What makes a NATION a ‘NATION’?
After the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics in which, India won 7 medals, a gold, a pair of silver medals, and 4 bronze medals, people around the country rejoiced and celebrated each and every medal like they had won it themselves, well who can blame them, Olympics comes around once every 4 years and is the epitome of an athlete’s perseverance, dedication, and hard work. Its motto, Citius — Altius — Fortius which when translated to English is FASTER-HIGHER-STRONGER and is a display of the competition between the best sportspersons around the world in various disciplines, and to win a medal at this competition is what a person dedicates his whole life towards.
Something which made my brain tick was, I read a lot of news stories saying Athlete X from Haryana wins the bronze medal for ‘INDIA’, Athlete Y has made ‘INDIA’ proud and hails from Manipur. If the press was meticulous enough to point out which region these athletes were from, why does the collective of the nation feel proud when a person wins a medal even though they might not share the same religion, might not belong to the same region, or even speak the same language but one word, INDIA seems to unite everyone under one banner, one flag and one identity.
A nation simply comprises people who live on a stretch of contiguous land to satisfy their basic needs, FOOD, CLOTHING, and SHELTER. There was no concept of nationalism when it came to ancient civilizations like the Mayans, the Egyptians, or even the Harappan. People cultivated land, took up a trade, or worked as labourers to fulfill their basic needs and wants. This leads me to my next question, does religion or religious belief unify people under the banner of one NATION? Perhaps yes, when we see countries like Pakistan or even the early days of the Balkan region in Europe, boundaries were drawn based on the religious beliefs and sentiments of the people living in that region.
But what about India, a land so vast and enriched with so much diversity, with language changing every few hundred kilometers when you travel through the country, what has kept it together for so long? Even though some people are extreme right-wing, some are apolitical and some are liberals, what keeps us going?
Is it history that binds us together as citizens? I’d argue not really because for the longest time in its history, the entire subcontinent was broken up into different kingdoms and constant conflicts and battles among them with an exception of the Mughal rule which almost conquered the entire region, there isn’t really a strong cord which can bind people together historically
Like the French revolution which exploded from 3 simple words; LIBERTY, EQUALITY and FRATERNITY, the concept of INDIA or the ethos of INDIA is based on Article 15(2), the ANTI DISCRIMINATION LAW which states that citizens shall not on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth be denied access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment. On a first read, it might seem a normal thing now, but with a nation so vast and unique in every form we can imagine, this is what binds us together. India and its people are held together by a concept or rather by an optimistic hope of a utopian society which we are still hoping for today.
To comment on whether this law is upheld as the makers of the constitution would have wanted to is another debate that has been going on for decades and ground reports would suggest that its rather opposite, discrimination based on the grounds of caste, sex, religion, race still is rife in India and far from the perfect society we hope for, but the fact that we as people have not disbanded the nation and continue to struggle and work together to get closer to that dream is what keeps the nation and its people going.
By no means is INDIA or any country for that matter perfect, each region has its own issues and problems which haven’t been addressed for the longest time. We might criticize the way things are in India and feel things are a lot better elsewhere cut to: a party, free drinks, all the uncles are discussing how it’s way better in the United States? We’ve all been there, but these same people who after 2 drinks start saying how shit their life is in this hellhole, are the same people who run amok when India wins something at the global level.
