India as a country is difficult to define without taking into considerations its physical borders. Without a constraint, its cultural diversity is as varied and diverse as the number of languages currently in practice in India which is more than 400 different kinds. It has become even more complex with the current rising spate of globalization.
Indian history and culture is ancient and very dynamic. It goes back to the beginning of human civilization with the Indus valley and probably a mixture of cultures of such which over the years might have been passed off as myth and not history. Indian history is one which has been punctuated by constant integration with migrating peoples and with diverse cultures that surround India. Placed in the center of Asia, history in India is a crossroads of cultures from China to Europe, from Africa to Japan.
India's history is more than just an outcome of uniquely developed circumstances and cultures. It's a miniature record of human history itself. The diversity of all cultures are impinging on a great smorgasbord and being reforged into new and interesting syncretic forms.
Beginning in Indus valley civilization in 3000-1500 BC, the Indian subcontinent was to become home to many kingdoms, fiefdoms, wars and turbulences. From the Aryans who stayed in India right after the Indus Valley civilization to the subsequent Vedic Age and the Golden age of India- the Gupta Empire. Each ended with a huge political upheaval which gave way for the next age. There is also a marked degree of racism and rise in the rigidity of caste system since the Vedic age.
The Aryans had the pride of their racial purity which was the key symbolism of the Vedic Age as we know of it today. It was in this period which gave modern India tools that support the irrational morality and superfluous ritualistic practices which have done more harm than good in today's modern Indian Society. The Godhra riots were a product of intrinsic differences between Hindus and Muslims and the intolerance of these differences were further fuelled by pseudo spiritual religious leaders quoting righteous texts from the literature of a bygone era. The demolition of the Babri Masjid was again a tussle of religious differences between peoples of the same country claiming different descent.
A chain of such political upheavals and counter nationalistic occurrences is ironically the nexus between the multicultural Indian identity and the existence of India as a nation.
Instances of Counter Nationalism
Case for Pakistan
Of course, a country is not without its share of political and civil disturbances. India officially as a country first came into being in 15th August 1947, as an independent nation. However, independence for India was far from a happy event. Independence to India meant independence to another country, Pakistan which got cut off from what was an integral part of the erstwhile Indian entity.
The differences that made the rift between Hindus and Muslims tangible were apparently a lot more than the similarities that bound them.
The Muslim League, suspicious of the Hindu dominated Indian National Congress and fearing unequal inferior treatment in an independent India wanted a separate country for the Muslim Community.
Until before the English arrived, Mughal emperors ruled the larger part of the Indian Subcontinent. During the 200 years of the British Rule, somewhere along the progression of history, the identity of either religious community- Hindus and the Muslims clashed. The huge communal divide had apparently become too large for one single nation to hold it together at its seams.
The answer was found by dividing India, to make a separate country for a separate faction of Indian culture- The Muslims.
There are several interesting key notes on the case for Pakistan:-
The basic question arises as to why the Muslim community felt the need to have a nation of their own. The syncretism between Hindus and Muslim was a cultural adhesive that would have belied even the faintest idea of Partition a couple of decades prior to it. Yet, during the course of history and the presence of European rulers, the divide between various multicultural communities of India became more pronounced. Discrimination within a single religious community was rampant as well. Indian society as a culture had disintegrated and had lost its moral virtues.
Due to partition, there was a mass exodus of Hindus and Muslims crossing the new border to be citizens of a country more preferable to them. Barring very few rare cases, Hindus preferred India while Muslims went to Pakistan. The degeneration of social civility of this time is clearly proved by the violence that accompanied this mass shifting of lakhs of families. The massacres which happened were faith based. In between all this chaos, which part of the murderer killed for religion, which part killed for patriotism and which part killed for plain simple lust will always be under doubt.
Interestingly, India today still has a sizable Muslim population. India remained a secular country while Pakistan has an official state religion- Islam. The Muslims of India are varied in their culture as well as language. The Muslims of Kerala and the Muslims of Lucknow are very linguistically different. And yet, unity is there. We can rarely find instances of anti-establishment uprising amongst the Muslims of India.
When Pakistan got its independence on 14th August 1947, it included West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The latter is today called Bangladesh. East Pakistan was known as East Bengal in undivided India. It became the country of Bangladesh after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. Two halves of the country of Pakistan lay across either side of the wide expanse on the Indian subcontinent.
A country divided in such a way physically, culturally and perhaps politically was doomed to have its history strife with violence and inconsistencies. Barely 24 years into existence and Pakistan had to again face a dilemma of insecure identity. Discriminatory political practices as well as underlying hostility between citizens of the same country led to the partition of a country still in the stage of infancy. India gave financial and military support to Bangladesh against Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War, 1971.
Consequently, India suffered in the midst of antagonistic exchange between the two halves of what was earlier its very own soil.
Khalistan movement
Extensive Sikh demands for an independent state rather than just greater autonomy under a transformed federalist India was the keystone for the Khalistan movement. The prime reason for the Khalistan movement to change from being communal self-awareness and religious revival, to linguistic ethno nationalism, to secessionism were the actions of the central state. Economic forces led by frustrated farmers by the green revolution, a demand for greater share of power between central and state government which went unmet and religious revivalism among Sikhs, and further fueled by a series of attrocities by the central state and mounting differences between Sikhs and Hindus, led to demands for a sovereign Sikh state of Khalistan by the 1980s. The demand for Khalistan came more from abroad, particularly the Sikh Diaspora, than from India.
The Sikh religion finds its ancestry in the ten gurus. The first of them was Guru Nanak and the last was Guru Gobind Singh. He went on to lay the foundations of the Khalsa Panth towards the end of the eighteenth century. Khalsa bases its value system egalitarian principles, with authority vested in the holy book, Guru Granth. The Sikh identity is made up of the history, myths, and memories of the Punjab land than on an abstract faith. The religious practices of the Khalsa Panth are "subsumes social, cultural, political and territorial identities". Punjabi Jat peasantry is where most of the Sikhs find their origin in. The Jats belong to the lower social class in Punjab The noteworthy factors in Sikh uniqueness include commitment to the ten gurus and identification with their teachings, the institution of congregation and pilgrim centers, the convention of a communal meal called Langar, and the Guru Granth Sahib. "The most visible markers of Sikh identity are the "five Ks," the external symbols declared by Guru Gobind: unshorn hair, a comb, a steel bracelet, short breeches, and a sword". The surname Singh has been universally accepted among Sikh men since the eighteenth century and the Amritsar Golden Temple has always been the most important center of Sikh pilgrimage since the same era. Sikh identity was never associated with any territory until recently. The first instances of Punjab being an issue came at the time of independence. The British divided India along the lines of Religion and Punjab was divided based on Hindu and Muslim. The state though had a majority of Sikhs was granted statehood along religious lines of Hindus and Muslims.
The Sikh reformists' main aim was to retain be in command of of religious practices and institutions. The Akali Dal was formed in 1914 to take over control of Sikh shrines. Since the 1920s, the Khalsa Panth has been represented by the Akali Dal, their argument being that the religious and political interests of Sikhs are inseparable. They believe that the Sikh identity transcends all other identities, and that the Sikhs will be loyal to the central government only upon the state's recognition of the community as a "collective group with historic theopolitical status."
Khalistan movement was influenced all along by the actions of the Indian State, from being a benign initiative to reshaping Sikh identity and radicalizing the movement. Congress Party had accepted the principle of linguistic states during the British regime, helped fuse territoriality and Sikh ethnicity. The issue boiled when the new government refused to carve out a Punjabi-speaking state and refuted the demands for a Punjabi state claiming it to be a Sikh communal ploy. The state was wary of the security threat the state could imply with its proximity to the Pakistan border. There were fears that caving in would sour relations between Sikhs and Hindus. The resistance to attain the Punjabi Status was finally realized in 1966, when they forged a nexus between Punjab and Sikh consciousness. The Sikhs evolved into an "ethno territorial community" from then on. Moreover, "modern institutions, such as the state and census reports, reinforced the fusion of linguistic and communal identities." Hindi became tied to Hindus and Punjabi to Sikhs, with popular mass media such as the vernacular press compounding these impacts
Telengana
Ayodhya
