State Nation and Cultural Nation

Bharat Wariavwalla
Delhi

I take the distinction between State Nation and Cultural Nation from the later works of the great German historian, Friedrich Meinecke. In his monograph before his death, he asked, why did the Nazi regime arise in Germany? His answer was the estrangement between culture and nationalism or the over powering of the cultural nation by the State Nation. The old humanist culture of renaissance Europe was destroyed by the Nazis and before that by the Prussian military.

Now Kymlika, a noted theorist of multiculturalism says all nationalists try to bring the cultural community in congruence with the political community (nation).India is an exception because here even as modern nationalist as Nehru nurtures cultural diversity. Half-hearted attempts have been to bring some uniformity and have failed (the issues of language and uniform civil code) then how do we imagine ourselves to be. A failed nation-state or a successful multicultural state is something we should think reflect on our experience with multi culturalism.