--Former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court Ajit Prakash Shah
The former Chairman of the Law Commission and Former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court Ajit Prakash Shah speaks frankly and honestly on how “enforced cultural nationalism” will severely hurt India in long term. Ajit Prakash Shah was the part of the landmark judgment in 2009 that decriminalized homosexuality.
Earlier this year he has spoken in M N Roy memorial lecture on “free speech, nationalism and sedition. He expressed his worries and said that Mr M N Roy’s views on nationalism are still relevant as there are deep dangers associated with such kind of nationalism.
The so-called nationalism debate is all about the dangers of propagating an idea with just one perspective. It leads to people restricting their understanding of nationalism and ignoring the diverse views about the topic.
In early 20th century, we have already observed the bitter development of nationalism in the form of Nazism and Fascism. Not only was such nationalism irrational, it was also excessive and extreme. In our country, the nationalism envisaged by Jawaharlal Nehru and Mr Gandhi was against the British Empire and it was all inclusive and secular, so there was no place for religion based hatred in it.
But in this day and age, nobody talks about inclusive nationalism. It's rather “enforced cultural nationalism”. In fact, hate is being propelled using the term “nationalism”. We have already observed many brutal lynchings in different parts of the country in the name of cow protection. This is extremely disturbing and unacceptable. Freedom of thought and independent thinking are being brutally suppressed.
The inclusive nationalism we practiced just half a century ago is almost dead. Sadly, it has been replaced by something which was never desired by anyone.
According to Rabindranath Tagore, if a nation acquires power by sacrificing the harmony of social life, that day is completely devilish and bad omen for humanity. But the ideology being dished out today is contrary to the very soul of Mr Tagore’s statement.
Some people even go to the extent of removing Tagore's ideology from textbooks. It is like putting a question mark on the very characteristic of a country.
A nation is defined both by its boundaries and people. You cannot exclude either of the two. The situation today is entirely different from what it was two centuries ago, when countries were mostly isolated and a Geography based identity was necessary to be established in order to differentiate and identify people. Nowadays people use irrational arguments to defend their concept of nationality. This situation can have extreme consequences.
Such kind of nationalism translates into brewing extreme affection for the state and everything that is associated with it. It may include the government, the PM, the law enforcement agencies and the military. Pointing fingers towards or even commenting against anyone of them is considered to be spreading hatred against the state itself. That is probably the reason why we are not able to strike down the law on sedition.
Currently, even criticizing certain public figures or government offices is termed as anti-national. People are quickly charged with sedition, when their fault is nothing more than criticizing an unjust move or policy of the government. For such type of nationalists, government is beyond any type of criticism.
