The Nationalism(s) of South Asia

            Nationalism and religious orthodoxy—broadly defined—are, in my opinion, two of the most destructive forces impeding the functioning of a civil society, at least one invested in ideas like economic and legal justice, tolerance, and human rights. Many others, for example, Rabindranath Tagore, have written eloquently on the pitfalls of nationalism. In 1916-17, Tagore gave a series of lectures on "Nationalism in the West," "Nationalism in Japan," and "Nationalism in India" that were published in 1917 in one volume (with an additional essay) titled simply Nationalism. Among Tagore's non-fictional writings, these essays are essential reading (and teaching) material for anyone interested in the challenges of building civil society. E. P. Thompson wrote in the 1991 edition's introduction to Nationalism that "More than any other thinker of his time, Tagore had a clear conception of civil society, as something distinct from and of stronger and more personal texture than political or economic structure."

            I mention all this partly because of the nationalism(s) that we renegotiate for those of us from South Asia now living abroad, especially in Europe and North America. What does "civil society" mean when we speak of South Asia? Is there a space to think of a civil society that encompasses all of South Asia? Or is it too late to think of such a thing in the face of the separate nationalisms of Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka?

            Some self-confession: I feel like I've traveled a strange and circuitous path on defining, redefining, rejecting, constructing, and ignoring issues of identity. Most of it is typical immigrant fare, the usual don't-belong-here-or-don't-belong-there dichotomies about which every South Asian high school student is writing poetry. But there is a second level of disconnect from even these here-or-there struggles, one that is partly determined by the fact that for the very longest time, for more than a decade actually, I barely knew or hung around with anyone from the subcontinent. Avoiding South Asians was never deliberate, it just happened. But what it meant was that I didn't internalize the literature, the movies, the obsession with defining identity that comes with being a South Asian in America. My sense of "unbelonging" lacked both text and context, filled as it was with a people and places and times that were utterly American.

            Yet, of course, I cannot deny that there was/is always something powerful about our shared (and often imagined) knowledge of brownness. Back in Bangladesh, I had a singular and unconscious notion of "Bangladeshi" or "Bengali" (the two, of course, being less similes than coterminous), one that always excluded others of the subcontinent; coming to America when I was 18 allowed others be part of that worldview without the slightest difficulty. Where in Bangladesh, I would have had to do some complex mental and cultural gymnastics to be so inclusive of other South Asians, here in America, it felt completely natural to feel a sort of kinship to anyone who was from South Asia—Bangladeshis, Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Hindus, Muslims, Christians—I never thought much about it. The pronoun "we" signified unconscious knowledge that we shared certain cultural markers that others outside of the subcontinent didn't share. My use of the past tense is not meant to suggest that I feel different these days. If on the whole I continue to "unbelong" anywhere, among the few tugs is brownness. There were, of course, limits to this identification. For example, I feel absolutely uninvested in South Asian global culture (Bollywood, Bhangra, Panjabi-style weddings, DJs who walk the line between here and there, etc.). I am totally indifferent to it; I don't know why. Perhaps having spent my formative years in Bangladesh, my South Asian connection is to more indigenous markers—acknowledging the problem of even defining what is indigenous when authenticity itself is constructed by interaction and exchange. But the basic idea is that when I spend time with other deshis, I don't think of difference.

            Yet, occasionally nationalisms weave in and out of this shared sense of being South Asian. What I mean is that in certain contexts, the shared sense of South Asian identity fractures, creating unexpected fissures and also unexpected associations. It's a depressing feeling but occasionally, it feels like a strain to imagine a South Asian sameness. Things seem to work better if we split up. I've felt this, especially recently. Speculations on why:

            First, Muslims have become the "other" in the non-Muslim global imagination in the past four years or so, for reasons that are obvious. Many Muslims are unfortunately substituting religious identities in place of other identities in the face of both (a) racist rhetoric of some non-Muslims and (b) the extremist rhetoric of fundamentalist Muslims. Secular people have to construct all sorts of defensive strategies, essentially making a claim for a type of Islam-related identity that in many cases never existed but is at its essence somewhat contrived. This strategy creates clear differences where one was only in the background among the diaspora.

             Second, related to my first point, there has been a strengthening of religious orthodoxy in all of South Asia, most strikingly underscored by the recent visibility of Muslim fundamentalists in both Pakistan and Bangladesh and Hindu fundamentalists in India. National identity and religious identity are becoming inseparable for a small but vocal minority and it undercuts any notion of South Asian unity.

            Third, India clearly appears to be making a break for some sort of global ascendance, politically, economically, and culturally that distinctly marks it from the other South Asian nations. Think of the food, the writing, the intellectuals, the movies, the music, the fashion, the technology... Combining that with the rise of Indian nationalism, of both the secular and Hindu kind, puts a unique sheen on the rise of modern India. And my sense is that all of this creates defensiveness on the part of non-Indian South Asians. Indian history presents its own set of contradictions. On the one hand, conflation of (political) India with pre-1947 Indian history means that Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have little claim to any history that precedes 1947. On the other hand, I feel a sense of belonging to Indian history and culture. Indian history, Indian food, Indian clothes, Indian cultural traditions -- this is all mine too. Yet it isn't of course, because all of this things have been conflated with post-1947 political India and not what went before. [Of course, I understand the problem of essentializing what "India" was pre-1947 since not only was it enormously heterogenous but "India" as a construction is relatively modern and generally imposed by outsiders as a colonial project.] Anyway, all of this creates awkwardness and defensiveness. And as a Bangladeshi, what possible connection could I have with India, technology-minded, nuclear-armed, published in Granta, eulogized by Microsoft, and beautified by the writings of Jhumpa Lahiri and Amartya Sen? What connection indeed. But now the question is what connection would I want to have?

            Anyway, in my ultimately naive and utopian imagination, I sense that South Asians, especially South Asians abroad, generally see similarity over difference, share history instead of divide it. When we hang out, it is part of our continuing and unconscious project to work towards something of a united tradition that underscores how much we have in common. We can wallow in our rich heterogeneity but it would be cool to work towards (re)creating the bridges that connect us all geographically, socially, and culturally. Civil society and all that, you know.

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