ADVERTISEMENTS:
Meaning of Nation and it’s Objective Factors!
ADVERTISEMENTS:
We find a good deal of looseness about the use of the term ‘nation’. Some writers simply equate it with statehood and opine that the people of a state are a nation. More careful writers have, however, avoided such a facile generalization. Among the writers who have recognized that the nation is distinctly an historical phenomenon are Hans Kohn. Ernest Renan, Frederick Hertz, F.L. Schuman, Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V.I. Lenin and J.V. Stalin. Dr. Tara Chand in his History of the Freedom Movement of India Vol. I, 1951, has also adopted this approach.
All these writers and thinkers agree that the nation is an historical and sociological phenomenon, and that the nation evolved out of the amalgam of various racial and kinship groups after the break-up of the slave-owning and feudal societies. There is also a general consensus that the nation is a territorial community as distinct from a racial, tribal or religious group of people.
Objective Factors:
It is fairly common among writers on the subject to speak of some objective factors whose presence, it is pointed out, has been helpful in evolving the nation. It is at the same time asserted that the presence of each or any of them is not absolutely indispensable.
The more important of such factors are: the community of language, geographical contiguity, common economic ties and common history and traditions. But there is no unanimity even in respect of them. As Professor MacIver has pointed out, there are scarcely any two nations which “find their positive support in the same objective factors.”
(i) Race and Kinship:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
While it may be readily conceded that a belief in the unity of race and kinship helps in cementing a people together, to argue that such unity is an indispensable objective factor is another matter. As Renan observes, the truth is “that no race is pure.”
Frederick L. Schuman points out however if “pure races” ever existed, they have long since disappeared as a result of migrations, wars, conquests, travels, intermarriages on the grandest scale over thousands of years. All modern nations have been formed out of peoples of diverse racial and tribal groups.
(ii) Community of Religion:
While admitting that unity of religion has been and can be a great cementing force and has played a significant role in the past in consolidating nations, it cannot be regarded as an indispensable objective factor. As already pointed out, the modern nation is a territorial community.
By its very definition, it includes and embraces all persons, of whatever ethnic stock and religious faith, residing on a permanent basis on the same territory and, therefore, also participants in the history and traditions of the land.
In this age of democracy and secularism to advance religion as an objective factor indispensable for the formation of a nation is to encourage religious bigotry and persecution and thereby to undermine the very foundations of secular democracy.
(iii) Community of Language:
The existence of a common language is considered by many writers and thinkers to be indispensable for the existence of a nation. Herdes and Fichte (1762-1814) were almost the first to emphasize its significance. According to Ernest Barker, “There is the closest of affinities between nation and language. Language is not mere words. Every word is charged with associations that touch feeling and evoke thought. You cannot share these feelings and thoughts unless you can unlock their associations by having the key of language.” Frederick Schuman also points out how language is “the best index of an individual’s cultural environment” and significantly adds that “most of the nations of the earth are nations, not because they are politically independent and socially unified, but because their people use a common speech which differs from that of other nations.” Other writers who have emphasized the great importance of common language for the nation are Ramsay Muir, Hans Kohn, Stalin, etc.
Those who disagree with this view often cite the examples of the United Kingdom and Switzerland, and assert that despite the existence of several languages, the peoples of these states are nations.
On the contrary, there are writers who maintain that Switzerland, like the extinct USSR, is a multinational state. Still others have tried to resolve the difficulty by suggesting that the Swiss French, the Swiss Germans and the Swiss Italians constitute three distinct nationalities of the Swiss nation.
In spite of a common language, the people speaking a common language may not constitute a nation. For example, there are many nations among the English speaking peoples like the British, the Canadians, the Americans, the Australians, the New Zealanders, and so on. A nation is formed as the result of a fairly lengthy and systematic intercourse for generations, which would not be possible without the possession of a common territory.
(iv) Geographical Contiguity:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Contiguous geographical area has been, for some time, assumed to be indispensable for the rise and existence of a nation. Even in the case of Jews, leaving apart the question whether before the establishment of Israel they did or did not constitute a nation, it may be pointed out that their sentiments and feelings were also related to definite homeland.
Living together on the same geographically contiguous area, conversing in the same language, having the same historical experiences, people are apt to develop common sentiments and outlook, as well as strong attachment to the common soil. This sentiment for one’s motherland is just another name for patriotism.
(v) Community of Economic Ties:
This point was first emphasized by Marx. Since then its significance has been growingly realized. When it was conceded that the nation was a historical and a sociological phenomenon, attention began to be paid to conditions under which nations arise. A little investigation made it clear that the nation as a territorial community could not exist in the ancient period or in the ages of slavery and feudal particularism.
The nation arises out of the fusion of clans, tribes and ethnic groups. According to Lenin, it is the growth of exchange between regions, and the creation of a home market which leads to the creation of nationalities. A people do not become fully consolidated into a nation so long as they are not united by common economic ties, which the developing capitalist mode of production creates.
(vi) Common History or Traditions:
The possession of a common language, geographical contiguity and common economic ties are bonds which make the people living together share same experiences and develop a certain amount of common outlook and also have common aspirations. Usually, they are people who have lived together, suffered together, worked together and felt much in the same way. This creates among them what may be called a common “psychological make-up” or character.
It is not implied here that a people have a static or fixed national character. The character of a people is, in the main, a reflection of the conditions of life they have lived and led together. Therefore it may be, and usually is, modified in course of time as the conditions of life undergo change. Secondly, the reference to national character does not negate the existence of individual variations. At best, it underlines a tendency among a certain people.
A consideration of these objective factors shows that not all of them are indispensable.
Nationality is in fact a psychological disposition or sentiment. A.E. Zimmer writes, “Nationality, like religion, is subjective; psychological; a condition of mind; a spiritual possession; a way of feeling, thinking and living.” Nationality is an instinct. J.H. Rose defines it as “a union of hearts once made, never unmade.” Nationality is primarily a cultural concept. According to Prof. Hole Combe, “It is a corporate sentiment, a kind of fellow-feeling or mutual sympathy relating to a definite home country. It springs from a heritage of memories, whether of great achievement and glory, of disaster and suffering.” Renon and Mill write, “There must be a consciousness of a heroic past, true glory experience and sacrifices, feelings of pride and shame, joy and grief, connected with the past.” MacIver defines nationality “as a type of community sentiment, created by historical circumstances and supported by common psychological factors to such an extent and so strong that those who feel it desire to have a common government peculiarly or exclusively their own.”