In everyday translations, The English word ‘Nation’ is translated into ‘Rashtra’ in Hindi. But in reality, both have a completely different meaning and implications.
Both represent a community of people with a collective identity, But the foundation of those identities is what sets them apart.
Nation requires a Political-state, and identity has to be exclusive from other nations. Rashtra does not require Political-state, and its identity is inclusive. That means it does not identify with anything that Nation identifies itself with.
Let’s understand this in detail.
NATION
In today’s Artificial Intelligence and search engine world, if you search the meaning of Nation, this is what it says:
A nation is a community of people who share a collective identity based on common factors such as language, history, culture, or ethnicity. While the word represents the community, but that community needs its own Political State.
Therefore, in real sense the complete word for Nation is Nation-state, in short – Nation.
When a Political State has more than one community, each community either strives to be independent of the other, or they settle for equal or almost equal opportunity to have their representatives in the state governance system.
Nation is comprised of three parts:
- A community with collective identity
- The identity is exclusive.
- The state in which they live has to have their own governance.
When we say Exclusive identities, they can mean: language, culture, color, history, ethnicity, religion, etc. The types of identities can be endless. Rich-poor, powerful-week, technology advanced or backward, an identity can mean anything.
Stronger the feeling of exclusivity, stronger is nationalism. Every nation tries to exert its exclusivity and suppress others.
If and when the sense of exclusivity becomes strong enough that the community wants others to follow their exclusivity, then it leads violence, war and bloodshed.
Another problem that can arise with some of the other identities is that they have an expansionist ideology. They want to spread their area of influence, even by force – the force of military, money or technology.
Ultimately the concept of Nation and Nationalism is about creating divide between the nations in particular, and human beings in general. Thus Nation and Nationalism is separatist in character.
RASHTRA – राष्ट्र
Rashtra is a community of people who share the same simple ideology.
The ideology is: “Do not associate yourself with any identity”.
The ultimate source of creation for all human being is one. The individual may look different, may think differently, may speak differently, but ultimately all different individuals collectively are human beings. The important point is that Rashtra does not associate itself with any of the identities that a nation identifies itself with. It identifies only with humanity. Thus, Rashtra is highly inclusive and is not separatist in character. It does not create divide between human beings.
Which is such community in the world?
HINDU RASHTRA
The community with this ideology is known as Hindu and the ideology is known as Hindutva. It is important to note that this community did not give a name to itself. It is a name given by others and this identity is increasingly being adopted by Hindus for the sake of recognition and the convenience of others.
For sure Hindu Rashtra has an identity of itself, but that identity is of inclusivity. It is self-embracing without any abrasion, it accepts people as they are without demanding conformity.
Yet, people from other ideology feel threatened because they strongly associate themself with an Identity. And they fear that they would lose their separate exclusive identity.
Even when people from other ideologies embrace Hindutva for its belief in inclusivity, people view it as an attack from the Hindus on their own ideologies. They believe that, like them, Hindus are trying to expand and grow their communities, which they see as a direct attack on them and their own identities. Thus, Hindu Rashtra is often misinterpreted as expansionist.
Community with their strong exclusive identity work for elimination of other identity, including Hindu Rashtra. It then becomes necessary for the survival of the community that the Hindu Rashtra fights back and exerts itself to protect itself from elimination. This exertion is again misinterpreted as expansionist, separatist.
Thus, embracing others as they are, without any force and exerting themself to prevent itself from elimination is misinterpreted as behavior similar to a Nation.
But the foundation is entirely different. It is not an assertion of exclusivity, but a survival of inclusivity. It is not an attempt at expansion, rather an act of self-preservation.
Rashtra as Political-State.
Unlike a Nation, a Hindu Rashtra does not strive for a Political-state. There can be countless political states, but if the people living in them share the Hindu ideology of inclusivity, then they collectively form one Hindu Rashtra.
It is only when their existence is at stake that they strive to establish a political-state for their protection.
