a forward reference here that requires one to become aware of all of time at all scales. This is impossible of course, and so we must make local approximations. Thus, who is a nationalist now may not be tomorrow and what is nationalism now is not tomorrow. There is no morality necessary per se, just survival or sustenance, and the polarity of morality can change as the local neighborhood transforms.

Good point. I think this plays into Brihaspati's point that we should be ready to change our thinking as necessary and some people do it out of desire to mix things up and keep them interesting.

This is the reason I wanted to bypass the question of nationalism per se, and started out from the concept of a core and periphery that retains a spatial sense of "centre", a set of common ascriptions broadly felt by members of the core, and a sense of the "other", the "other" that does not belong to the "core", and an awareness of an intermediate gray zone, the periphery - that separates the core and the "non-core".

Brihaspati, I think you're going to have write a full fledged essay on this topic and expand your ideas fully. Your core-periphery theory sounds like one of those game changers. Maybe write to Newsweek, Frontline, Stratfor, etc. or just post it on BR?;)

"truth" can be relative, and Dharmic should have linguistically meant the neutral "characteristic" or "that which binds/holds". We are always struggling with the "truth" - we hear of "truths" being handed out by historians - who suppress and misrepresent from their own beliefs and agendas, consciously or subconsciously. "that which binds" could actually contain elements that really "binds" and does not let us move forward. We have to be very careful when we discuss such historical elements in our "nationalism" - for we can make mistakes in both direction.

Good point. I suppose thats why the French liberals were called revolutionaries. You sometimes have to move out of your comfort zone in order to make real change.

I have tried to say before also that the Bharatyia philosophies never micromanage, they are simply at most "meta-religions" - a framework of thought, and analyis of methodologies to arrive at religions perhaps but not religions themselves.

Definitely one of the brightest observations of political Bharatyia ( ) thought.

[AKalam]

Thanks to Muppala and to Brihaspati for the welcome. For my part, I am glad to be here and to be able to share some thoughts and ideas. I am sorry about the little confusion about the choice of my username and about disclosing where I am originally from. Sometimes I found that ideas can stand on their own without knowledge of their source, but I have no problem with sharing information about myself, if it is thought to be relevant.

Islam's record has not been shown to be disruptive in the middle east - primarily because it wiped out all contary voices. In two places Islam had a problem - because it could not complete its military agenda and wipe out all opposition - in Spain/Eastern Europe and in India. Islam's problem is that if it fails militarily it becomes the problem forever for others.

I agree that Islam succeeded in most places by wiping out other competing imperial ideologies. In Spain, it had a foot hold on a corner of a larger continent and as the greater European continent transformed and improved its own situation, it (Islam) was eventually pushed back from this corner. In places where the population is sparse and hence a traditional culture not so strong, it easily wiped out or I should say rather absorbed existing traditional culture into itself as happened with the first wave of Khilafa. But whenever it faced large more dense population concentration of ancient civilizations and empires, it ran into a brick wall, as it was in Europe and so was the case in the subcontinent. Although Islamic entities had borders with China as they drove them out of Central Asia, except for Timur Lang, no one even tried a conquest of China. The conversion of ancient Persian civilization was also a slow process that happened over many centuries, if I remember correctly.

I don't want to bore people with too much history, but I want to make some interesting points, as I think they might be relevant. Islam as an idea as it started in 7th century Arabia was taken up as a social movement and at the same time as a tool of imperial conquest, kind of similar to what the Russians did after the Bolshevik revolution with communism, as they continued and expanded on the Tzarist empire. After the 4 Khilafa's there was an Arabic or more appropriately Syrian dynasty based in Damascus, then there were more Iranian influenced Abbasids who moved the capital to Baghdad. Soon the control of the empire slowly drifted towards the Central Asian Turkics such as Seljuks, Khorejmians and Karakhans and finally came the Mongols which at one stroke changed the entire Asian picture. Mongols were the equal opportunity disruptors of the time and pretty much disrupted everyone from Kievan Rus to Song China and Korea and everyone in between. Ironically Turkic sultans in Delhi successfully kept out the preIslamic mongols, but Delhi Sultanate eventually succumbed to Timur Lang, a latter day Turk of Mongol descent. Because of some twist of fate, Western Europe (because of Ogedei's death) and Japan (because of Typhoons) got spared and ancient cultural sovereignty and continuity were preserved in these two corners. I find it interesting that people from these two corners eventually colonized (in case of Japan, just made an unsuccessful attempt) the rest of the planet and caused much disruption in the America's and Oceania where entire cultures were wiped out, not to mention the more populous cultures and civilizations were also affected to varying degrees. Even today these are the very same cultures that have the highest per capita GDP, and hence my repeated emphasis on cultural continuity. Their impact on the planet and human civilization was obviously not all positive, cultural disruption and environmental degradation to name a few, it remains to be seen how much leadership they are going to provide for humanity in general in the future to get us out of the holes we have dug ourselves in.

To go back to the point, Islam used as an imperial ideology varied with each empires, based on the time and place of the empire. For example, the Spanish Islam would be totally different from Turkic Islam among the Karakhan population of Kashgar (in todays Xinjiang). There were some common themes, one of which was that it absorbed quite a bit of local cultures, such as language and other cultural traditions that does not contradict with the core principles, probably out of practical necessity or probably out of intellectual understanding that excessive cultural disruption at one stroke could be unhealthy for a community, this is for the historians to research. So, the bigger and more concentrated the population, the more strong a local culture, the more gradual the conversion and the process of assimilation, as we saw in the subcontinent. In case of the subcontinent, as everyone knows, the first wave of Khilafa empires influence was limited to Soutwestern part of present day Pakistan. The Turkic's eventually made in roads and were responsible for Islamization of Northern India. I think much of the atrocities against local population happened also during this initial period of conquest. Except for Timur's invasions, the Mongol influenced Turkics did not play much role in the subcontinent before Babur who founded Mughal dynasty. He was a Timurid as well as Chingisid and followed to some extent the Yasak (code of conduct set up by Chingis Khan), in addition to Sunni Hanafi Islam, common in Central Asia at the time. So the Mughals who were essentially transplanted Mongols in Central Asia, absorbed to some extent in local Turkic population there, did retain some of the shamanic traditions of the Mongols and hence the liberal and unorthodox streak among them, if I am not mistaken. They were the first to make a practical military alliance with Rajputs to consolidate power. But Aurangajeb a latter day Mughal, much removed from the Central Asian tradition, was an exception and probably hastened the downfall of the empire with his authoritarian and orthodox bent.

But Islamic conquest of subcontinent was never complete, in fact the rise of Maratha empire founded by Shivaji and the Shikh empire founded by Guru Nanak shows that local cultures did transform, learn and evolve in response to this external foreign rule and threat and eventually formed an effective counter force. I believe both of these empires, although based on a local core ideology, were relatively neutral towards people of various faiths and employed Muslims in their administration and army. The British were effective in finding their niche in the subcontinent and were able to fill a vacuum left by conflicts between several subcontinental forces, such as the Sikh, Maratha, Afghan and Mughal and their weakening as a result of these conflicts.

In the whole of the subcontinent, the reasons for the modern confusion about the impact of Islam is primarily becuase of two factors : (1) Indian Thaparaite School of history's regime backed reconstruction that erased all records of non-Muslim military resistance and eventual military reversal of Islamic forces, as well as the persistence of this resistance right from the first advent of Islam, off from public discourse and education. They also paint a false picture of the spread of Islam by completely peaceful means mainly at the hands of Sufis who were always very non-militarist and peaceful in their preaching. I am not discussing the reasons for this behaviour here. However, as you are from BD, I am sure you know that the early Sufis were far from peaceful - they used military tactics not only to impose their faith, but also collected brides in this way (even though these stories are later on represented as love stories which happen on the eve of the battle or immediately afterwards) - and in BD definitely they fought against Buddhist or Vaishnava kings and societies, unused by principle and practice to Jihadi warfare (which at least one preacher from the middle east was quite experienced in). But the majority of non-Muslims did not convert, because they escaped into more remote regions, or retreated into more difficult terrain from where they could continue to fight and hold on to their culture - Islam occupied the more easily accessible, and fertile regions. A big part of our current problems stem from this determination of non-Muslims not to go under Islam, and Islam's brutal tactics of winning converts - this is a memory sustained by oral traditions handed down over the generations and is outside the control of regime sponsored historians. This has created divides that need a coming together of the peoples, bypassing the "theologians", and it will be more difficult from the Islamic side, rather than the Hindu side.

About cruelty of Muslims, specially in case of the subcontinent, it probably has to do with the harsh battlefield tactics of the Central Asian Steppe nomads, first from the Turkics and then of course the Mongols or to be more correct Turko-Mongol Mughals. In the steppe, it was common practice to decimate entire tribes or peoples who resisted, so this must have carried over in the subcontinent as well to some extent. I am not trying to defend Islam as an ideology, but just making a point for greater understanding, because these atrocities were committed by a specific group of people who have not so long ago converted to Islam and were using Islam as an imperial ideology of conquest. They were not much removed from pre Islamic Turkic and Mongol warriors. The pre-Islamic Turkic and Mongol warriors did not whip up a Jihad, but they were probably as, if not more, vicious in their battle field practices.

About conversions, I think it is very much specific to time and place. The original Khilafa part of the subcontinent had many centuries to absorb and eventually become a part of that culuture. During the Turkic period in North India, the impression I have is that the ruling military class was not much interested in conversion, because that would reduce their revenue base (Jijya). They were happy to make alliance with local Hindu Rajas and leave local administration intact. But as happened with other Islamic conquests, whenever a new frontier opened up under the Islamic rule, it opened a flood gate for the neighboring Islamic people to move in and set up shop (usually merchants or Sufi dervish) as there was no concept of strict country and citizenship under Islam. These merchants and the holy men worked together with the imperial rulers as the eyes and ears of the empire, feeling the pulse of the masses. Most of these people did not bring their women, so they had to marry locally, and yes some beautiful women could be taken by force, wife kidnapping is still an accepted practice among Central Asian nomads, such as the Kyrgyz and Kazakh. Forced conversions, I am sure happened, as there were fanatics among the rulers, as there were normal more saner individuals. But if we look at the concentration of Muslims in the subcontinent, I think Punjab and Bengal have the highest and both of these states had to be divided at partition because of this. I do not know much about Punjab, but my guess is that Sufi's were a strong influence there for conversion and so it was the case in Bengal. Bengal also had a unique dynamics where the Mughals wanted to develop wet rice cultivation in this perennial water logged area using holymen and local indigenous people under them as teams. Forests were clear cut, just as it is happening in Amazon rain forest today to establish new agri-business communities. Much of this work was done by the local Hindu Rajas and Zamindars, who functioned as partners and financiers. These new communities of largely indigenous people eventually became Muslims and the successful wet rice cultivation projects contributed to make Bengal a bread basket for the Mughal empire at those times. As a result of this, there is a heavy concentration of Muslims specially in the Bhati (delta areas closer to the Ocean) area of East Bengal.

The following is a good reference material on this subject, specific to Bengal:

http://www.escholarship.org/editions/vi ... nd=ucpress

I think Man is essentially a brutal animal, when absolute power is given in some hands, they will abuse it. That brutality happened during Islamic rule cannot be ruled out, but it may not have been as systemic as it is made out to be and much of it may not have been because of Islam, as I tried to point out. Islam has nothing special as an imperial ideology, it depended or will depend on how people in particular circumstance use it. I think Islams record as a cultural disruptor is probably less than Jesuit and Evangelicals and definitely much less than god-less anti-spiritual Marxism and all other assorted versions of it, if you look at the historical scenes at various part of the globe. Of late, due to some late new versions of Islam and the associated violence that continues, and also due to the fact that Israel and Zionists elsewhere have started to perceive the whole of Islamic people and their faith as their enemy number one, much propaganda and vilification has become common.

But I do agree that their have been efforts to white wash some of the unpleasant historical facts. We also need to keep in mind that our former colonial rulers worked overtime to emphasize these unpleasant facts sometimes, if I am not mistaken, specially after the revolt of 1857 and created a lot of myths, some of which may or may not have been based on reality. In my opinion, history should be brought out as it happened exactly, but it is a difficult thing to do, specially when we have to depend on heresay and few written records and then these records also were not unbiased.

The other thing to consider is that the vast majority of Muslims in the subcontinent were wholely descended from local converts and very few are descended from the armed military who committed the attrocities. Even if some are, by now most carry significant local descent. And lastly can we hold grand children responsible for the crime of their great great ... grand fathers.

The current brutality or "Terrorism" as is commonly known associated with Islam, is a separate subject that everyone knows more or less about. I think it starts with the break up of Ottoman empire and the instabilities created from this break up. Eventually the Paritition also contributed to it. I will try to address it in more detail if people are interested.

I hope you mean the Right-wing traditionalists from the "Hindu" side, for at least people like Moududi, or the Nawabs of Dhaka from the right-wing of Islam were instrumental in the precursors to the Partition.

Yes, I mean people like Savarkar and his followers such as Nathuram Godse who assassinated Mahatma Gandhi, specifically because he agreed to Partition and insisted to help Pakistan with the share of treasury fund. Nawab Salimullah of Dhaka was largely responsible for formation of Bengal Muslim League and partition of Bengal, but I am not aware of any role for later Nawab Habibullah in Partition politics. Religious conservatives like Abul Kalam Azad and Ghaffar Khan were strongly against partition, whereas opportunists like Maududi were initially opposed to it, but eventually supported it, when it seemed inevitable. Savarkar, to his credit saw the future implications of partition and letting Tibets independence slip away under Mao's PLA and its loss as a buffer state with huge strategic implications for the subcontinent. About core and periphery, we can try to develop a core here in South Asia, but as is obvious by now, PRC has already meddled within the South Asia theater sufficiently to make it an Asian theater as opposed to a purely South Asian Theater. If you ask me, the Chinese are sinister, stealthy and quick moving, compared to us South Asians. Mao and his PLA did not lose much time to take over Xinjiang and Tibet, as soon as the PLA won their victory over the Koumintang Nationalist army, while South Asians were busy over Kashmir. In my personal opinion, both Xinjiang and Tibet should have been kept independent and it was not very difficult to do at the time. But now the Chinese have created facts on the ground in Xinjiang and continues to do so in Tibet, after they opened up the rail link to Lhasa as a vital strategic extension of Chinese power in the Tibetan plateu. I think there is an Article 370 that provides demographic protection to the Kashmir valley and needless to say that PRC has taken away those kind of rights for the people of Xinjiang or Tibet. PRC on the one hand sings against terrorism and is scared about Xinjiang breaking away, but at the same time, I believe it covertly supports destabilization of Kashmir, where a large part of the Indian Army is deployed. So understanding between PRC and India is vital and that could become the core, which may or may not include Japan and Russia.

I can see you are an authentic BD now . Probably you did your bit in the recent charge of the urban youth brigade in the Crimean war of BD elections? Apologies if I have offended you. Urbanization can lead to both more disruptions or more homogenization depending on how inclusive it manages to remain. For example, I am sure just asn in India, Pakistan, BD laso generates frustrations in a lot of youth forced to go through the madrassha system/or otherwise not able to gain skills needed to compete successfully in a modern knowledge based economy, and male frustration compunded by the increasing assertion of women to have control over their own bodies. Significantly in comparison, Islamic teaching will provide hints of a much easier way of life, where Jihad promises land, wealth and women in return for military inputs only.

I don't live in Bangladesh, I am an NRB. But I worry about the people of Bangladesh and their future, in fact, after I started studying history, I realized that I do not feel a specific empathy for people bound in those borders, but for people from South Asia, in general, as these borders were drawn up very recently. Also, I had the opportunity to live in Korea for some time and I speak the language, so that gave me an idea about East Asians. I also travel to Central Asia for my vacations, so I am familiar with that part as well. Overall, from living in the US, I feel more empathy towards Asians (from West to East) as compared with people in other parts of the world. About AL winning in this election, I welcome it as it is the people's verdict and wish. The Madrasa system has to evolve to provide marketable skills, otherwise students will stop going to these, unless they want to become a Imam or Mullah or some religious scholar. But this Madrasa system is a small fraction of the total education system in Bangladesh, as far as I know and it is kind of second tier to main stream schools. As everyone is aware, Middle-eastern oil money in recent decades played a big role in their funding and recent expansion.

Wholeheartedly supported, but as a future target - this is practically one aspect of what I meant as expansion of the core, and what is now a periphery should one day become part of the core - this is a process of mutual absorption and inclusions after coming to commonalities, and not conquering of one nations by another. In our core-periphery model, there are not strict national delimitations and boundaries.

The partition provided the opportunity to PRC to move into South Asia. Just as India is aware, I am sure they are also aware that a confrontational policy between Asian powers is not good but they are continuing with aggressive move anyways, so in my opinion they need to be confronted with these issues, if an understanding cannot be reached then a move should be made to go with the remaining powers such as Japan and Russia. In my opinion, piece meal and half hearted efforts like ASEAN, APEC, Central Asian Union, GCC, SAARC are useful, but in the end not as important as a viable Asian Union, and it will happen only if at least some of the Asian regional powers are serious. The West will not like it, as it will reduce their influence, but they didn't ask us when they started their European Union, I believe it is none of their business and they have no argument against such an Union, while there is already precedent for an EU, African Union etc.

What is minority within a particular nation-state is probably a majority within the larger core-periphery context and so on - more imprtantly a certain core set of principle should take precedence over all other rights - right to equality before the law, right to free speech without any restraint, gender equality, right to education and social security, duty of defence and productive input should take precedence over all other rights including religion and culture - irrespective of minority or majority. These rights and duties are relevant for the modern period - and no one, majority or minority should be allowed to hide behind obsolete excuses to maintain exploitative forms.

My dear friend, if one day BD and us can agree on these basics, we will have an Union, no doubt about it!

Yes, Hindu minority in Bangladesh or Pakistan are actually part of a South Asia wide Hindu majority and Muslims although they are from many diverse ethnic groups, countries and regions, put together they would be a size-able population in Asian Union. Strictly speaking Muslims can hardly be included in one group, even South Asian Muslims such as Punjabi and Bengali Muslims could not get along in former Pakistan. Few hundred thousand Bihari Muslims remained in Dhaka since 1971 in refugee camps waiting to be repatriated to Pakistan. Finally for the first time, they agreed to become Bangladeshi citizen, received voter IDs' and voted in this election. Counting population, Han Chinese, Hindu and Muslims (if they can be counted as a group) would be three core groups with more or less a billion each. The rights you mentioned are accepted universal human rights, the challenge is to ensure and enforce them in practice. An Asian Union has to be powerful enough to identify and correct non-compliance by member nations, just as it happens in EU today.

As for BD becoming a part of India, if it was up to the masses, they are already voting with their feet, the problem lies with the elite and middle class that was instrumental in supporting and causing Partition and will uphold independence at all cost. As for me, personally, if there was a referendum and I was a voter, I would voter for it. I think it is a bit like getting spoilt with too much attention from other nation states with embassies and other nonsense, all of whom are there to mess up things even more. That is why once a nation, no matter how small, becomes independent, unless it sees a substantial economic carrot, like Turkey sees in EU, no nation wants to lose control of their own fate, no matter how miserable their circumstances are. Actually for the elite, its not miserable at all, they enjoy the fruits of independence, whereas the masses suffer. But to become a part of Asian Union, that would include all exotic nations of Asia, is a much more attractive proposition for all Asian nations, I think, including Bangladesh.

Relevant efforts for an Asian Union:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Cooperation_Dialogue
http://www.acddialogue.com/about/
http://www.au2010.org/backgroundarticles.htm
http://www.boaoforum.org/html/adout-ls-en.asp