T.K.Oommen
Concepts in social science are formulated on the basis of specific historical experiences, but unless they transcend their empirical contexts they are of limited utility. One of the tasks of social science is to establish links between concepts and theories vis-a-vis a variety of empirical situations in order to establish their plausibility and test their validity. I propose to undertake this task with reference to three concepts, namely state, nation and ethnie. As a prelude to this, it is necessary to deal, albeit briefly, with the senses in which the three concepts are employed in contemporary social science. I must make it clear that my intention is not to attempt an analysis of the “state-of-the-art” but to indicate how the content and career of these concepts have been tempered by the empirical contexts from which they emanated, and the need to transcend the same.
Conceptual clarifications
In contemporary Western social science theory a state is defined as an entity (a) endowed with political sovereignty over a clearly defined territorial area, (b) having a monopoly on the use of legitimate force, and (c) consisting of citizens with terminal loyalty. A series of empirical situations is assumed to be in existence for such a definition to be operative. For example, if a “people” do not have their own territory in which to lead settled lives, they are defined as being
“stateless”. Yet, it is well known that settled agriculture (the starting point of settled life) is a relatively recent phenomenon in the long span of human history.
Similarly, the notion of citizenship, that is, membership in a state with full political rights, the most universal expression of which is franchise, is a phenomenon of 20th century Europe. It was only in 1919, after the First World War, that citizenship was accepted in principle in Europe; and it became a
“sacred” right everywhere in Europe only as recently as the 1940s. This
“contemporization” of human social reality by a “retreat into the present”, to recall the evocative phrase of Elias (1989) creates an abysmal wedge between the past and the present.
The notion of monopoly on the use of legitimate force does not take into account that a wide variety of structures—kingdoms, empires, city-states, republics and federations—are covered by the notion of state. Even the Greek
city-state, widely acknowledged for its “direct democracy”, did not permit the participation of slaves and plebeians in the decision-making process. Empires and kingdoms had subjects but not citizens. The history of ex-colonial societies is replete with instances of protest against the illegitimacy of the colonial state. The expression “state terrorism” is frequently invoked today to describe the activities of authoritarian states: that is to say, except in the case of truly democratic states, the attribute of legitimate force is a misnomer. The problematique of the Weberian definition (see Gerth & Mills 1948) lies in completely ignoring the question “Who is exercising force?” and in focusing exclusively on “What is the state?”.
The terminal loyalty of a citizen to the state,
(a) implies the co-terminality between state and nation,
(b) makes a mockery of the very Western notion of the autonomy of, and division of labour between, church and state, and
(c) pursuantly, presupposes a hierarchy of loyalty with primacy to the state.
Yet, as a citizen of a multi-religious and multilingual state-society, one may have several terminal loyalties, each of which, having different contexts, need not necessarily be mutually contradictory. Thus for example, one may have one’s terminal loyalty, in the religious context, to the ecclesiastical authority that has jurisdiction over co-religionists distributed over several states, but this need not necessarily be in conflict with one’s terminal loyalty to the state as a citizen.
Therefore, it is tenable to conceptualize the co-existence of a series of terminal loyalties each of which has a different context or content.
It is useful to recall here the empirical contexts that seem to have influenced the definition of a state in the West. Basing his argument on the west European experience Gellner (1983) claimed that language is the fulcrum on which nations (he uses states and nations as interchangeable entities) are built. This is so because, according to him, unless there exists a common communication medium industrial societies cannot be sustained. However, this argument cannot be accepted in the light of empirical facts, even for Europe itself, since, at the time he was writing, there were 73 nations but only 24 states (Smith 1983). Apart from this inconsistency between empirical reality and its conceptualization, there are several other flaws in the argument. First, a common communication medium is necessary not only for an industrial society but for any society; the very existence of a society implies this, even though the nature and intensity of communication may vary within societies. Secondly, it is clearly the case that several nations can and do co-exist in the territorial area of one state (e.g. the UK, India), but Gellner’s argument denies the very possibility of multilingual, and by implication, multinational states. Thirdly, if we pursue the argument to its logical conclusion it would mean that
(a) multinational states would/should break-up into mono-national states and/or
CONCEPTUAL MATTERS 23
(b) the dominant language, which invariably means the language of the dominant nation in the state, will have to be imposed on other nations within that state.
To expose the untenability of Gellner’s argument let me cite the Indian case.
According to Indian census data more than 1500 languages are spoken in India.
Of these at least 105 have 10,000 or more speakers and 12 have 10,000,000 or more speakers (see Oommen 1990). There is no language spoken or understood by the entire Indian population. Hindi with its numerous dialects is the most widely dispersed language in India, but is spoken by only 38 per cent of its population. Gellner may in turn argue that India is not a nation, but can we deny that it is a state? Further, to “build” an Indian “nation” of the Gellnerian type several nations and the language of millions of people would have to be destroyed! That is, to qualify for the appellation “state/nation” India should either split herself into several units or impose the same language on a population that comprises one-sixth of humanity. Indeed, the Indian state/nation survives precisely because of its policy of multilingualism. Essentially, the point is that Gellner’s argument and conceptualization are based on extremely limited empirical experience; the result being that they are invalid for multinational states, of which there are numerous cases.
There is another feature of a state, namely a common legal system, that is believed to be a universal attribute. Once again, this description fits only culturally homogenous and uni-religious state societies. In the case of multi- religious and culturally plural societies three different types of legal systems, operating at different levels and contexts, co-exist. The State Legal System (SLS) applies uniformly to all citizens: but if the population is drawn from different religious faiths and if the state has not yet evolved and implemented a Uniform Civil Code, several Religious Legal Systems (RLS) would co-exist.
While SLS is applied to fellow citizens, RLS is subscribed to by co-religionists distributed over several states. Thirdly, Folk Legal Systems (FLS) exist and are often recognized, if not always administered, by the state. Thus, there are FLS both in the reservations of Native Americans and in certain tribal areas in India.
The three legal systems often co-exist, therefore, and are applicable to different sets of persons within the state-society in different permutations and combinations. To put it succinctly, cultural diversity begets and sustains legal pluralism. Ignoring this fact (or this possibility), it is often argued that a uniform State Legal System, universally applicable to all citizens, is a distinguishing mark of the modern state, a position that smacks of empirical naïvete and conceptual myopia or even claustrophobia.
If the relatively simple and more recent notion of “state” has defied clear definition, applicable to the various empirical situations, it is hardly surprising, perhaps, that the concept of “nation” which has a longer career and is rather more complex, presents even greater problems.
24 STATE, NATION AND ETHNIE: THE PROCESSUAL LINKAGES
In its classical Latin sense, “nasci” meant a tribal-ethnic group, a people born in the same place and territory. Nation as a community of citizens, that is, a political entity, is a creation of the French Revolution; and having followed the maxim, “one-nation, one-state”, nation has in Europe become at once both a cultural and a political entity. Small wonder then, that a nation is defined as “…a people, a folk, held together by some or all of such more or less immutable characteristics as common descent, territory, history, language, religion, way of life, or other attributes that members of the group have from birth onward”
(Petersen 1975:181) as well as “…a community of sentiment which would adequately manifest itself in a state of its own; hence a nation is a community which normally tends to produce a state of its own” (Weber, in Gerth & Mills 1948: 176). Thus, it came to be believed that it is not only natural for a nation to have a state but also necessary for a nation to have its own state so that its cultural identity is maintained and protected.
While in the above sense nation represents the people of a country without distinction of rank, there are at least a few who use the terms to de note class.
Thus Disraeli (1926:67) referred to
…two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy;
who are ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by different breeding, are fed by different food, are ordered by different manners and are not governed by the same laws, the rich and the poor.
Similarly, Marx refers to “the division of the French nation into two nations, the nation of owners and the nation of workers” (Marx 1977:144). Responses to such descriptions have been made by many, as for example, by Gramsci who equates the national with the popular to avoid the nation-people hiatus. However, one of the reasons why nation-based inequality and oppression are ignored in much of Western analyses may be that the empirical situation does not appear to warrant it; most Western states being seen as uni-national. However, the issue of dominant nations oppressing and exploiting the weak and subordinate nations is germane to all multi-national states in the East and the West.
Given the trajectory of Western history—the advocacy of intense and terminal loyalty to one’s nation-state, the maxim “one-nation, one-state”, the Crusades, the World Wars, Nazi horrors, not to mention slavery and colonialism—
nationalism is perceived both as a positive and a negative force. These views are clearly articulated by J.S.Mill and Lord Acton. Mill (cited in Smith 1983:9) unambiguously endorsed the doctrine of national self-determination.
It is, in general, a necessary condition for free institutions that the boundaries of government should coincide in the main with those of nationality: where the sentiment of nationality exists in any force, there is a
CONCEPTUAL MATTERS 25
prima facie case for uniting all the members of the nationality under the same government, and a government to themselves apart. This is merely saying that the question of government ought to be decided by the governed.
In contrast, in his essay on Nationality Lord Acton (ibid.: 9) wrote: “Nationality does not aim at either liberty or prosperity, both of which it sacrifices to the imperative necessity of making the nation the mould and measure of the state. Its course will be marked with material as well as moral ruin…”
In the voluminous writings on nation and nationalism both connotations — positive and negative—frequently surface; but it would be correct to say that the connotations change depending upon the historicity of context. Thus nationalism has been viewed as a positive force in the ex-colonial countries in the context of anti-imperialism struggles. But should any of the constituent units of the multinational colony assert that it is a separate nation and mobilize its national sentiment after the attainment of freedom, the rest of the constituents, particularly the dominant nation, would invariably dispute the claim and instantly condemn the mobilization as being “anti-national”.
It is untenable to follow the Latin sense of the term nation, which refers to a tribal-ethnic group, in the contemporary world. Before the French Revolution, the polities were either small (tribes, peasant village, caste councils, city-states) or large (empires, federations, universal churches). Today the tendency is to establish viable polities. There are only around 230 states in the contemporary world. But in Africa alone there are about 6000 tribes and in South Asia over 600. Not only are many of these tribes too small in size to constitute viable states, they may not always have a marked cultural distinctiveness either. Further, if the political dimension is taken into account many are either “stateless” societies and/or are incorporated into larger polities. Therefore, it is better to follow Coleman’s (1958:423–4) definition of tribe here: “The tribe is the largest social group defined primarily in terms of kinship, and is normally an aggregate of clans, intermediate to nationality”.
Even if a tribe is not a nation, the possibility of some tribes becoming nations should not be ruled out. However, to invoke the term nation to refer to class is not helpful to our analysis and need not be pursued here. This leaves us with two definitions by Peterson and Weber. The problematic attribute in the list of characteristics invoked by Peterson in defining “nation”, is religion. In this context one should provide answers to two questions: “What are the irreducible minimum conditions for that entity to exist, and whether or not the removal of one of the attributes would endanger the existence of that entity?”.
I suggest that there are only two basic prerequisites for a nation to exist: common territory and communication. Religion is not a pre-requisite for a nation to emerge or exist; the fact that religion is often invoked to mobilize people into collective actions in the context of nation-formation should not mislead us into accepting it as an attribute of nation. This is so because,
26 STATE, NATION AND ETHNIE: THE PROCESSUAL LINKAGES
(a) secular ideologies have also been used for the same purpose, (b) there are many multi-religious nations,
(c) one can think of a nation of agnostics or atheists, and (d) there is no necessary linkage between religion and territory.
The unfortunate but persisting tendency to define religious collectivities as nations has not only perpetuated conceptual confusion but human misery.
The only difficulty in the Weberian definition is an unwarranted assumption, namely, “a nation is a community which normally tends to produce a state of its own”. Perhaps the reverse would be true if a nation is not subjected to discrimination, exploitation and oppression by another nation; that is, a nation tends to produce its state when it faces abnormal situations. Thus, but for the Tamils, none of the numerous major nations that constitute the Indian state have articulated any desire to produce their own states. The tendency to secede is confined to smaller nations located on inter-state borders, some of which face the threat of extinction because of the steps taken by the central state authority in the name of “national security”. However, this is not to suggest that relatively larger nations in a multinational state would simply acquiesce. Quite the contrary, not only do they have the power to resist the domination, they also usually demand, and are successful in securing, a certain level of political autonomy within a federal system.
Given the ideological preference in the West, not only have state and nation been used interchangeably, they have also been seen as coterminus in much Western social science theory. Bauman’s astute observation ought to be recalled here in full:
Sociology, as it came of age in the bosom of Western civilisation and as we know it today, is endemically national-based. It does not recognize a totality broader than a politically organized nation: the term “society”, as used by well-nigh all sociologists regardless of their school loyalties, is, for all practical purposes, a name for an entity identical in size and composition with the nation-state (1973:42–3).
Further,
…with hardly any exception, all the concepts and analytical tools currently employed by social scientists are geared to a view of the human world in which the most voluminous totality is a “society”, a notion equivalent for all practical purposes, to the concept of the “nation-state”. (ibid.: 78)
This predicament and vision are also largely shared by conventional Marxian theory; but two assumptions—the dispensability of state and the centrality of class and (an empirical fact) multinational socialist states— prompted Marxists to reassess and amend their analysis. It was felt that the state would wither away
CONCEPTUAL MATTERS 27
as it was essentially an instrument of the dominant class. Similarly, since the proletariat does not have any “fatherland”, and “nationalism” represents a form of false consciousness, the possibility of each nation aspiring to constitute its own state was not taken seriously. But the struggle of dominated nations against imperialism was recognized and given respectability, and the possibility of
“nationalities” coexisting in the same state during the transitional period was conceded.
Nationalities are nations without states—nations that failed to establish their own states (Worsley 1984:247–8). In this mode of conceptualization
“nationality” is a consolation prize for a nation that has not realized its aspiration of becoming a state. The prediction is that the nation would aspire to achieve its goal as and when it acquires the requisite striking power. However, as I have noted above, this is not supported by empirical evidence; there are numerous nations that have never staked a claim to statehood, though they have opted for a separate administration within a federal system. The notion of nationality unfolds an ambivalence in conceptualization because it shares the assumption that nations without states are untenable.
To conclude, if nations in Europe are essentially cultural entities that tend to establish their own states, then, in the colonized parts of the world as well as in the ex-colonial countries, nations are viewed as political units. Further, most of the “new nations” are also culturally plural. Thus African nations have emerged through the incorporation of many tribes who spoke different languages or dialects and followed different religious faiths. While “race” is the most salient common feature, even this criterion is not universal, as exemplified in the case of South Africa which is a multi-“racial” state. In Asia, almost all nations are multi- religious and multilingual. In the case of Latin America, the populations of particular nations are multi-“racial”, multilingual, multi-religious or all of these.
In North America and Australia “national” populations are constituted predominantly by migrants from Europe who spoke different languages and who belonged to different religious denominations. Understandably, the connotation of the term nation and the background of the national population vary across continents. With the possible exception of parts of western Europe, “nation- states” are on the whole culturally heterogeneous.
The point to be noted is that it is the historicity of context that invests meanings on concepts. The “people” of the USA did not have a pre-existent
“nation” (in the European sense) to latch on to their nationalism and yet American nationalism led to the formation of a state. On the other hand,
“nations” may not always clamour for their own sovereign states, as borne out by the experience of India.
The nationalist movements of ex-colonial countries were explicitly political and oriented towards state building. These movements had been geared to transform colonies into states and subjects into citizens, but at the height of the struggle against imperialism it was often forgotten that colonies were multinational entities. The primary objective of the anti-imperialist struggle was
28 STATE, NATION AND ETHNIE: THE PROCESSUAL LINKAGES