Religion and Nationhood in Late Colonial India

This essay examines the relationship between religion and the concept of nationhood in late colonial India. Religion was a crucial element in the formation of modern states in the early 20th century in South Asia. Different religious groups had different opinions about nation: Hindus and Muslims had different ideas of nationhood; even within the Hindu tradition, the Hindus themselves had very different views of nationhood and how to organize a new nation-state in relation to their religion. This essay explores the different points of view concerning the relationship between religion and nation in both Hindu and Muslim communities which led to the Partition of 1947. This article is available in Constructing the Past: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol12/iss1/8 Religion and Nationhood in Late Colonial India Chao Ren Religion has always been a contentious issue in modern South Asian history, especially if we examine the importance of religion in retrospect, after the partition of India and Pakistan in August of 1947. When confronted with the urgency of forming a concept of nation-state in the late colonial period, Hindus and Muslims had different points of view with respect to India. Hinduism held the majority of the population, while Islam, with a comparatively smaller but still significant number of believers, had been the religion of the ruling class in India for several centuries. Differences also existed even within the “Hindu camp.” Since the rule and political influence of the Muslim Mughal Empire had already faded away, the Hindus now had a stronger voice in the discussion about nationhood. There was a very strong inclination for them to have a “tyranny of the majority,” and to be intolerant towards the Muslims in the building of the new nation, or at least the construction of the concept of a nation. Therefore, there were differences concerning the concept of “the Nation” not only between Hindus and Muslims, but among the Hindus themselves as well. The search for a definition of Indian nationhood, or a concept of India as “the Nation,” did not begin until the coming of the English. In Thomas Hansen’s book, The Saffron Wave, the author quotes Deshpande as saying that it was “doubtful whether the people talked of themselves as Hindus before the colonial phase of our country.” 1 It was only when the Indians met the English, who were superior in technology and easily dwarfed the locals, that the Indians, like the Chinese, finally started to reconsider their self-perception as the central civilisation of the world. 2 The English brought to India not only material symbols of modernity, such as the railroad, postal service, etc., but also non-material marks of modernity as well. For example, during the rule of Dalhousie in the middle of the nineteenth century, non-material modern institutions such as precise national borders and concepts of national sovereignty were introduced into India. The concept of nation-state also came to India during the British Raj. Faced with the contemporary condition of subjugation, the Indian people underwent an unprecedented intellectual crisis. They started to consider their national identity in a broad global context. They started to question: Who are we? What is the essence that makes India, India? M. S. Golwalkar has an excellent passage in the Preface of We or Our Nationhood Defined that explains the problem faced by all who were on their search for Indian nationhood: We stand for national regeneration and not for that hap-hazard bundle of political rights—the state. What we want is swaraj; and we must be definite what this 1 Thomas B. Hansen, The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),