Cultural Nationalism - Myths and Reality

" Cultural nationalism is a form of nationalism in which the nation is defined by a shared (inherited) culture, as opposed to, for instance, its ethnicity or its institutions." - Wikipedia.

In the recent years, vested and crooked interests are being served in the name of nationalism, ethnicity, religion along with a topping of our ancient cultural beliefs and practices. Beliefs and practices are mostly dependent on the contemporary conditions prevalent in the country, be it political, social or religious. Our beliefs, the value system are more or less dependent upon how we perceive the world we live in, how it affects our basic needs of life. Once fulfilled, the human mind tries and transcends boundaries which otherwise would seem obsolete or much far-fledged. A sense of aura and belief in the righteousness and truthfulness of our customs and traditions and negating the right to others to try and propagate their beliefs and practices, seems to some as preserving their value system, their culture. Hinduism, Christianity, Islam having the largest number of followers, some sort of a ghettoization occurs. The state and the machinery also to some extent seem to be a mirror image of the society and people start believing that one who accepts the beliefs, practices, customs of the majority can qualify to be one among them or atleast a protege and others seem to be an intrusion into their social sphere. In the recent times, people following other customs and culture are often seen as a threat to the overall integrity and a sense of oneness of the society. People forget that the social fabric woven with the ideas from different beliefs, practices, idealogies interwined makes it even more stronger and divergent. Life on a single platform would seem to be highly monotonous and derived of the pleasure of peeping on the other side of the fence.

The events in India in the last two decades changed the entire scenario of looking at secularism. It all began by the killings of Kashmiri Brahmins by the more fanatic militants and therafter by the growing feeling of hindutva flared by the leadership of Bhartiya Janta Party, RSS and the likes. Suddenly, we started hearing references to the mughal ruler Aurangzeb and Babur, questions like even when hindus are in majority still they can't build a temple at the place of their choice. Society was divided on the basis of caste lines and INDIANS were divided into Hindus, Muslims, Christians. Supplemented by the terrorist activities in the other parts of the world, muslims started being considered as perpetrators of hatred, violence and unrest. Parties like BJP, who initially flourished on the basis of this hindutva brigade find it hard to contain them. Being an Indian has started to find some sort of resonance with the idea that this is a Hindu land and others living here may consider themselves blesses, atleast this is what the political class tried to convey to the general public.

After 1992, cultural nationalism is often confused as nationalism. People assert their nationalism on the basis of culture or beliefs. Cultural nationalism when caters to uniting the nation against myths, superstitions is a great force and a belief which should take the country forward but when it tends to break down the civil society into heterogeneous group often at crossroads with each other then it is nothing more than a myth, a mirage. The younger generation today, on one hand seems to going great guns about the technological advancements, social networking and the western lifestyle but when it comes to giving something to the society, they seem mentally bankrupt. Society is polarised and lines of fire drawn between different communities. People don't trust each other and the real nationalism takes a back seat, a nationalism which should augment the nation building process, actually tries to pull it down. It is high time we give CULTURE and NATION its rightful place and then the country will prosper.