It's fun listening to Brown Pundits and catching some of the differences in understanding of conservatism in that group. Those who are commenting from within India are likely to use the word conservatists rather than conservatives, while those who are expatriates stick to the usage common to the rest of the English-speaking world. The former do not often use the word liberal much at all that I can tell, which is something of a blessing, as it no longer means much in English, especially when applied at historical distances of more than a few decades. (I think liberal has acquired a meaning of "smart, tolerant people - you know, the good guys" among its modern adherents, with very flexible meaning otherwise.)
But a distinction important in India is that nationalism means the preservation of institutions, while conservatism means the preservation of communities. This is understandable to Americans, but it isn't usually how we characterise it ourselves. It's a fun distinction to roll around in the mind, and perhaps useful for looking at ourselves.
Interesting on the institutions/communities nationalism/conservatism understandings.
ReplyDeleteI noticed when living in Europe that there is a strong association in people's minds there between 'nationalism' and racism/xenophobia -- after all, most of their countries (with a few notable exceptions - Switzerland, Belgium, etc) are until recently largely people of one language and heritage.
Even something that seems innocent like learning folkloric dance is seen as having a fascistic odor to it. I've had people express to me that they find it frightening to see so many US flags on US homes, and it really doesn't occur to them that nationalism in the USA is a way we unify people of multiple ethnicities -- their impression is in many ways opposite to the reality.
I had a jolly dinner with a hiring committee for a job I didn't get several years ago, and one on the committee was from India - the topic of languages came up, and he said "I bet you can't guess the languages I speak!" I thought for a moment and replied, but I only got the principal 4 (of 7 as it turns out). -- He was kind of surprised, but as he had the same surname as someone I knew from Kerala who spoke Kannada at home, English/Malayalam/Hindi/Kannada were pretty obvious candidates.
It's kind of strange to me that denizens of India feel "Indian" rather than more strongly identifying as Keralian, Gujarati, etc.; but I suppose it had been unified under the Mughal empire and its predecessors, so there is a historic 'Indian' identity that supersedes more local allegiances even with the limited intermixing across internal geographic boundaries and between language-groups, castes, and religions.
Douglas2
It's kind of strange to me that denizens of India feel "Indian" rather than more strongly identifying as Keralian, Gujarati, etc.; but I suppose it had been unified under the Mughal empire and its predecessors, so there is a historic 'Indian' identity that supersedes more local allegiances even with the limited intermixing across internal geographic boundaries and between language-groups, castes, and religions.
ReplyDeleteThat depends. A friend who visited India told me that in Kerala she was informed that "We don't speak the conquerors' tongue." The conquerors' tongue wasn't English, but Hindi.