What Is Regionalism?
Regionalism describes situations in which different religious or ethnic groups with distinctive identities coexist with in some state boundaries, often concentrated with in a particular region and sharing the strong feelings of collective identity. Regionalism stands for the love of a particular region or an area in preference to the nation or any other region. It often involves ethnic groups whose aims include independence from a national state and the development of their own political powers. In Indian context, regionalism refers to assertions of distinct ethnic, linguistic or economic interests by various groups within the nation.
What Is Nationalism?
On the other hand, nationalism is a sense of identity with the Nation. It is a belief, creed or political ideology that involves an individual identifying with or becoming attached to one’s Nation. Nationalism involves the national identity, by contrast with the related construct of patriotism, which involves the social conditioning and personal behaviours that support a state’s decisions and actions.
In this article, Team YLCC attempts at highlighting the major facets of the struggle between nationalism and regionalism. Read on!
Pros Of Nationalism
- Nationalism strengthens a nation. A nation that is superior to others has more bargaining power in the global market. A single nation’s identity makes it more strong and can negotiate from a position of strength.
- In nationalism, everyone has a right and obligation to protect his nation. Each individual is required to make supreme sacrifices and put the nation above all.
- Nationalism brings about a sense of belonging, love, and attachment to one’s homeland. This makes it easy to ally with other nations.
- Nationalism ensures there is unity by establishing a single identity in terms of culture, language, and religion. It also ensures diversity from various ethnic groups to promote the growth of the nation.
- Since nationalism embrace working together for the nation and its development, it makes it easy to bring about justice and rule of law in the nation.
Cons Of Nationalism
- Nationalism may make a nation take extreme measures (left or right fringes) in the name of securing the nation. It can also lead to a civil war where one nation feels that its values are being attacked.
- Nationalism makes people intolerant of people from other nations. This results in extreme hatred among the nations affected. Some people may feel prejudice against others in the nation.
- A nation that practices nationalism and has more powers over another, can insult and hurt other nationalities based on their culture, religion, and political ideology.
- An individual is only supposed to think about his nation and most of the time doesn’t have any concern for the country he is living in.
- When trying to justify detrimental policies, politicians hide behind nationalism. For example, Donald Trump eliminated all immigrants from the USA and built a perimeter wall over Mexico.
Pros Of Regionalism
Scholars believe that regionalism plays important role in building of the nation, if the demands of the regions are accommodated by the political system of the country. Regional recognition in terms of state hood or state autonomy gives self-determination to the people of that particular region and they feel empowered and happy. Internal self-determination of community, whether linguistic, tribal, religious, regional, or their combinations, has remained the predominant form in which regionalism in India has sought to express itself, historically as well as at present time.
Regional identities in India have not always defined themselves in opposition to and at the expense of, the national identity, noticed a democratic effect of such process in that India’s representative democracy has moved closed to the people who feel more involved and show greater concern for institutions of local and regional governance. For example- Tripura Tribal Autonomous District Council (TTADC), formed in 1985, has served to protect an otherwise endangered tribal identity in the state by providing a democratic platform for former separatists to become a party of governance, and thereby reduced significantly the bases of political extremism in the state. In such a political setup, there always remains a scope of balanced regional development. The socio-cultural diversity is given due respect and it helps the regional people to practise their own culture too.
Cons Of Regionalism
Regionalism is often seen as a serious threat to the development, progress and unity of the nation. It gives internal security challenges by the insurgent groups, who propagate the feelings of regionalism against the mainstream politico-administrative setup of the country.
Regionalism definitely impacts politics as days of collation government and alliances are taking place. Regional demands become national demands, policies are launched to satisfy regional demands and generally those are extended to all pockets of country, hence national policies are now dominated by regional demands. E.g. MSP given to sugarcane, it was helpful for farmers in Maharashtra but it was implemented across all states resulting agitations of farmers belonging to UP, Punjab and Haryana. Meanwhile it sowed seed of defection among ministers and targeting to corresponding minister.
Some regional leaders play politics of vote bank based on language, culture, this is certainly against healthy democratic procedures. This always leads to demand for separate state and it has observed that after creating small states only few political leaders could run efficient government else alliances run government which ultimately makes administration machinery ineffective.
Developmental plans are implemented unevenly focusing on regions to which heavy weight leaders belongs are benefitted, hence unrest is generated among rest regions. Law and order is disturbed, agitations with massive violence take place ultimately government is compelled to take harsh steps; hence wrong signals are emitted about government authorities.
Both nationalism and regionalism are two sides of the same coin. They are both equally important. While one maintains the integrity of the country, the latter brings practicality into play. For any developing nation, both should be given equal importance in a way that it does not hamper the economic growth of the country. This would lead to an efficient administration and would open up various possibilities of maximizing opportunities for sustainable development of the country.
YLCC would like to thank its Content Team for their valuable insights in this article.
