Thread by @shrikanth_krish

France won the FIFA World Cup in the summer of 2018. It was remarked that 15 of the 23 members of the team were of African descent, hailing from countries as diverse as Congo, Morocco, Algeria, Angola and Cameroon.

This re-triggered that age-old question - What is a Nation?

Is the “French” soccer team truly “French”? Or is it not sufficiently French?

How do we organize territories politically?

Is an ethnic, lingual and a religious bond necessary to “hold” a nation together?

Or are these bonds dispensable at the altar of a “liberal” constitution?

There is a tendency in our times to bemoan those who seek an “ethno-cultural” basis for a nation as being “nativist”, “pre-modern”, “illiberal”

There is also a tendency to look up to "cosmopolitanism" as an ideal and a “liberal constitution” as the means to implement that ideal

But these liberal tendencies betray an ignorance of much of human history

Far from being “pre-modern” the “ethno-cultural” nation state is actually a phenomenon of fairly recent provenance. Something that became the norm pretty late in human history- over the past 200/300 years

In the Ancient world the default mode of organizing territories and government was the “Empire” - a model that by its very definition implied cosmopolitanism and heterogeneity.

What held Empires together was an unwritten “Constitution” of sorts that laid down certain principles and norms and a unity of the elites who were held together by what one might call a “classical high culture”

Thus the British Empire, far from being unique, was actually the last of the great Empires. By no means atypical, but merely the last representative of a model that had been pre-eminent for much of human history.

To understand this better let’s look at the political maps of Europe from 200 AD till date. The maps reproduced below are courtesy euratlas.net

Here’s Europe in 200AD - the zenith of the great Roman Empire

What do we notice above? We see an Empire whose territories and dependencies covered much of the continent, and encompassed a very wide range of ethnicities.

Ranging from the Berbers of North Africa to the Celtic tribes of Britannia

What united these very diverse regions was the culture that radiated from Rome. That culture included Roman Law, the Latin language, and other markers of culture like the Roman architecture as represented by the “classical orders”

So you had a man like St Augustine of Hippo, one of the early Church Fathers (354-430AD) who was a North African Berber - racially very remote from the citizens of Rome or for that matter a roman colony like Britain.

Yet Augustine was v much Roman because he wrote in the Latin language and acknowledged the primacy of what one calls “Roman culture”

The Cosmopolitan empire model was very much prevalent even in the Europe of 1000AD. Here’s the map. (source : euratlas.net)

Again we notice that though the great Roman Empire had collapsed, what had replaced it was several other “empires” of smaller extent but that weren’t ethno-cultural nation states by any means

Eg: Spain was ruled by the Arab Moors for several centuries. In 1000AD, southern Spain was still a part of a Muslim Caliphate centered in Cordoba. Hardly an example of an “ethno-religious” nation state

Let's fast forward to Europe of 1600 AD (map source : euratlas.net)

While Europe is much more fragmented than ever before, the basis for the fragmentation is more "dynastic" than "ethno-cultural"

THe Germany of today is represented by a disintegrting Holy Roman Empire with a wide set of states and principalities - that remain divided notwithstanding the common German culture.

So what we see in the Europe of 1600 is -

Neither the Empire model of 200AD - where an overarching elite culture that radiated from Rome commanded a union.

Nor the modern "nation state" model where ethnicity in conjunction with language and sometimes religion defines a nation

Even as late as 1800AD, an age that preceded mass democracy and representative government, we still see that the "ethno-religious" nation state - (that is ironically derided today as nativist and pre-modern) - is not yet a reality.

Europe (1800 AD - euratlas.net)

While some "nation states" have already long assumed an "ethno-cultural" dimension (like France, Spain, England), this is hardly true of all of Europe.

Germany and German speaking Europe remains deeply fragmented as we can see

Now let's look at Europe as recently as 1900AD (euratlas.net)

It is only by 1900 that we see that the "nation state" of Germany has clearly taken shape

But much of Eastern Europe still is stuck in the old "cosmopolitan" Empire model (the Ottomon Empire)

So the much derided "ethno cultural" nation state (which liberals regard as "regressive") was not a reality even in 1900 in Eastern Europe.

While it was a reality in the more democratic and supposedly "liberal" Western Europe.

Let's now jump to Europe in 2000 AD (euratlas.net).

At last we get to see a map where the national boundaries genuinely reflect ethno-cultural divisions!

So is the "ethno-cultural" nation state regressive or "modern"? Seems like a "modern" phenomenon to me!

What we have seen here is not surprising.

It is the movement towards liberal democracy and mass franchise that has caused the shift towards ethnic nationalism.

We have ethnic nationalism because the people want it.

The idea of a nation state is a modern idea. The idea that such a state should have an ethnic cultural or lingual basis is just as modern.

The notion of "Constitutional patriotism" where citizens are encouraged to shed their ethnic identification to the country and instead develop an impersonal loyalty to a "liberal constition" is a denial of modernity in one sense

So where does India fit in all this?

The Indian state is not quite based on ethnicity or language. Or even religion. If those were the bases, we would have many nation states instead of one.

While the Indian nation state recognizes those ethno lingual fault lines in determining its provincial boundaries, it also attempts to construct an overarching nation state that derives its strength not from an ethnic or lingual bond but from a deeper cultural bond

While the liberals pretend that no such cultural bond really exists, and that the Indian nation really is a constitutional artifact, the nationalists believe the cultural bond is real.

It is precisely this cultural bond that Savarkar termed "Hindutva".

One can think of "Hindutva" as an acknowledgment of the deeper Sanskritic Hindu culture that engulfs much of the country - a culture that transcends the barriers of ethnicity and language and even faith

One can think of it as analogous to the "Roman culture" that held the Empire together notwithstanding its remarkable ethnic / lingual diversity

So while India is not quite an "Empire" it tries to marry the constitutionalism and "liberalism" of the modern nation state on one hand with the "Sanskritic / Hindu high-culture" driven "cosmopolitan" political union on the other (something that characterized the Roman Empire)

That to my mind would be the "nationalist" take on the Indian nation state.