Civic Nationalism

An inquiry in Civic Nationalism and Ethnic Nationalism: India and Pakistan

Civic and Ethnic nationalism are two sides of the same coin. They both refer to the sentiment that one feels towards their nation or country and the force that binds the citizens together. Civic nationalism can only exist where there also exists a civilized society i.e. law abiding and governing people who have a belonging to the same community. The idea is that civic nationalism is exercised in those areas where there exists a civil society. That is, a group of people who feel they belong to the same community, are governed by law and respect the rule of law. In this nationalism, the sovereignty lies and is imbibed within the community as a whole who belong to a state

Up until the partition in 1947, there had been mass upheavals and revolts in India all with the common aim of an independent India. Though certain groups of people grew to have different contentions than others. This lead to the formation of a separate state with the name of Pakistan. This began with the formation of the All India Muslim League in 1906 with the help of prominent Muslim leader of the likes of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Aga Khan III. The Muslim league was formed at the time when the congress moderates were ardently trying to attain the rights of the people of India. The Muslim League’s original goal was to attain and protect the rights of Muslims residing in India. This League was repeatedly shunned down by the British occupants in its early years because the majority of Muslims in India rejected the British education. It was only after the Britishers started realising the true power and support that the Indian National Congress had gathered that they started to support their Muslim counterpart as a part of their policy of divide and rule. It was then when the Muslim League started to think big. Throughout the early 20th century the Muslim League and the Congress were at loggerheads with each other. The Muslim League were always spreading the pro-British sentiments. The idea of Pakistan started to come up in the early 1930’s. The first

In the case of India Pakistan the answers are not that simple. India on one hand according to her constitution treats all human beings in the nation equally and does not differentiate them or support any one group in particular. Even though these are one of the basic fundamental rights which the Indian Constitution provides and functions along, there does exist a very large and influential extremist Hindu movement which holds a great amount of power in the nation. The majority Hindu population have factions of Hindu Nationalists who follow the policy of