Book Review: A review of a book like ‘Imagined Communities’, written by Benedict Anderson, may seem unnecessary, since it has so long ago been published and read by people in numerous countries not only in globally accessible languages but also their native languages. But this book which Anderson himself admittedly never wrote solely for academic purposes, still needs to reach out to many people. This review aims to pick a few threads from this expansive book with many philosophical, political, historical, cultural, sociological threads and contextualise them in present times, especially in Indian milieu in order to introduce this book to many who would do well to read it.
Anderson addresses this concern
about the power of the concept of nationalism when he writes “The reality is
quite plain: the ‘end of era of nationalism’, so long prophesised, is not
remotely in sight.” That the era is now invigorated with more and more
self-confessed patriots and nationalists in charge of the administration and
governance at the helm in countries across the globe, is telling about the
relevance of Anderson’s assertion.
The book addresses the deep embedded-ness
of nationalism and its cultural and socio-political ramifications in our daily
lives. It lends a perspective on one of the most common cultural phenomenon in
most countries these days and especially in India which is the constant clash
between people due to the difference in their sensibilities regarding the nation. The idea of “subjective antiquity” of the
entity of nation for some runs contrary to the idea of “objective modernity” of
the concept of nation for others.
This antiquity is derived from a need of
“continuity”. Anderson remarks that with the decline in religious mode of
thinking witnessed in the eighteenth century in western Europe one of the
biggest challenges being faced was to counter the idea of fatality which
religion thus far was used for through its ideas on salvation. Nation then
became that secular (yet eternal) entity which loomed out of an “immemorial past”
and loomed into a “limitless future” and provided that sought after claim to
continuity.
The book picks up a historical thread,
which cannot be explained in so many words. But the gist of it is that all the
classical communities were imagined through a common sacred language linked to
a “super-terrestrial order of power” such as Arabic, Chinese, Pali and Latin
among others. As different civilisations came into contact with each other and
the idea of antiquity of one’s own particular community was shaken, the belief
in the unique sacredness of these languages also gave way. At this point in
time vernacular languages gained ascendance. The more accessible vernaculars
were developed into new print languages. Rising tide of print capitalism took
advantage of this and literature in these new languages became a precious
capitalist commodity giving rise to new basis of imagining communities.
Anderson explains how this print capitalism
aided imagining by citing the rise of two premier products of print- the newspaper
and the novel. Using the concept of simultaneity and homogeneous empty time,
Anderson goes into the philosophical underpinnings of how communities can be
imagined with the help of archetypical characters as well as the act of
consumption of news and information. These ideas in themselves are important
takeaways from the book, used by various thinkers to espouse their own ideas
even today about literature, media, politics and philosophy in general.
Old ways of thinking, especially with
regards to religion were challenged and the rise of vernaculars through print
capitalism aided it in a big way. Different languages which were developed in scripts and publicised through print acquired new found and greater
importance especially in the imagining of the communities as nations with a
common language.
If one happens to read the book, they will
find that the overarching theme largely relates to colonial nationalisms (those
which grew out of opposition to colonial powers in the respective colonies).
Although Anderson uses the historical thread of language, discussed above, to
explain the upsurge of these nationalisms he takes the contrary position as
well to understand in those cases where language alone is not the key defining
factor. This contrary position emerges precisely when he is talking about
Creole nationalism (Refer to the book to understand the concept better).
Here he takes another historical thread to
elaborate his point which is that of pilgrimage. Just like language, concept of
pilgrimage which also evolved during the times of religiosity came to acquire
different manifestations in the more secular times. The centralisation of
administration led to evolution of processes which demanded transferability of
things like people, officials, documents etc. and this accompanied with a
“single-language-of state” gave rise to “a consciousness of connectedness”.
Besides the elaboration on emergence of
creole nationalism this section also illustrates the genealogy of modern day
middle class in colonial nations, in terms of its traits, characteristics,
makeup and behaviour. The methods employed by colonial powers in subject
nations to subjugate the colonial population yet command their loyalty can be traced
in this matrix of power relations made up of language and aspirations for
upward mobility in administrative services. And in so many ways this also
speaks about how present day middle class still derives its politics through
this linguistic, bureaucratic power matrix with added structural and
circumstantial factors.
But the larger point that Anderson wishes
to address is why resistance to imperial-colonial powers was largely conceived
in most colonies in the language of ‘nations’. He writes, “What I am proposing
is that neither economic interest, Liberalism, nor Enlightenment could, or did,
create in themselves the kind, or shape, of imagined community to be defended
from these regimes’ depredations”. This task as he suggests was accomplished by
the national imagery. Even though he made this point with reference to the
Creole pioneers in western hemisphere it also applies to non-Western contexts
like that of India. Much like in most post-colonial nations, India’s resistance to long
continuing imperial domination also came in the form of nationalistic
imagination and this can possibly explain the reverence accorded to the
national struggle even today. This point is especially reflected in the fact
that even in common place celebrations of India’s Republic Day even today, most
references are made to independence struggle even though the day is a
commemoration of promulgation of India’s constitution.
The ideas born out of the independence
movements, suggests Anderson while talking about the Americas, such as nation-states,
republican institutions, common citizenships, national flags and anthems etc.
came to be identified as diametrically opposites of concepts like dynastic
empires, monarchical institutions, absolutisms, subjecthoods etc. Looking at
the powerful force of nationalism, even dynasts began to consciously identify
themselves as belonging to the nations and in a way lowered their status from
being the imperial masters of the nations.
This kind of gesturing of appearing to be
one of the nation’s people is an inherited legacy in modern day democracies. A
reason why this legacy was inherited in post-colonial nations was that by acknowledging themselves as belonging to the nation dynasties or power-groups initiated the process of building, what Anderson calls, “official
nationalisms” (nationalism stretched over official dynasties rather than born
out of popular resistance) which were then brought through colonialism in
subject nations as well.
The
legacy of official nationalism reflects in another way in the nationalistic
behaviours of many nations in the post-World-War-II era, which is the
“systematic, even Machiavellian, instilling of nationalist ideology through the
mass media, the educational system, administrative regulations, and so forth”.
The relevance of this point is not lost by any stretch in India, even in the
present times.
Thus, Anderson suggests that, while civil
and military educational systems are modelled on official nationalisms;
elections, party organisations and cultural celebrations are modelled on
popular aspects of nationalism. One feature that got ingrained with the involvement of “official
nationalism” in the contemporary nationalism was that it emanated from the
state and served the “interests of the state first and foremost”. Hence dissent
against state is often termed as treason against nation, to offer one
substantive example of this phenomenon.
Yet with all the explanations that Anderson
makes available to explain the patterns and models of nationalism in different
continents, countries and eras, he still asks one pertinent question, that even
if nationalist imaginings are models invented or developed which are emulated
elsewhere, “why people are ready to die for these inventions”. To find an
answer to this question Anderson evokes the concept of family. According to him
both family and nation result in ties born out of sheer chance or destiny and
with it comes the idea of there being no motive or interest inherent in these
bonds. He also asserts that while family
is increasingly being articulated as a power-structure in itself, this
conception is still “certainly foreign to the overwhelming bulk of mankind”.
Similarly alternative conceptions about nationalistic imaginings are also alien
to vast majority of people, on whose shoulders (that is the majority’s), the
idea of patriotism rests.
‘Nationness’ which is an all-pervasive
phenomenon is also ingrained in the everyday bigotry according to Anderson. He
refers to the derogatory terms used to describe people belonging to certain
racial groups which point out a certain physical aspect of their features.
Doing so, he says “erases nation-ness by reducing the adversary to his
biological physiognomy”.
This book covers almost every aspect of modern day life and forces the reader
to think about it afresh and with a completely new perspective. One such thing
is the idea of ‘census’. Amidst all the fanfare with which common people
welcome this huge state-sponsored exercise every ten years, census becomes like a celebration of our imagining of the nation. But as Anderson
points out “The fiction of the census is that everyone is in it, and that
everyone has one-and only one-extremely clear place.”
When this secular notion of quantifying
people in various categories evolved, it also encountered problems which were
non-secular in nature. Religious affiliation which was the prior form of
imagining communities, came back to confront the
census due to which the colonies had to make some “messy accommodations”; accommodations that these nations still have to contend with.
Another aspect of imagining nation is the
map. Anderson here quotes Thongchai Winichakul who writes “A map merely
represents something which already exists objectively ‘there’. In the history...this relationship was reversed. A map anticipated spatial
reality, not vice versa. In other words, a map was a model for, rather than a
model of, what it purported to represent.” This point is extremely relevant
when one looks at all the controversies which arise out of mapping of
international boundaries.
Add to it attributing anthropomorphic
qualities to the imagining of nation as in case of Indian subcontinent and the
complexities become manifold. The image of ‘Bharat Mata’ which originated in India during anti-colonial struggle among some patriotic groups, superimposed on the
political map of Indian subcontinent, reifies Anderson’s point about the
“logo-map” penetrating deep into the popular imagination as a “powerful emblem
for the anticolonial nationalisms being born”. Thus map as well as its
anthropomorphic representation both became more than mere representation of
reality and turned into a desire and reverence for the anticipated or imagined
reality. In many ways it also reified the idea of nation’s antiquity which
nationalists hold so dearly.
With mapping mechanisms like census and
maps, the colonial state wished to render everything and everyone visible under
its watchful eye and hence under its control. The same apparatus was inherited
by the independent post-colonial state and only furthered as evidenced by the
modern surveying mechanisms like the biometric identification tools such as Aadhar
or Unique Identification System.
This review has dealt with only some of the many arguments,
discursive threads and logics which Anderson has discussed in the book. The
argumentative narrative of the book, as told in the beginning, is so complex
and expansive that discussing it within bounds of one review is quite
difficult. Yet the threads taken up in this review have been chosen to
highlight some of the foundational aspects of the book which can help a
prospective reader to understand the importance of this book.
Nationalism as we are witnessing is a
concept- well and alive. In times when popular leaders in different parts of
the world are riding the wave of their own versions of nationalisms with their
followers following suit, this book lends to us not the definitive explanation of nationalism but rather some possible
clues to better understand its genealogy as well as the “morphology of
nationalist consciousness” as Anderson had intended.
-Sumit
-Sumit