India is NOT a Nation

One of the consistent themes that I’ll emphasize in this blog is the rise of nationalism and what it means for Indians.  Essentially, what rising nationalism will do is make people more strongly identify with their ethnicity, religion, and linguistic group over the nation state that their passport matches.

Countries in which a single ethnicity or religion is aligned with the national identity will see surges of patriotism, while countries that are more mixed will see increasing fracturing along ethnic and religious lines.  China is seeing a surge of patriotism and Xi is now dictator for life, and Putin cruises to re-election.  In the Western, more “cosmopolitan” countries, the Front National in France is rising, white identity is becoming more salient over general American patriotism, Alternative for Deutchland is rising, anti-establishment parties are rising in Italy.  We also see that Middle Eastern countries are fracturing along sectarian lines with continued Sunni/Shiite rivalry, and Africa remains embroiled in tribal conflict. 

Something clearly is going on, but what does it mean for India?  I hope that readers of this blog will realize that India, in its current state, is extremely vulnerable to fracturing from the rise of nationalism and the only way to keep the country together is to fully embrace Hindu nationalism, and to find a way to minimize negative spillover from the large amount of low IQ Indians.   

I saw a recent videofrom Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore who passed away a few years ago.  He had a fascinating exchange with an IAS scholar.  Take a look at the video:

“If someone were to give you India today, can you do to India what you did to Singapore?”

“No single person can change India.  320 different languages.  (Former PM) M. Singh can speak Hindi but at any one time, only 200 million people out of 1.2 billion people will understand him.  That’s a structural problem which can’t be overcome.  In China, 90% speak one language and can understand the leader of China.

Secondly, India consists of many different dialects and nation groups.  There is no connection between the history and development of the Tamil or Telegu language and Punjabi.  India is a creation of the British Raj and the railway system it built.  Therefore it has its limitations.

Singapore is a small country, you can have your edict run throughout the country.  India is different – someone can say something in Delhi, and somebody in Bangalore decides something differently, and that’s that.  I do not think it’s possible for anybody to do to India what it takes together quickly.  It’s diverse therefore it has to work at its own speed and controlled tempo and each marches to a different drumbeat.  It took me a long time to understand this because, like many students of British history, I thought India was more than a concept…India was India.  By the time I grew up and went to India, I realized that there are many different Indias, and that’s still true today.  Yes, you have the English language that binds the English speaking Indians, but that’s only…Bombay is probably the only place in India where the various groups meet and feel at home with each other.  If you make the whole of India like Bombay, then you’ll have a different type of India.

Lee Kuan Yew is super red-pilled, as you can see from these various quotes compiled here which I’ll have to write up on a separate blog post.

Why is Lee Kuan Yew correct? 

I would tentatively state (don’t have the link to back me up yet) that in order for a group of people to truly be a nation, they have to have been under a single polity (political entity) for most of their history, and they have to have done it on their own, without outside intervention.  What single polities do is create genetic continuity among the people - as people are able to trade and communicate with each other, they also mate with each other, and genetic characteristics get distributed throughout the population.  This turns all the citizens of a country into distant relatives of each other.  Being under a single polity also helps harmonize cultural and religious practices.  Finally, it also encourages people to speak a common language.  Without a common culture, language, religion, or genetic heritage, can a political entity really hold together?  It’s tough!!!

When everyone in a single polity shares commonalities, then regions are less likely to rebel and split away during a transfer of power or the fall of a dynasty.  When people don’t have enough in common after the death of a leader, empires fracture – just look at Alexander the Great, the Mongol Empire, the Soviet Union, etc…

Proof that India has not been a unified political entity for most of it’s history?  Just watch this youtube video:

The only time periods that most of India’s territory was under a single political entity:

Maurya Empire: 322 BC – 180 BC

Gupta Empire (being VERY generous, using dates where it controlled a good chunk of North India): 350 CE – 500 CE

Delhi Sultunate: 1275 – 1350

Mughal Empire (mainly just North India): 1550 – 1730

Maratha Empire: 1720 – 1800 (just the heartland)

Republic of India: 1947 – Present.

That’s it.  A very small fraction of India’s history is as a united independent political entity.  I assume Gandhi and Nehru knew this during partition, but this is why their arguments for keeping India together fell flat and Jinnah knew that he could use Muslim nationalism to create Pakistan.

One thing that’s also fascinating – if you look at the map, the Northeast Provinces and the Southern provinces are part of the central kingdoms for the least period of time.  This, I’d venture to say, explains why the Northeasterners look so different from the rest of India and why Tamilians have the highest amount of anti-Hindi sentiment.    

Moving forward, what this means is that appeals to Indians to see commonality in their “diversity” will fall flat.  Previous rulers haven’t been able to keep India together, what makes current leaders think they are any different?

Honestly, I don’t know if even Hindu nationalism will be enough, but at the very least, two Hindus from any two parts of India will still have more in common with each other than they will with a Chinaman, white person, black person, Arab, Muslim, SE Asian, Latino, etc.  That’s something, and in a world of great power competition, perhaps it’s enough?