NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Political Science - Nationalism

Q1: How is a nation different from other forms of collective belonging?
Ans: Nation is, to a great extent, an 'imagined community' held together by the collective beliefs, aspirations and imaginations of its members. It is based on certain assumptions like shared beliefs, common history, common territory, shared political ideals and common political identity that people construct about the collective whole with which they identify themselves. Unlike family its members are not linked with face-to-face relation. It is different from clans and other kinship groups as it is not based common descent. It is different from any lingual group as it is not based on a common language nor is it like a religious group as it does not share any common religion.

Q2: What do you understand by the right to national self-determination?
How has this idea resulted in both formation of and challenges to nation-states?
Ans:

• Right to national self-determination means seeking the right by cultural groups to govern themselves and determine their future development as a nation.
• The idea of national self-determination led to the formation of nation-state. As in case of Europe after First World-War, the countries were formed on the basis of culture they shared. It helped these groups to determine their future development path and to govern themselves.
• This idea is also a challenge to the formation of nation-state as it is impossible to have one culture in a nation-state. It is impossible to ensure that each cultural group could achieve political independence and statehood. Examples for the same could be the mass migrations that took place after the re-organisation of state boundaries in Europe to maintain cultural homogeneity.

Q3: “We have seen that nationalism can unite people as well as divide them, liberate them as well generate bitterness and conflict”. Illustrate your answer with examples.
Ans: Nationalism requires to be studied due to its important role in the world affairs:

• Nationalism has united the people and divided them also to liberate them from oppressive rule and has been the cause of conflict and wars.
• Nationalism has contributed to the drawing and re-drawing of the boundaries of states and empires.
• Nationalism has been a factor in the break of empires and states.
• Nationalism has gone through various processes/passes, i.e. it led to the unification of a number of small kingdoms into large nation states as Italy, Germany, etc.
• Even at present a large part of the world is divided into different nation-states and separatist struggles within existing states are common.
• Nationalism has also accompanied to the break up of empires like Austro-Hungarian (in the end of 1919 or 1920), break of colonial Britain, France, Dutch and Portuguese in Asia and Africa.

Q4: Neither descent, nor language, nor religion or ethnicity can claim to be a common factor in nationalisms all over the world. Comment.
Ans:

• It is commonly believed that nations are constituted by a group who share certain features as descent, or language or religion or ethnicity.
• But, there is in fact no common set of characteristics to be present in all nations.
• Many nations do not have common language, i.e. Canada includes English speaking and French speaking people and India also has a large number of languages to be spoken in different regions.
• Many nations do not have a common religion to unite them. And some is applicable to other characteristics, i.e. race or descent.

Hence, a nation is to a great extent an imagined community held together by the collective beliefs, aspirations and imaginations of its members.

Q5: Illustrate with suitable examples the factors that lead to the emergence of nationalist feelings.
Ans:

• A common motherland emerges the feelings of nationalism because people belonging to one place are mutually bound to love their motherland, i.e. The Jews stayed far away from motherland still it kept nationalism alive.
• Common culture refers for customs and traditions, ideas, art and literature, dress, food, etc. through which people start understanding one another to live in harmony and cooperation. Hence, it emerges nationalism.
• Common language also emerges nationalism as people understand and come nearer to each other by their expressions together to bind them. Through language, the people develop some habits as well as adopt some ways of life.
• Common religion also contribute to the emergence of nationality as the people remain under the command of a religious leader and the spirit of oneness is developed among all followers of religion.

Q6: How is a democracy more effective than authoritarian governments in dealing with conflicting nationalist aspirations?
Ans:

• A democratic government is more effective than an authoritarian government as it respects the opinion of people and provides opportunity and rights to every cultural group to flourish.
• All cultural groups including those in minorities have the opportunity to be represented at the highest levels of decision making in a democratic set up. Thus, it provides a structure for all groups to express their aspirations.
• An authoritarian government will create an oppressive and authoritative society in which minority groups cannot survive. The dominance of the majority gives rise to nationalist aspirations among other groups in such situations.
• A democratic government respects the rights and cultural identity of minorities and therefore can solve conflicting nationalist aspirations by taking decisions through consensus that benefit all groups which stay inside the democratic set up.

Q7: What do you think are the limitations of nationalism?
Ans: The limitations of nationalism can be cited as:

• Most nationalist ideals are representative of the goals of a single cultural group. Thus, they fail to incorporate the broader vision of inclusiveness.
• Since it is not possible for every cultural group to create its own nation-state therefore every nation-state state has more than one cultural group.
• The different cultural groups often get involved in conflicts due to their separate nationalist aspirations and the principle of exclusivity based upon a desire for homogenous identity.
• The role of nationalism in a globalised world is yet to be completely evaluated as nationalist tendencies acquire a different meaning in an inter-connected world.