Chauvinism has erupted over Kargil ... but its roots go back further in time - to the consolidation of an aggressive, intolerant and chauvinistic mood built up and fostered by the Sangh Parivar since the late 1980s ...

Whatever the cause, the jingoism over Kargil has brought the question of what kind of a nation we want to be to the fore. For even as an atmosphere of hate for the people of Pakistan - who cannot be held responsible for their elite -overtook us, this suspicion was transferred to our own religious minorities. So we witnessed the amazing spectacle of the members of a community being asked to prove their loyalty to the nation. How do we explain a nationalism that leaves its minorities under a permanent cloud of suspicion? This is the question we need to face.

Conceivably the minorities, whether linguistic or religious or ethnic, are condemned to this fate in a nation-state. For the model ... has always carried within it the dreams of a homogeneous political community. And such dreams inevitably demand that differences are either obliterated or relegated to the margins. Precisely because it wishes to construct viable nation-states out of disparate people and identities, nationalism has assembled its own fantasies of oneness and uniformity.

Linguistic plurality. was subordinated to the needs of a common national culture. And local dialects and regional languages, cultures, and religious ways of life, with which people identify and with which they are identified by, were steamrolled into oblivion ...

Any assertion of a distinct identity has always been regarded with deep suspicion ... But it also reveals itself as articulated prejudices against minority groups.

But history took its own revenge. As in the 1980s and 1990s, civil wars, movements, and discourses centering on identity and recognition swept the globe with considerable force; the brutalities of the nation state were put under the scholarly microscope. The model, it is obvious, has bred its own discontents. The minorities reacted to the forced assimilation of their identities in different ways ...

Political events have challenged the widely held belief that the borders of the nation-state are sacrosanct, that national culture is singular or indeed that particular identities can be coerced into conformity.

It is only with the benefit of hindsight that theorists have come to recognise eight facts about our social and political life. One, that the political community contains a number of cultural communities; some of which may subscribe to persuasions that may be radically incommensurate with that of the majority. Secondly, cultures are important for individuals because they provide their members with meaning systems that help them to negotiate the world. Thirdly, that notions of the individual and the community are not necessarily antithetical as the modernisation theorists had presumed, and that individuals need both autonomy as well as a sense of belonging which the community provides. These two aspects ... may conflict, but they may also complement each other.

Therefore, we have to work out the tensions in a principled and a politically consistent manner. Fourthly, that people not only identify with but are also identified by their cultures, and if these cultures are disparaged or subjected to scurrilous remarks, the self-esteem of the members suffers. Fifthly, that both individuals and their cultural community need to be recognised in the sense of being valued by society, because lack of recognition strips people of their self-worth. Sixthly, that in a society marked by majorities and minorities, it is more than possible that minority cultures will either be subjected to direct attacks, or that they will be subjected to what has been called "benevolent neglect".

The dissolution of cultures, however, harms the individual member ... Therefore - and this is the seventh recognition - we should protect minority cultures through special measures ...

And eighthly, that it is possible to have a national culture that is a loose confederation of several groups, a culture that is tolerant of different ways of life, and a culture that is protective of its minorities. It is equally possible to build a national culture that recognises and values other identities and loyalties smaller than the national, and larger than the national. This is the only politically pragmatic road to a viable national community ... Collectively, this realisation has been encapsuled in the term multiculturalism.

India had recognised the importance of multiculturalism as far back as 1928 in the Motilal Nehru Constitution. And this commitment was reiterated in statements by the leadership of the original Congress party and more importantly by the Constitution ... The debates in the Constituent Assembly presaged contemporary discussions on multiculturalism by at least 50 years. But as Indians (we) have moved away from (our) original commitment to a plural nation towards rabid nationalism ...

We will pay a heavy price for forgetting our historical commitments (unless) we let people belong to the nation in their own way without constantly asking for proof. (The writer is Professor of Political Science, University of Delhi) (Source: The Hindu, 4 August, 1999)