Book Review on Shashi Tharoor’s ‘The Battle of Belonging: On Nationalism, Patriotism, And What it Means to Be an Indian
15/December/2021
In the last decade or so, nationalism has ceased to be an abstruse
social science topic in academic debates around the globe. A number
of cou
ntries have reported resurgence of movements within their
politico
-
cultural space that insist on a greater inward look, emphasis
on local, indigenous religious/ cultural practices, and a need for
homogeneity at a time when the world is getting increasingly
connected and globalized.
Such a retrogressive movement has a special link with India where
the theory and practice of the current ruling party, the BJP has
catapulted nationalism into the street
and the social media space. Shashi
Tharoor’s most recent bo
ok
The Battle
of Belonging
attempts to address the
threats and challenges to the Indian
republic spawned by, in the author’s
estimation, a marked shift to ‘ethno
-
nationalism’ under the BJP regime. The
author in his book pits this ethno
-
nationalism of the B
JP and the RSS
against what he calls ‘civic
nationalism’
which was endorsed by the founding
fathers of the republic of India and is
deeply embedded in the constitution of
the country. The idea of civic nationalism which he espouses is not
predicated upon o
ne’s ‘ethnicity, religion or language’ but ‘involves
multiple and layered affiliations’ and integration derives from ‘a
sense of mutual commitment among citizens to a common set of
ideals, values, and rules’. Such nationalism is, according to the
author, n
oble and benign as well as more appropriate to the new
world order we inhabit. Ethno
-
nationalism, in contrast, harks
back
to
a relatively primitive age when allegiances to one’s homeland
descended from one’s relationship to the dominant ethnicity.
Divided
into six sections and 38 short chapters, the book starts by
locating ‘the idea of nationalism’ as something of recent vintage that
supplanted great empires of the world and gained distinct currency
only in the 19
th
century. It defines nine broad categorie
s of
nationalism and argues that nationalism as an idea should be marked
differently from its synonym patriotism in that while patriotism is
natural love and pride in one’s birthplace and encompasses
acknowledgment of flaws, and is more open to coexistence
;
nationalism is based on not registering any warts, is mindless
promotion of one’s nation as the most superior of all and has
xenophobia embedded in it. Tharoor then
goes on to call
nationalism
janus
faced because while as a myth it unites people and give
s them
a sense of belonging, its flip side entails a fear and hatred of the
other which leads to wars and disorder. In the subsequent sections of
the book, the author draws attention to and criticizes majoritarian
nationalism, the kind of nationalism pract
iced by elected leaders in
the US, the UK, Turkey, India, Israel and so on which he theorises
as a backlash against the crisis of globalism and multiculturalism.
His specific target here is relentless attempts at cultural
homogenization of his home country
India which for millennia has
been the cradle for tolerance, pluralism and heterogeneity.
In the culture war that engulfs the country, Tharoor, drawing ideas
and inspiration from Nehru, Gandhi, and Ambedkar, is evidently on
the side of more liberty and
openness to religious, linguistic, and
cultural diversity as means to achieving national integration. This of
course is not the first time the erstwhile diplomat and minister of
parliament has expressed his distaste for majoritarianism,
sectarianism, and l
inguistic chauvinism which, in his analysis, has
spiked over the last decade resulting in multiple reported instances
of hate crimes, cow vigilantism killings, fake news, trolling, rape
threats etc. weakening India’s unity in diversity. His entire oeuvre,
across genres, iterates pluralism as the basis of the true idea of India.
The author wants his reader to not get swayed by the cont
inuous
stream of fake news and Wh
atsapp forwards, the overly masculine
posturing of the powers that be, the vitriol and propa
ganda in media,
the insistence on singularity of the
Hindi
-
Hindu
-
Hindustan
rallying
cry of ethno
-
nationalism.
The major problem with the book is that it feels too wordy and
repetitive at multiple junctures which may put off many readers.
This becomes
more acute for those who are familiar with the
author’s ideological and political allegiances articulated in his
countless print media articles, speeches, interviews, and of course
books. What works for him here is the pace of the narration which is
fast a
nd fluent. The book is not particularly intellectually
demanding, and theoretically does not break new ground. Barring
the first section titled ‘The Idea of Nationalism’ where the author
marshals support of established thinkers in familiarizing his readers
with multiple ways of imagining nationhood, nationalism’s origin
and its multiple facets, the rest of this book remains very much a
polemical account, a passionate indictment of the sins of the rival
political party, particularly its leader at the helm. I
t is an exercise in
non
-
stop castigation of Hindutva and often sketches its opposition in
broad strokes, colouring it in monochrome. If one reads this account
of modern India in conjunction with say Vinay Sitapati’s
Jugal
Bandi: The BJP Before Modi
(2020)
and Badri Narayan’s latest
Republic of Hindutva: How the Sangh is Reshaping Indian
Democracy
(2021) then one may conclude that the book
oversimplifies the conservative right
-
wing movement and follows
closely the tradition of liberal
-
left view of the RSS an
d its affiliates.
Detractors may say that it refuses to register how the BJP and the
RSS have refashioned themselves along modern enlightenment
values, assimilating those communities which were historically on
the fringes, and have accepted India’s ties to
its West
-
inspired
constitutional structure while simultaneously ceasing to be agents of
bloodshed and riots.
As a polemic, the book succeeds in persuading its reader to be on
the right side of history and convinces her to align her nationalism
with what
is becoming increasingly common in the more developed
west notwithstanding the current discontent with globalization and
pluralism in certain parts of Europe. In terms of concerns it finds
company with Aakar Patel’s
Our Hindu Rashtra
(2020) and K S
Komired
di’s
Malevolent Republic (2019)
both of which are
eminently readable but the celebrity of Shashi Tharoor generates for
this book a larger and perhaps more receptive readership.
IIT Roorkee. His research interests
include Travel
Narratives, South Asian Literature and Culture, Masculinity and
Politics, and Contemporary Fiction. His critical works have been
published by
Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies on
Humanities, IUP Journal of English Studies
as well
as by Routledge
and Palgrave Macmillan.