The Quest for Decolonization: Reimagining Politics, Nation State and Identity in India

Abstract

Was the liberation movement really for liberation? Did the nationalist movements betray the multitudes, the common of the society? Was the liberation of South Asia only a shift of minorities (from native to national minority) and unequal dynamics of power (‘Strongmen’ ruling the weak)? Almost every nation state shares the same attributes. The Empire's colonists and native are the nation state’s national majority and national minority, Mamdani (2020) argued. The study uses Mamdani's theoretical framework of nation state to understand the plight of India’s national minorities. Minorities of the nation state are struggling to belong and find a space of identity in the land of their ancestors. Mamdani, through the example of Apartheid South Africa, proposes that nation state’s violence can be curbed through decolonizing the governing apparatus of state narratives that shapes the identity of the people for its own benefits. The people should not buy into the state narratives based on differences that spread violence for its own strategic and political purposes. But they should reassemble and redefine their subjective truths to reshape their identity, to regain the power of inclusion not exclusion, and to contribute to the land of their ancestors. As Amartya Sen argued, freedom is also the primary objective of development. The struggle to freedom must be fought on all fronts.