Nations and their Nationalism

A nation is a “imagined” group whose members’ shared ideas, goals, and beliefs bind it together. It is predicated on some presumptions that people have about the group that they identify with.

Similar Views

Firstly, beliefs form the foundation of a nation. Secondly, nations are not tangible entities like mountains, rivers, or buildings.

A nation exists when its people feel that they belong together. It refers to the collective identity and future vision of a group that desires to have an autonomous political existence.

History

• Secondly, individuals who identify as nationalists also embodie a feeling of ongoing historical identity.

• Indian nationalists claimed that India has a long and continuous history as a civilisation and that the country’s foundation is this continuity and unity of civilisation. They did this by citing India’s ancient civilisation, cultural heritage, and other accomplishments.

Territory

• Thirdly, countries associate themselves with specific regions. People develop a feeling of collective identity through living together on a specific location for an extended length of time and sharing a common past.
• Individuals who identify as nationalists refer to their homeland. They hold a particular meaning for the area they inhabited and the land they have lived on, and they identify it as their own. The Indian people identify with the subcontinent’s rivers, mountains, and geographical areas. However, the desire for a homeland has been a major source of strife throughout the world because multiple groups of people may claim the same region.

Shared Political Beliefs

• Fourth, the thing that sets groups apart from states is their common future vision and desire for autonomous political life.
• In a democracy, the most desirable foundation for a political community or nation-state is a shared commitment to a set of political beliefs and ideals. Members of the political community are obligated to fulfill certain duties within it.
• When a people recognize and accept their responsibilities to one another, the nation is stronger.

Common Political Identity

Many people think that a common cultural identity—like speaking the same language or having the same ancestry—is what unites people as a nation. While sharing holidays, festivals, and symbols can strengthen bonds between people, they can also be dangerous to the ideals that democracy stands for.

• There are two explanations for this:

→ First, the world’s major religions are internally diverse. Every religion has various factions that have distinct interpretations of its texts and customs.

→ Two, the majority of cultures have a varied range of cultural backgrounds. For these reasons, it is preferable to think of the country in political rather than cultural terms: democracies must emphasize and demand loyalty to a set of values that may be enshrined in the national Constitution rather than adherence to a particular religion, race, or language. They have people of different religions and languages living together in the same territory.

People often think that a nation is made up of people who have similar backgrounds, languages, religions, or ethnicities. But there isn’t a single universal set of traits that all countries have in common. A nation is built up of its people; it is not made up of mountains, hills, land, infrastructure, natural resources, etc. It only exists when individuals feel a sense of unity.

It alludes to the shared identity and plans of a group of people who want to live free and independent political lives. They firmly believe that they are a single unit and that they must work as a cohesive team to advance their nation. We are united as a single entity by our shared history of freedom movement.

In the article, we shall discuss more on Nationalism!