Concepts of Nationalism and Sovereignty

Nationalism and sovereignty are interlinked, with a strong sense of national identity serving as the foundation for the emergence and maintenance of sovereign nation-states. The clarity in defining these concepts is essential to avoid confusion and misunderstanding in discussions about political identity and governance.
Here are the key points:

Nationalism

• Self-Determination: Nationalism is rooted in the principle of self-determination, which asserts that each nationality has the right to govern itself.
• Social Cohesion: A sense of kinship among people, derived from shared traits such as race, language, religion, and culture, fosters national identity. This social heritage creates bonds that distinguish one group from another.
• Collective Identity: Nationalism encourages loyalty to the nation-state, where individuals recognize their similarities and differences, contributing to a cohesive social fabric.

Sovereignty

• Political Destiny: The article suggests that when a unified group determines its political fate, it establishes a sovereign nation-state. This reflects a collective aspiration for governance and autonomy.
• Integrity of Frontiers: A nation-state seeks to protect its territorial integrity, emphasizing sovereignty through the control of borders and the promotion of a unified national identity.
• Evolution of the State: The transition from traditional state concepts to the nation-state model highlights a shift towards governance based on national identity rather than mere political authority.

Nationalism and Sovereignty

The modern State is a nation-state and it has become the basic pattern throughout the world. It actualises the principle of self-determination, or the right of every nationality to govern itself Loyalty to the nation-state is expressed through the nation or in other words to the people who

“Recognize their likeness, and emphasise their differences from other men. Their social heritage becomes distinctly their own as a man lends his peculiar character to his home

This sense of kinship, which binds them together and separates them from others, is essentially a sociological and secondarily a political phenomenon and it may be the result of many or some of the forces like common race and language, common religion, common residence in a contiguous area, common history of traditions and culture, and common aspirations.

When the people, inspired by this special sense of unity, determine their political destiny and establish their own independent State, they become a nation the state so formed is a nation-state. It adopts all possible means at its, disposal to preserve the integrity of its frontiers and inculcates a spirit of homogeneity and a united people. This has been the course of the development of the State during the past five centuries.

The nation-State replaced the old concept of the State by the State based on bonds of nationality strengthened by natural frontiers. This process of evolution of the State brings into focus the concepts of nationality, nation and the State. All the three concepts ‘ need to be clearly identified as the vagueness with which they have been used is the source of much confusion, and misunderstanding of the import of each.

Nationality:

Till recently, the terms nationality and nation were used interchangeably. Now they are used as two distinct terms, but even those have distinguished between them, have by no means been in agreement as to the difference. This is obviously due to the fact that both nation and nationality have to share the same adjectival form ‘national’ and they have the same root natu which connotes the idea of birth or race. But nation has now definitely become political in meaning as a consequence of the universal acceptance of the principle of one nation, one State. It means a political unity a body of people distinct from others having their own distinct and separate political identity.

Nationality has no reference to political unity. It serves to indicate the totality of the natural qualities that characterize the nation, without the idea of legal status which is connected with the term nation, Nationality emphasises its root meaning of common birth, real or fictitious. It is in this context that James Bryce defines nationality.

He says,

A nationality is a population held together by certain ties, as for example, language and literature, ideas, customs and traditions, in such a way as to feel itself a coherent unity distinct from other populations similarly held together by like ties of their own.

Whereas a nation is a nationality “which has organised itself into a political body either independent or desiring to be independent.”

John Stuart Mill’s conception of nationality is materially similar to that of James Bryce.

He says,

A portion of mankind may be said to constitute a nationality if they are united among themselves by common sympathies which do not exist between them and any others which make them cooperate with each other more willingly, than with other people, desire to be under the same government and desire that it should be government by themselves or a portion of themselves exclusively.

Nationality, thus, indicates a common spiritual or psychological sentiment among the people having some common affinities or a “socio-cultural complex,” as Maclver puts it.

Barnes says,

that nationality is the collective name given to that complex of psychological and cultural factors which furnish the cohesive principle uniting a nation.

It is, like religion, a matter of feelings thinking and living in pursuit of such a conviction. If any group of people begin to think themselves distinct from others, which distinction they are keen to maintain, they constitute a nationality.

The feelings of nationality are subjective and there is no measurable factor universal in application to which it can be traced. It is a sentiment of unity, a common mass consciousness that may be the result of many factors, like common race and language common history of victories won and sufferings endured, common traditions and customs giving birth to a common culture and common political aspirations. When all or some of these elements are present among the peoples, there is a feeling of kinship and their uniqueness that distinguishes them from others.

All these factors have considerably contributed, at one stage or another, to the development of that sense of unity which marks off those who share it from the rest of mankind. All the same, none of these factors is indispensable, although the presence of as many of them as possible helps the growth of a psychological sentiment of unity and oneness.

Community of Race.

Racial unity is one of the stronger bonds of cohesion. Writers, like Zimmern, put emphasis on racial purity and consider it as a vital factor helping in the formation and strengthening the idea of nationality. But racial unity is not a necessary element of nationality, for no race can claim its purity. Anthropology and history have shown that there is no pure race anywhere on earth. From the historic and prehistoric processes of development and amalgamation mankind found themselves split into a number of broad divisions mainly on geographical lines. Almost every section “hedged itself with pride and prejudice” and believed itself a pure and superior race.

By the community of race we may then mean a belief in a common origin, fictitious or legendary. Every nationality, as a matter of fact, has legendary tales of its non-historic origin which make the people to forget the diversity of their origins, Whenever a body of people believe that they belong to one race, they become a group of consciousness and interests. One of the subtle ways of satisfying this group consciousness, is to judge one’s own group by its best specimens and others by their worst. This group pride is a propelling force to the development of nationalism.

Community of Language.

No less is the influence of language in binding the people, together and developing in them the sentiment of like mindedness. It is very often assumed that language and race go hand in hand because the colour and quality of language determine the colour and quality of those who use it. The racialist theories of the Germany are largely based upon these fallacious assumptions.

It cannot, however, be denied thar there is nothing more which readily gives unity to people conscious of their divergent origins as the unity of the tongue. Language is the medium through which people express themselves, maintain mutual intercourse, share common thoughts and participate in their weal and woe in the same idioms.

Common language helps the growth of feelings ang traditions, at first through folk songs and folk tales and later through a written or printed literature.

There is nothing, says Ramsay Muir,

that will give unity to divergent races as the use of a common tongue, and in very many cases unity of language and community ideas. which it brings, have proved the main binding force in a nation.

Bohen explains hat the concept of a mother-tongue has made language the source from which springs all intellectual and spiritual existence.

Earnest Barker finds the closest affinities between nationality and language. “Each word is charged with associations that touch feelings and evoke thoughts. You cannot share their feelings and thoughts unless you can unlock their associations by having the key of language. You cannot enter the heart nor the mind of nation unless you know its speech. Conversely, once you have learned the speech you find. that with it and by it you imbibe a deep and pervasive spiritual force.

The general view is that diversity in language greatly weakens national sentiments. The most recent example is the revolt of Bengalis in the erstwhile Eastern Wing of Pakistan and their secession from its Western Wing to form the sovereign State of Bangladesh. But if diversity of language weakens the national spirit, linguistic unity does not always bring national unity. It has not united the Irish with the British, nor the Austrians with the Germans.

Spanish Americans show no disposition to join the Spaniards or even to consolidate in South America. The Swiss are a nation, though they are divided linguistically and four languages and a number of local dialects are far more generally spoken than the official languages.

Paradoxical as it may seem, nothing whatever is done officially or privately, to lessen the linguistic differences. Nevertheless, language is important, not exclusive, as a factor in welding the people together in common ties.

Community of Religion.

Religion had been at all stages of mankind’s development and played an important role in binding the people in oneness of purpose and community of interests. If religion and kinship welded the ancients, it is a potential joining and separating force even today. There were several reasons for Belgium to break away in 1830 from the imposed union with Holland, but not the least was the diversity of religion. The partition of India in 1947 into two separate States, India and Pakistan, was essentially the result of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s two-nation theory based upon religious differences between the Hindus and the Muslims. But common religion did nut deter the Bengals Muslims to secede from Pakistan and form a State of their own.

Religion, no doubt, was and is a great cementing force, but now writers are little inclined to lay stress on religion as a contemporary factor. “Sameness of religion”

says Burgess,

was once a most potent factor in national development, but the modern principle of religious freedom has greatly modified its influence.

If Burgess should have combined with the modern principle of religious freedom the modern decline in the religious faith his explanation would have been more apt. In developed countries religion has since long been separated from politics and the cases are at least as numerous in which deep-rooted religious differences have formed no obstacle to national unification. Apart from religion, there are other factors which are a strong incentive to cohesion. The rise of fundamentalism during recent years is, however, alarming.

Gamer appropriately sums up the importance of religion as a factor in the development of nationality.

He says,

While community of religion has in some cases been a powerful factor in the development of nationality and in the strengthening of the bonds of national unity, and while in other cases. the absence of it has contributed to the disruption of the . State, it is no longer, thanks to the modem spirit of toleration, an essential or important element of determining nationality.

Freedom of religious belief and the spirit of toleration at least take away the sting of fanaticism and create a sense of amity and unneighborly relations in societies ‘containing diverse religious groups.

Geographic Unity.

Geographic unity is another factor that fosters sentiments of unity. It is desirable that people constituting a nationality should occupy a fixed territory, the parts of which are contiguous, which they may proudly call their own, sweet homecountry. A fixed and contiguous territory produces a community of interests and feelings of cooperation and sympathy. People living in contiguous areas form their own distinct habits, customs, traditions, culture, common experiences and interests that’ distinguish them from others. It develops-national character of the people and affects their institutions.

But geographic unity is not an indispensable factor. Examples of nationalities spread over different lands are many, Jews being the most notable. They were scattered all the world over before the creation of their national home in Palestine and yet they constituted a nationality.

Common Historical Traditions.

Common historical traditions are regarded by Ramsay Muir as an indispensable factor in cementing the bonds of nationality. John Stuart Mill has given them the first place of precedence and Hayes places them second only to language. Such traditions, Ramsay Muir says, involve a memory of sufferings endured and victories won in common, expressed in song and legend, in the dear name of great personalities that seem to embody in themselves the character and ideals of the nation, in the names of the sacred places wherein the national memory is enshrined.

Here is the source of that paradox of nationality, that it is only intensified by sufferings, and, like the giant Antueus in the Greek fable, rises with redoubled strength every time it is beaten down into the bosom of its mother earth. Heroic achievements, agonies heroically endured, these are the sublime food by which the spirit of nationhood is nourished; from these are born the sacred and imperishable traditions that make the soul of nations.

The possession of national history, says Mill, and the consequent community of recollections, collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past are the most powerful factors to generate the sense of identity and sentiment of fellow feelings.

Common Government.

A people, howsoever heterogeneous in their outlook and Sentiments, develop national feelings of oneness if they live for long under the same government The process of unity is accelerated if the same government is alien. People become unified in their resolve to free themselves from the shackles of foreign domination and exploitation. Two hostile classes come into existence; those struggling against the oppression and exploitation of the alien rulers and those who make all-out efforts to perpetuate their hold and suppress the aspirations of the subject people. Misgovernment is a prolific source of national awakening as the malcontents of today are the revolutionaries of tomorrow.

There is other side of the same problem also. When diverse people live for a long time under one government and the government is tolerant in its policy towards all such diverse elements, with the passage of time they merge into a single unified nationality. Their children become political half-castes, and the third and fourth generations lose their parental prejudices. The peoples of the original thirteen Colonies, which comprised the United States of America after the Declaration of Independence, were in their first generation either Englishmen, Germans, Poles or Czechs. Their political aspirations to get rid of foreign domination welded them in bonds of unity and all the different nationalities were fused together in one American nation. Common government is the instrumentality through which much of the common historical heritage of a people takes form.

Common Interests.

Common interests, like economic and defensive, act as a fillip in strengthening the ties of unity. Economic and defensive problems are vital in the formation of federations. Economic interests reconciled Scotland to a union With England. The Zollverein bringing Germans with a customs union laid the foundation of the confederation in 1867. No one will, at the same time, deny that economic interests may intensify national consciousness.

Hayes says,

A nationality by acquiring unity and sovereign independence becomes a nation.

Take the example of the Jews who have now established the Israel State in Palestine. Hitherto the Jews were a nationality; now they are a nation. A nationality may, accordingly, be defined as a nation in the making. Almost every nationality either had its own State (as the Scots), or aspires to form a State, whether it may be a new State or the rehabilitation of a previously existing State (as the Poles or Czechs before the Great War).

There may still be a nationality even if it does not wish to become a nation. The Hindus, the Muslims, the Sikhs, and many others are nationalities within the Indian nation. The Welsh and the Scots are two distinct nationalities within the British nation. When a nation consists of distinct socio-economic groups, each of these groups may be called a nationality. But nationalities in India are divided fundamentally on religion and language.

Both the Muslims and the Sikhs have unequivocally declared that politics for them is inseparable from their religions and their political behavior is determined by the dictates of their religions. This stark reality that India is a multinational State 1s denied by almost all Indians, except a handful of them, like K.M. Pannikar and Professor Gadgil.

Professor Zimmern makes the following distinction between nationality and statehood 

• While Nationality is subjective, Statehood is objective.
• While Nationality is psychological, Statehood is Political.
• While Nationality is a condition of mind, Statehood is a condition in law.
• While Nationality is a spiritual possession, Statehood is an enforceable obligation.
• While nationality is a way of feeling, Statehood is a condition inseparable from all civilized ways of living.

Nation.

The word nation is derived from the Latin word natio which means born. This gives the term a racial or ethnical meaning. Etymologically, a nation is a people descended from a common stock. When used in this sense, a nation means a people welded together in a society by ties of blood relationship. Burgess and Leacock define a nation in a racial sense, though the former does not seem to consider common descent as an essential element. To him, nation is a population of ethnic unity inhabiting a territory of a geographic unity.

By ethnic unity he means a population having a common language and literature, a common tradition and history, a common custom and a common consciousness of rights and wrongs. Calvo, in his work, [International Law, emphasises that the idea of nation is associated with origin of birth, community of race, community of language, etc. Leacock unequivocally says that the term nation, though often loosely used, is properly to be thought of as having a racial or ethnographical significance. It is a body of people united by common descent and a common language.

But race and nationality are two entirely distinct terms. As said earlier, there is no pure race anywhere on earth. The myth of purity of race is nothing else but pride and prejudice of those who believe that they represent a pure and superior race. Sidgwick has correctly said that some of the leading modern nations are notoriously of very mixed race.

Nation, as such, has no racial significance. What makes a group of people a. nation is not necessarily a community of race, language or religion, but a sentiment of common mass-consciousness or like mindedness. It is true that language and religion are important factors in knitting the people in common bonds of affinity and togetherness, but it seems clear that the community of religion and language, and community of national sentiment are not necessarily connected.

Take the Swiss people. They do not speak a common language, nor do they profess a common religion, yet they constitute a nation and they are as patriotic and as conscious of their common membership of a nation as any other people. Both France and Spain have a Basque population, speaking a language of common origin and not spoken anywhere else in the world, but the Basques do not form a nation. Nor do Welsh and Breton Celts, though there is a common legendary racial and linguistic inheritance.

A common religious belief has been, no doubt, a powerful nation-making force and powerful to disintegrate nations also Pakistan and Bangladesh are two clear examples of this type. But they are two rare examples, Generally speaking, that stage in the history of civilization seems to be nearly passed.

Barker gives a more realistic definition and analysis of a nation. A nation, he says, is a body of persons inhabiting a definite territory and thus united together by the primary fact of living together on a common land.

They were drawn from a number of races an, they came from different breeds. But their wanderings brought them into this territo and they settled down here because it appealed them to settle down here. While living together for a sufficiently long time, they developed two forms of mental sympathy.

The first was a common capital of thoughts and feelings acquired and transmitted in the course of a common history : a common capital, of tradition; which includes as a rule a common language, a common religion (which may, however, assume a number o different forms), and a common culture variously expressed in art and architecture, ; literature, in social habits and otherwise.”

The second was the common will to live together for the future freely and independently, thus, having common thoughts, feelings and aspirations and thereby exercising their right of political self-determination.

When the mark of the State is stamped on the “territorial nation,” as Barker calls it, it becomes a national community and the State so formed a national State. There must be a general social cohesion which should serve as a cementing material before the Sea of the State can be effectively imposed on a population. If the seal of the State is stamped on a population which is not held together by the cementing bonds of a common tradition and sentiment, there is likely to be “cracking and splitting” as happened in Austria. Hungary and the Eastern Wing of Pakistan, now Bangladesh. It does not, however, mean that a single cohesive society is always necessary for the State. There are still a good number of heterogeneous States that exist. But a single cohesive society is the basis of a harmonious and viable State.

The ties that bind the people to make them a nation are psychological and spiritual as they are in a nationality. They are common feelings of an ardent desire to live together and to serve or suffer for the cause of their Motherland or Fatherland, cemented by the memories of a common history; a memory of sufferings endured and victories won in common and the dear names of those great personalities who lifted them above and embodied unto themselves the character and ideals of the nation. These feelings make the people a community of patriotic sentiments and they transmit their common heritage to posterity to keep aglow the light and zest of patriotism in the deep recesses of their hearts so that they may ever remain dedicated custodians of the honour and integrity of the nation.

A nation is, thus, the expression of the people’s consciousness of unity and once this consciousness pricks through, it makes the people a nation. It is in the minds of the people that a nation is formed and created. A nation, according to Garner, is a culturally homogeneous social group which is at once conscious and tenacious of its unity of psychic life and possession.

Zimmern defines it as a body of people united by a corporate sentiment of peculiar intensity, intimacy and dignity, related to a definite home country.

He succinctly says,

If a people feels itself to be a nation, it is a nation.

The nation, to sum up, is a human group, inhabiting a given territory, where its members may, but not necessarily, claim one origin, a certain indefinable community culture, traditions, memories, aspirations and interests and above all a collective will to live together and make a common and concerted modus vivendi to live together for ever with honour and dignity. It must also be added that the term nation now implies, for the majority of writers, a further political and legal element. This community possesses common institutions and common laws and forms an independent political entity

Nation and State.

The theory of one nation, one State had its supporters in the past too, but it became the practical politics after World War I in 1918, when new nations were created in pursuance of the principle of self-determination. Since then there has been a tendency to equate nation with the State, which really they are not. For example, the constitution of the Republic of Argentina bears the title of the “Argentine Nation.”

Similarly, the name “United Nations” is a misnomer, for it is an international organisation of sovereign States and not nations. The State is a people organised for law within a definite territory and it is sovereign both internally as well as externally whereas a nation is a people psychologically bound together, with a common will to live together for ever and share the common weal and woe.

Certainly, the modern State is limited by national frontiers. We are members of the State within whose frontiers we are born and we can change our State allegiance or nationality only with the specific permission of the State to which we wish to belong. Still, the State is not synonymous with the nation: both are distinct in meaning and connotation. The Scots and the Welsh would claim to be members of a nation, but they are members not of a Scottish or Welsh State, but of the British State. In the course of history, States have annexed nations. Alsace and Lorraine were, from 1870 to 1914, part of the German State. From 1918 to 1940, they formed part of France and from 1940 to 1945, they again formed part of Germany. Today, they are once more part of France. If you ask an Alsatian whether he is French or German, he will reply that he is Alsatian and he may add that he is also French as he is a citizen of the State of France.

A mere organisation of the people under one government does not make them a nation. Austria-Hungary, before World War I, was a State, but not a nation. Inhabited by heterogeneous people, there was nothing other than political bonds which could knit them together in ties of oneness. Then, sovereignty is the most essential feature of the State whereas the people may continue to be a nation even if they do not retain their sovereign character, either as a result of conquest or annexation of their country.

Germany and Japan no longer remained States, after World War II in 1945, though the Germans and the Japanese were still nations. Poland and Finland, before World War I, were nations, though not States. The term nation signifies the consciousness of unity reinforced by psychological and spiritual feelings. Nationhood is, therefore, subjective while Statehood is objective and political.

Emergence of the nation-State.

Nationality, as said earlier, is essentially ethnic and cultural and it is an urge to freedom of expression. It has been stimulated to intensity by clash with other groups and has upheld the dogma of independence. As such, it appeared in England about the fourteenth or fifteenth century, in France in the fifteenth, in Spain, Holland and Sweden in the sixteenth century, largely as a result of clash with foreigners, After the Reformation the theological fervour in many parts of Europe diminished, nationality fostered the sentiments of unity of the peoples and it seemed to be an ideal worth dying for. The partition of Poland towards the close of the eighteenth century gave it a new impetus and endowed it with fresh sanctity. “Thenceforward,”

says Acton,

there was a nation demanding to be united in a State, a soul, as it were wandering in Search of a body in which to begin life over again.

The French Revolution ang Napoleon brought the people in the forefront in several European countries who reacted to their impact by developing a consciousness of nationalism.

The new type of State, thus, emerged. The old concept of the State was replaced by the State based on bonds of nationality strengthened by national boundaries. The nation. States began their careers as absolute monarchies, But the people soon began to challenge the absolute authority of Kings. They demanded their rights and privileges and claimed that power ultimately belonged to them. The French Revolution gave a fillip to their aspirations and reinforced their struggle for wresting power from Kings who had proclaimed themselves as the viceregents of God in defense of their right to rule and justify the exercise of their unlimited authority.

The Rights of Man drawn up by the French Revolutionaries in 1789 heralded the dawn of democracy as it rested on the two pillars of equality and popular sovereignty joining them with nationality. Ever since 1789 these principles had been at work emancipating and elevating the hitherto unfree and downtrodden orders of society and removing civil, religious and race disabilities from the, disqualified people of the State, These principles not only made the people the ultimate source of authority, but inspired them to claim their right, if they felt that they were one and distinct from others, freedom to choose their own government and manage their own affairs in their own way.

Nationalism.

Self-government and nationalism are twin-born. The French Revolution was primarily responsible for revival of national sentiment. Cohesion in the society was sought on the basis of kinship and sentiment of Oneness aided by the natural boundaries that helped the formation and strengthening of such feelings. Since the cardinal principles of the Rights of Man were equality, and popular sovereignty joining them with nationality, loyalty and allegiance of the people were to rest with the nation alone and for that matter with the State integrity of which they were committed to preserve. This is the second stage int he development of the nation-State.

Hans Kohn, accordingly, maintained that the French Revolution inherited and continued the centralising tendencies of the kings, but at the same time it filled the central organisation with a new spirit and gave it a power of cohesion unknown before. Nationalism was unthinkable before the emergence of the modern State in the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. “Nationalism. accepted the form, but changed it animating it with a new feeling of life and with a new religious fervour. Kings gave way to the people and their aspirations.

Thenceforward nationalism became a dogma and dominated the human mind over a large part of the globe. Enthused with this new spirit and attitude of mind and a patter of attention and desires, poets, historians, journalists and politicians roused the sentiments of nationalism in Central Europe and in the Balkans.

Elsewhere in the Near East and far away in India, China and Japan

it began to cast a spell by promising relief from actual o threafened domination.

Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution was made a means to promote national purposes and interests rather than to gain benefits for all communities and States.

The Revolution had a national content and national purposes as tits home was a national State and it spread chiefly to national States imbued with the traditions of mercantilism.

Even the enormous transit of ideas and news.

Hayes says,

winch the Industrial Revolution made possible, assumed for linguistic reasons, a complexion predominantly national.

The free trade movement was restricted to a few regions and derived its force mere chiefly from its temporary coincidence with national interests.

Nationalism came into its own in the early nineteenth century. Since then has gradually spread throughout the world, Within the last six decades it flared up to new heights of militancy in Nazi Germany, It transformed an international movement m Soviet Russia into a strongly nationalistic movement. It even changed the complexion of the movement in China, It stirred passions to fever pitch in the Middle East, leading nations to take actions contrary to their economic interests, as in the case of Iran and probably Egypt, and it sparked powerful desire for self-government in majority of the colonial areas of the world.

Once these colonies attained independence, it was attuned to the extreme type of nationalism in order to retain their newly won independence, placed as they were in the midst of power-hungry nations, and, at the same time, to accelerate the pace of economic growth to usher an era of just and happy life for the people hitherto trodden under the heels of the alien rulers.

Rightly understood, says Asirvatham, “nationalism stands for the historical process by which nationalities are transferred into political units and for the legitimate right of a people who form a distinct and vigorous nation or nationality to a place in the sun. To put it straight, when a national group either aspires to become self-governing or when having achieved self-government, this fact becomes part of the complex of national sentiment, we speak of nationalism.

Nationalism is almost one idea for which masses of men live and die. It combines love of country and suspiciousness of foreigners. Love of country comes from shared values, and suspiciousness of foreigners comes from the belief that foreigners do not share such values in the same strength.

The first shared value is the love of familiar places the neighbourhood, the land, the homes, the valleys, and the mountains, all of , the surroundings that one loves because they have been a part of oneself from infancy.

This is the logical corollary of the eternal truth of man’s nature that he is a social animal and his instinct of living together and cooperating with others among whom he lives creates perpetual bonds of affinity and goodwill and a love for the land home country which provides them with the wherewithal of life. But nationalism, as it emerged with” the nation-State, assumed the form of ancient group principle pride in one’s group and resentment of injury to a member of one’s group as it was an attack on the solidarity and the honour of the whole.

Pride in one’s ‘group usually led to an imaginative abasement of all others. “Pain economy,”

says Beni Prasad,

set a high value on group solidarity and encouraged an exclusiveness which inspite of some contrary influences of a political and ethical character, sanctified group prejudices. With the enlargement of human group and their frequent contact, prejudice has crystallised round race and nation.

A Nationalist wants his people and his country to command all the respect and deference from others, his people to have all the power, all the wealth, and all the wellbeing. He tends to claim all the rectitude and virtue for it, as well as all enlightenmen,  and skill; and he gives it a monopoly of his affection. In sum, he totally identifies himself With his nation. Devotion to the nation transcends all his loyalties, like the family, the Village, the caste, religion and other associational loyalties.

Hans Kohn defines nationalism in this context and says,

it is a state of mind permeating the large majority of the people, and claiming to permeate all its members; it recognises the nation-State as the ideal form of political organization and the nationality as the source of all creative cultural energy und economic well-being. The supreme loyalty of man is therefore due to his nationality, us his own life is supposedly rooted in and made possible by its welfare.

Nationalism has shown the vital quality of elasticity and stood for some regions the attainment of political unification; elsewhere for winning independence from alien rulers; with some States for the cultural assimilation of dissident groups; and with others for economic aggrandisement, In the last two cases it develops into cultural or economic imperialism.