It is, each of us has had at some point or the other, an unpopular opinion. Of course, every opinion is unpopular among somebody or the other. But generally, in Hafta discussions, certain opinions stand out. So we will discuss those one at a time. So let's start with the person who is joining us after the longest time, Mehraj. So Mehraj, what is your unpopular opinion that you are quite confident the rest of the panel will not agree with? One of the reasons for the problems that India faces now, social, economic, and increasingly administrative, one of the root causes of that is the idea of nationalism. And I don't mean in the sense of Hindu nationalism, but more in the, you know, the traditional sense of the term, what a nation means. And I'll just explain why I say that. So basically, when you talk about nationalism, the core belief of nationalism is that people become more equal, they become more free, and they become more modern when two things happen. one is that you kind of strip away their immediate communities and by extension their immediate identities and then you coalesce them around a broader identity that broader identity can be religion it can be ethnicity it can be you know it can be language and the like and in in case of very large nation states such as india it's invariably a piece of a piece of geography a particular geography right but with its attendant symbols flags myths imagined history how it came into being now obviously this is necessary to build a nation state you have to have that common thread to get like all these diverse groups of people pulling in somewhat of a same direction and that's what the you know the founders of this nation tried to do some of this is obviously i mean you can make an argument and some of this is good right you know you take for example caste inequality breaking down that caste inequality and supplanting it with something more egalitarian right you know this idea of national that's obviously good but there are two problems right one is that when you talk about this broader identity the specific idea of nationalism you want to gather people around or at least the majority of them so in the if you start with the beginning of independent india in the ideal of nationalism the foundation of that concept was you had broadly speaking you had secularism you had representative democracy and you had social inequality in the broad sense of that word Today, the powers that be, they're building or recasting this idea around religion. That's why you have Hindu nationalism. Secularism isn't a good enough thread to bring people around because other people have competing interests and that's disadvantageous to them. So this idea of Hindu nationalism. Now whether it's the Nairobian idea or it's the Hindu nationalism or vintage of it, when you implement it in a country as big and as diverse as India, it entails a few things. One is necessarily centralization. If you look at the debates of the Constituent Assembly, they had these discussions, you know, whether India should be a purely federal state or whether it should be a unitary state, and then they kind of, you know, concluded that we'll build this kind of a state which is sort of more a kind of a, you know, mash of two things it'll have a federal character but it will be like us with a strong center so what part of that do you think anand you agree with what disagree with and what is inevitable so it doesn't matter whether we agree or not are you gonna punch marriage through the screen and there are two and too many thoughts there so i will pick one by one some of which i will miss because i can't recall everything. Yes, on the question of centralization, because there were fish of Paris tendencies at the time of the birth of the independent Indian state, we chose, deliberately chose a quasi-federal structure, which is only federal to an extent. So, and that suited the structure of Indian state. and the constitutional scheme is very quasi-federal. We are not federal in the sense of a classical formation like the US. So that ship has sailed So it is a kind of historical decision and we are seeing different ramifications of it now Now on the question of now theoretical questions about nationalism are old. The critique of it emerged, some of which Mehraj touched upon, like say in theoretical ways benedict anderson's idea of nations being imagined communities but uh but there are also counter currents to it that they are lived communities if people say that nationalism is a primitive idea so are other ideas primitive a lot of good side of human nature is also very primitive. So and the human beings say this urge to identify themselves into a grouping which is territorially marked as nations are territory forming a large part of what a nation state is. And in Europe, the empires gave way to nation states. 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Encourage others. and if you're a non-subscriber, we're offering you a discount. Here is the QR code. Scan the QR code or click on the link in the show notes and you will get this sticker set for free with the subscription along with along with the subscription of course Okay let go to Jaishree because we also want to come to Jaishree and Anand unpopular opinions yes Jaishree broadly I would I find very little to disagree with with Mehraj I think the entire mythical idea of a nation where we stand in the world and I also do feel nationalism has sort of outlived its usefulness at one point it sort of meant this belonging without othering or whatever. But currently, I mean, it's artificial constructs like a constitutional identity or, you know, a national framework that we are all part of. And I don't know how useful that is anymore. And also, I think it's like a very childish urge. It's like saying my football team is better than your football team. That kind of... That's not childish, Jaishree, please. I have more to say about that. Kuch toh maryada rakhe. Kuch toh maryada rakhe. Bringing in all the unpopular opinions. It's like football plans get so blinkered because everything follows from my team is better than all other teams and i know i'm sort of mixing up nationalism and patriotism but i think that is also how it broadly kind of plays out in my head in the way i see it around me today it's like national plays up nationalism plays out the same way as a football fan but with greater consequences because you're sacrificing things like tolerance and compassion for your football team like how dare anyone insults the coach of my team i will do anything for my football team i will abuse anyone who abuses my football team i will kill people who dislike my football team. I will, you know, oppress a group who does not support my football team enough. So I think when you flip it like that, it is, it is childish. It is a... Yeah, although I do think that this is taking the most extreme view and framing your entire argument with the extreme view in the opposition. This is a straw man argument. I think you can have a favorite football team and not want to kill people for it. I mean, we had examples of... No, no, no. So I'm saying it can be like that, just that when you flip the script to sort of mimic the same kind of instincts that would follow you to support a football team i'm not saying one is the other i'm saying it is similar to me and that it doesn't actually mean anything more right i don't see what more it could mean okay what is your unpopular actually speaking barcelona is the best team in the world so so it doesn't there you go the unpopular opinions are pouring in today you
