(a) What do you mean by nation building? What is the role of religion in nation building? Elaborate your answer. (20 marks) (b)…

(a)

Nation building:

• it is the process of creating a shared national identity, loyalty and integrated institutions among diverse people within a state. It combines state-building (institutions, law, economy) and nation-making (a sense of "we");
• Karl Deutsch (1953) stressed social communication and mobilisation. Benedict Anderson's imagined community (1983) and Ernest Gellner's shared high culture (1983) explain how nations are made;
• in India, nation building meant integrating linguistic, religious, caste, regional and tribal diversity into a democratic, federal and secular republic, "unity in diversity" (Nehru).

Religion as a resource for nation building:

• Moral integration: Durkheim saw religion as a source of shared values and solidarity; Robert Bellah's civil religion (1967) shows national symbols acquiring sacred meaning;
• Anti-colonial mobilisation:
• Gandhi used religious idioms (satyagraha, ahimsa, Ram Rajya) as a moral language to mobilise the masses;
• Vivekananda and reformers linked spiritual pride to national self-respect;
• the Khilafat–Non-Cooperation alliance (1919–22) briefly joined Hindus and Muslims;
• Syncretic traditions: Bhakti and Sufi traditions, shared shrines (dargahs), and composite culture (Kabir, Guru Nanak) support a plural national identity;
• Service and reform: religious reform movements and institutions built schools, hospitals and social reform.

Religion as a challenge to nation building:

• Communalism: religious identity was politicised, partly through separate electorates (1909) and census categories. It culminated in the two-nation theory and Partition (1947);
• Communal violence after independence, such as 1984 and 2002, weakens trust;
• Majoritarian versus minority anxieties strain equal citizenship;
• religion can be used to mobilise votes, which T.K. Oommen and Rajni Kothari criticised as damaging to civic nationalism.

India's constitutional answer:

• secular nationhood: Articles 25–30, "principled distance" (Rajeev Bhargava), and S.R. Bommai (1994) holding secularism part of the basic structure;
• citizenship, not religion, defines membership;
• the National Integration Council (1961).

• Conclusion: religion is double-edged in nation building. It can supply moral cohesion and mobilisation, but when politicised it divides. India's approach has been a civic nationalism that respects all religions but rests on none.

(b)

The old economic system:

• a largely agrarian economy of village communities, with customary rights in land and the jajmani exchange of services;
• flourishing handicrafts and textiles (Dhaka muslins, Bengal silk, Gujarat cotton) and a large share of world trade;
• Mughal revenue drawn through intermediaries;
• the idea of fully self-sufficient "little republics" (Metcalfe) is an exaggeration, since there were active markets, bankers and trade (C.A. Bayly).

British reforms and their disruptive effects:

• Land revenue settlements: the Permanent Settlement (1793), ryotwari and mahalwari systems made land a commodity. They produced high, rigid revenue, absentee zamindars, rack-renting, indebtedness and land alienation to moneylenders;
• Commercialisation of agriculture: indigo, cotton, jute and opium were grown for export, and forced indigo cultivation led to the Indigo Revolt (1859–60). Food security fell, with severe famines in 1876–78 and Bengal in 1943;
• De-industrialisation: one-way free trade and cheap Manchester textiles ruined weavers. Old textile centres such as Dhaka declined, and artisans were pushed onto the land, which overcrowded agriculture;
• Drain of wealth: Dadabhai Naoroji (Poverty and Un-British Rule in India, 1901) and R.C. Dutt (Economic History of India) showed surplus transferred to Britain through home charges, salaries and profits;
• Forest laws (1865, 1878) closed common resources and dislocated tribal economies;
• Indentured and plantation labour: Indian labour was exported to Fiji, Mauritius and the Caribbean, and sent to Assam's tea gardens.

Other side of the picture:

• railways (from 1853), telegraphs, ports and uniform law integrated markets. Dave Donaldson's research (2018) finds that railways lowered trade costs and raised incomes;
• a modern industrial sector emerged (Bombay textile mills, Tata Steel in 1907), with a working class and an Indian capitalist class;
• Morris D. Morris and Tirthankar Roy argue that de-industrialisation was partial;
• these changes were designed for colonial extraction but also created the basis of a national economy and of economic nationalism.

• Conclusion: yes. British reforms decisively disrupted the older agrarian and artisanal economy through commodification of land, commercialisation, de-industrialisation and drain. They did so while laying down a colonial, dependent form of modern economy (A.R. Desai; Bipan Chandra).

(c)

The old middle class (colonial and Nehruvian):

• it arose from English education and colonial administration: lawyers, teachers, clerks, doctors and journalists, such as the **Bengali *bhadralok***, described by B.B. Misra (The Indian Middle Classes, 1961);
• it was largely upper-caste and often of landed background;
• it led social reform and nationalism;
• after 1947 it staffed the public sector and bureaucracy, valued frugality, service and state-led development, and had a "Nehruvian" ethos.

The new middle class (after liberalisation):

• Occupation: private-sector, corporate, IT and services, finance, media and entrepreneurs;
• Consumption and lifestyle: identity is expressed through consumption: brands, housing, private education, travel and malls (Leela Fernandes, India's New Middle Class, 2006; Pavan Varma, The Great Indian Middle Class, 1998);
• Global orientation: English, global networks, migration to the Gulf and the West, and a diaspora link;
• Social composition: more diverse, including OBCs and some Dalits and small-town people, though upper castes still dominate (Satish Deshpande);
• Politics: market-friendly and anti-corruption activism (India Against Corruption, 2011); gated communities and resident welfare associations; distance from the welfare state;
• Values: individualism and aspiration, alongside religiosity and tradition in new forms.

• Differences:

• Origin: Old middle class — Colonial education and administration; New middle class — Post-1991 market economy
• Employment: Old middle class — State and professions; New middle class — Private corporate, IT and services
• Ethos: Old middle class — Service, frugality, nation-building; New middle class — Consumption, aspiration, global lifestyle
• Relation to state: Old middle class — Dependent on and supportive of the state; New middle class — Market-oriented; critical of state inefficiency
• Composition: Old middle class — Narrow, upper-caste, urban; New middle class — Broader, but still unequal
• Size: Old middle class — Small; New middle class — Larger, and growing into small towns

• Conclusion: the new middle class is defined less by service to the state than by position in the market and consumption. Its values, however, still mix modern aspiration with caste and tradition.