The national state is under unprecedented assault ..The Soviet Union having disintegrated, the more imperial elements of the US administration are moving in for the kill. For them, the objective is the establishment of pax Americana in what they consider is a unipolar world in

terms of military and political power. The objective is to be gained as peacefully as possible and at minimum cost. There is to be no repetition of Vietnam nor even of Operation Desert storm. Casualties, above all, are to be avoided. The best way, therefore, is to accentuate conflict

and then dominate both sides by mediation and peace- brokering.

 ... This strategy ... has been in operation in our subcontinent as well. Pakistan's undeclared war against us has spread beyond Kashmir and Punjab ...

 Only those blinded and deafened by delusions about their supposed historical role ... can choose to ignore the signals that these developments send. The danger is that they seem to be ignored by those at the helm of affairs.

 Another menacing development is the links that are being established between important sections of business and terrorists of different types ... At a different level, there is the unbridled assertion of economism by the trade union movement before which the government surrenders.

It has no moral leg to stand upon, of course, to oppose the unions after the ... surrender to big business and black money ... in the so-called dream budget.

 Nationalism is a product of historical development. A nation is neither something present from the beginning of time nor is its advent sudden. The accumulation of experience leading to the shaping of a distinctive and shared identity results in the emergence of a nation. That specific moment is almost universally associated with a movement succeeding in winning a state to which willing even joyful allegiance is extended ...

 The movement, however has to be of a specific kind and it has to build upon historical inheritance. The movement has to embrace all regions, languages, communities and classes which have, in varying measure, shaped that inheritance and been shaped by it. Conflict cannot be avoided but the point is to internalise it and even to use it to advance the existing unity.

 Rigid Definition

India's emergence and continuation as a nation and the persistence of its national state is a copybook example of the historical generalisation ... India can be said to have begun in Mohenjodaro and become on August 15, 1947. Its inheritance was a treasure of unified diversities. Colonial rule came in the way of this inheritance becoming the foundation of a modern state. The national movement was much more a reassertion and enriching of this inheritance than even a movement of resistance to and elimination of foreign rule.

 Fifty years have passed ... India has formed itself more decisively in these five decades than in previous centuries. Democracy, secularism and comprehensive development have led to our irrevocable establishment.

 The emergence in politics of those from the lower depths has serious negative features, especially in the shape of casteism ... The national inheritance and the reinforced nationalism of the years of freedom have also shaped their personalities. The dangerously misleading response of pandering to casteism and even glorifying it as social progress overlooks the nationalism of the newly-emerged.

 Denial of nationalism in the name of region and caste is, however, not as damaging as the attempt to construct an alternative nationalism. In the name of cultural uniformity which, in fact, does not exist, what is sought to be built is an excluding nationalism. Those engaged in this endeavour imagine that the more rigid the definition of nationalism, the greater will be its strength. The opposite is true both of nationalism in general and of our nationalism in particular.

We have become Indian by acceptance and addition and we have established India by giving power to unified plurality. This has, above all, been possible because of the winning of the national state ...

Globalisation, it is said, has made the nation redundant. Not so and not even, in the immediate present ... Those threatened can resist successfully only if they have recognised their own existence.                                                   (Source: The Times of India, 10 December, 1997)

A Comment on Hindutva Thesis

I would have enjoyed reading 'The New Age Hindu' by Mr. K.R. Malkani (October 20) had I been a schoolboy ... Malkani can choose to speak or write like a grown baby ... We live in a civilised society and a  scientific age. We are approaching the end of the second millennium. Humanity is full of hope and dreams for a great future. At a time like this we cannot allow our intellect to march backward like a crab to hibernate in Mr. Malkani's fabled kingdom. We cannot opt for obsolete customs and exploded myths. We cannot return to an age long past ...

Malkani's article is a jumble of cumbersome cliches  and tedious truism. His equations like Hinduism = Indian nationalism, or religion = culture, or Hindus = the people of India, are utterly untenable. He does not seem to realise that his definitions are as ridiculous as a theory like 'Every cat has a tail'. He sorely needs to read some good books on the history of India vis-a-vis the history of Hinduism to know that his story is not the only story of India's glorious past or that his vision of India's prosperous future is not the only vision of India. He should note, above all, that India is much greater than Hinduism and Hindus. Nationalism is essentially a politico-territorial concept. Mr. Malkani, therefore, must not try to Hinduise Indian nationalism ... - R.P. Sharma                                       (Source: The Times of India, 14 November, 1997)