Pride and Patriotism

In this post a couple of days ago, on identity politics, I wrote that in order to constructively go forward:

First, vote out the wannabe fascists wherever you have the right to vote!

And then, compel the political leaders to articulate an inclusive vision that allows for distinct identities within national identities even as we work together as a global humanity. 

What does that mean?  As always, I will end up being autoethnographic in exploring that.

One of my early memories of Hindi, from my early years deep in peninsular India, was from when mother asked the gurkha why he was coming by way early in the night to check on the property, instead of coming much later.  She spoke to him in Hindi.

I was shocked.  Mother knew Hindi?  And, like most kids, I was impressed.  Mothers do know everything!

I never bothered to learn the language, other than during the mandatory couple of years of Hindi language in school.  The older I grew, the more I hated the very thought of learning Hindi, because, by then I had learnt a little bit about the long and rich history of Tamil, and about the politics of imposing Hindi upon us non-Hindi people.

Decades have gone by since those years in Neyveli.  And I have become more fanatical about this issue.  So much was the anti-Hindi sentiment inside me that even in graduate school in Los Angeles, if a couple of Indian students spoke in Hindi when I was also with them, I would let them know that I didn't know Hindi.  The assumption that anybody from India knows Hindi--and should know the language--has always pissed me off to no end.

Understanding the world a lot more has also made me realize that forcing a new language upon people is one of the oldest successful strategies that bastards have always employed.  The stories echo all over the world: From the native peoples in the Americas who were systematically forced to learn alien European languages and, in the process, render dead their own languages, to the Russification in the old Soviet bloc, to the Chinese treatment of Uighurs, to ...

Nine years ago, I quoted this:

A single generation of English education suffices to break the threads of tradition and to create a nondescript and superficial being deprived of all roots

Forcing a language upon people is one of the easiest ways to erase history and tradition.

I have ranted about this issue for a long time.  Perhaps all the easier for me, not because I have been an American for a long time, but because I have always believed that "Indian" is an artificial construct.  Being an American feels more real than the "Indian" that I was.  The political unit of India was where my discomfort was.  

I came to believe that it was a terrible idea to have created an artificial “India” and an artificial “Indian.” Until the British Raj, there was no single political unit that encompassed the geography that we refer to as India. Until the colonization by Europeans, the Subcontinent was like any other place on the planet, with kingdoms large and small. Kingdoms and cultures with long and rich histories. All that history was rudely interrupted by colonization. Centuries of cultural identities were thrown out under a new term called “Indian” in a country called "India."

I had nothing in common with the people from, say, Nagaland or Kashmir.  I could not understand why such an artificial union was created.

Thus, I am not surprised at the intense opposition that continues to grow in Tamil Nadu against the current Hindu Raj's Home Minister and his push for Hindi.    If only the Hindu nationalists who want to force Hindi in every corner of India even half-understood that "to know Tamil" can also mean "to be a civilized human being."

To celebrate my Tamil identity is not the same as demeaning other identities.  To champion Tamil does not mean that I am jingoistic to the extent that I want to force others to be like me.  I have always been suspicious about cries of nationalism.  How could an accidental birth determine everything political?

Nationalism is a danger, especially when such rhetoric spews from the mouths of demagogues.  Over the years, the flag-waving nationalism has gotten me quite worried.  The backdrop of the Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany always remind me that flag-waving mobs don't work out well for humanity.  Yet, here we are in the age of tRump and his base, who cannot see the difference between pride and patriotism versus nationalism.

To wrap this up, I will quote, again, Mario Vargas Llosa:

I believe that the great danger in our age is nationalism, it’s no longer fascism, nor communism. These ideologies have become completely outdated. But in contrast, nationalism is a defect that is always there under the surface and above all, at moments of crisis, can be very easily exploited by demagogues and power-hungry leaders. Nationalism is the great tradition of humankind; unfortunately it’s always present in history.
And so, I believe that it’s the great enemy of democracy. It’s the great enemy of freedom and a terrible source of racism. If one believes that being born into or forming part of a particular community is a privilege, then that is racism. I believe that one must fight nationalism energetically if one believes in democracy, in freedom, especially in this age of mixing and the building of great blocks.

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