Politicians have responded by waging linguistic battles to show these communities belong to India. These may seem to be cheap responses. But they miss an important level: Is this query of “hyphenated nationality” actually new in India?
What’s really new is how lengthy the checklist has turn into. It now contains communities whose “Indianness” we as soon as thought of past query. But haven’t we been right here earlier than? From the very starting of impartial India, communities like Muslims, Sri Lankan Tamils, northeasterners (in Indian cities), and Indian Nepalis have repeatedly been handled as “metics” — precarious residents who “illegitimately” take pleasure in citizenship advantages.
This drawback — judging residents’ loyalty primarily based on ethnic and territorial ties — has unfold throughout our identified world. Look at South Asia: the Muhajir drawback in Pakistan, the Madhesi drawback in Nepal, the Tamil drawback in Sri Lanka, or the Lhotshampa drawback in Bhutan. Even the U.S. faces comparable points.
The logic of recent nationality
French thinker Etienne Balibar explains that fashionable nationality has a foundational logic. Every nationality should outline itself as carrying ahead their ancestors’ sacred heritage. This creates an influence of assimilation and civilisation — but in addition domination and exclusion. “Genuine” nationality calls for unambiguous loyalty, rooted in a civilisational core inside particular territorial limits.
This explains why we now have hyphenated communities. A Muslim, Nepali, Sinhalese, Tamil, Lhotshampa, Madhesi, Muhajir, or Bengali can by no means escape being recognized with their ethnic homeland — despite the fact that a few of these “homelands” solely emerged by way of post-colonial politics after India’s independence.
So a Muslim, Sri Lankan Tamil, or Nepali in India will get linked to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or Nepal respectively. By the identical logic, Madhesis in Nepal are linked with India, Lhotsampas in Bhutan with Nepal, Tamils in Sri Lanka with India, and now Bengalis in India with Bangladesh.
The nation-state method
This sharp id formation got here with the 1648 Westphalian Treaty. It created a singular equation: nation=state. The method grew to become “one nation=one state.” Here lies the basic paradox: nation-states concurrently want range (for financial vitality and cultural richness) whereas demanding homogeneity (for political unity and nationwide id). This want for homogeneity amid present range creates an unsolvable puzzle on the coronary heart of the Western nation-state idea. Perhaps the European Union is an try to flee this puzzle?
But this nationalist doctrine incorporates a built-in contradiction that creates the “different.” Postcolonial theorist Homi Okay. Bhabha unravels these complexities. He argues that nation-states continuously attempt to create historical homogeneity. This creates two simultaneous processes: pedagogical instruction and performative technique. The “different” emerges from the fixed oscillation between what Bhabha calls “pedagogy” and “performative technique”.
Pedagogy is the official story of the nation — its legal guidelines and paperwork that say who belongs. Performative technique is the act of residing out that id, which at all times generates one thing greater than the official script.
The id query of Bengali migrant staff (Indian Bengali or Bangladeshi Bengali?) will get caught between cultural meaning-making and nationalist certainty. Simply having genuine paperwork (pedagogy) wasn’t sufficient to avoid wasting them from the misfortune they confronted as a result of they have been discovered talking Bengali in metropolitan areas inside Hindi-speaking areas. The performative narrative overrides every part — even the truth that Bengali has a safe place in India’s Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
Hyphenated nationalities in India — Indian Muslims, Indian Nepalis, and now migrant Indian Bengalis — reveal the double-edged character of nationwide id. This id works by defining who belongs to the nationwide group and who’s an “different” or “foreigner.” A nationwide group can solely exist if different nations exist. The nation should be understood as a part of a twin relationship, not as a self-contained unit. This turns into clear when migrant Bengali staff wrestle to show they’re “Indian Bengalis” with documentary proof, distancing themselves from “Bengalis from Bangladesh.”
It’s ironic that in our globalised age, the place every part strikes throughout borders be it items, capital, know-how, companies, banking methods, nation-states stay trustworthy to exclusionary guidelines, particularly when coping with migrant (shifting) labour.
A elementary paradox
These remedies may appear politically motivated. But they really replicate a elementary paradox constructed into the Western mannequin of nation-states. This paradox can hardly be escaped, virtually or theoretically.
Bureaucratic procedures for knowledge verification — wanted for SIR, elections, Census, or National Family and Health Surveys — create excellent moments for exposing this paradox. In fashionable creativeness, this double identification operates at different scales too. We naturally affiliate Biharis with Bihar, Marwaris with Rajasthan (since Marwar area falls in western Rajasthan), and so forth.
These identifications won’t be thought of “nationwide threats” since they function inside the nation-state. But can we deny that such reasoning has repeatedly resulted in inter-state rivalries, inter-community animosities, and group clashes? Most importantly, the identical identification course of — conflating ethnic and territorial ties because the unique foundation of belonging — operates inside the nation-state. Can we actually dismiss these as unrelated circumstances unworthy of reflection?
The construction stays the identical while the varieties hold altering.
Legal Identity vs ethical grounding
Citizenship in post-colonial societies includes each authorized and ethical dimensions fused in a single group or people. Legitimate residents are these whom the state offers authorized id and society provides ethical engagement.
State-confirmed authorized id emerges from juridical protocols and paperwork that decide who’s legible or illegible as a citizen. Socially engaged ethical entitlement comes from cultural processes — primordial identification with the motherland, participation in nationwide actions, agency location within the nation’s civilisational core. The disaster going through the Bengali migrant staff falls straight into this state-society battle. Their id is being measured not by their authorized paperwork, however by detrimental storylines that body them because the “different” nationality.
The enduring paradox
The harassment of Bengali migrant staff is thus not an remoted incident or mere political opportunism. It represents the surfacing of a deeper structural contradiction that has haunted the fashionable nation-state since its inception. The very mechanism that creates nationwide belonging — the conflation of ethnic, territorial, and political id — concurrently produces classes of exclusion and suspicion.
This paradox manifests otherwise throughout time and house, however its important logic stays fixed. Today’s Bengali staff face the identical elementary problem that has confronted hyphenated communities all through India’s post-colonial journey. The varieties evolve, the targets shift, however the underlying construction persists: the nation-state’s simultaneous dependence on range and demand for homogeneity creates an irresolvable rigidity.
Until we grapple actually with this foundational contradiction, we’ll proceed to witness new iterations of the identical exclusionary logic. The Bengali staff’ plight illuminates not only a coverage failure, however the inherent limitations of the nation-state mannequin itself in accommodating the complicated realities of belonging in a various, interconnected world.
Swatahsiddha Sarkar teaches on the Centre for Himalayan Studies, University of North Bengal.
