Disputing the nationhood of Bharat has been a typical woke leftist ploy. The country’s diversity and plurality are used against its very existence; leftist intellectuals cook up fancy conspiracy theories and use convoluted jargon to brainwash people into believing that Bharat’s identity is super-fluid, open-ended, and ever-changing. Thus, it is not a nation in the conventional sense of the term.

The self-worth of any country is intrinsically linked to patriotism. By brainwashing the citizens of a country into believing that their country doesn’t even exist as a singular entity, one automatically makes patriotism unfashionable and uncalled for. When the citizens of a country begin to believe in the “arbitrariness” of the idea of a nation, the concept of patriotism too will seem shallow to them.

DMK MP A Raja has claimed that Bharat has never been “one nation” but is a “subcontinent” home to diverse practices and cultures. Calling a democratic country with a neatly defined map, political system of governance, and a Constitution, a subcontinent is quite a leap of imagination. But seems the Hindhuphobic and Bharatphobic politicians of DMK are capable of going to any extremes.

A Raja made these remarks while reportedly addressing a public meeting in Coimbatore to commemorate the 72^nd birthday of MK Stalin, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. In his speech, he even accused the BJP of changing the constitution by apparently trying to project Bharat as one nation. “India is a subcontinent, not a country. Because Tamil Nadu has a different language and it is one country. Kerala is one country, and Odisha is one country. Every place has its own culture. You go to Manipur and you will see people eating dog meat. It is their culture”, he said, as per various media reports. A Raja also reportedly insulted Bhagwan Ram and said there is no space for Jai Shri Ram or Bharat Mata in Tamil Nadu. He even made fun of Ramayana, as per various media reports.

BJP slammed A Raja for his “India is not a nation” remarks. The Head of BJP IT Wing A Malviya condemned DMK MP’s divisive comments on X.

“The hate speeches from DMK’s stable continues umabated. After Udhayanidhi Stalin’s call to annihilate Sanatan Dharma, it is now A Raja who calls for balkanization of India, derides Bhagwan Ram, makes disparaging comments on Manipuris and questions the idea of India, as a nation. Congress and other I.N.D.I Alliance partners are quiet. Rahul Gandhi, their putative Prime Ministerial candidate’s silence is eloquent”, he said. He has also shared the text of DMK leader’s vitriolic speech.

The point is these kinds of divisive speeches coming from the opposition parties of Bharat are not merely a BJP versus opposition issue. These are a threat to the sovereignty and integrity of Bharat and need to be widely condemned by citizens and opinion leaders alike. When mainstream media reports on such issues, it analyzes these at a superficial level from a BJP versus opposition paradigm. That elections are approaching and political parties like DMK are making these controversial comments which BJP is condemning. But that is so not the point.

Whether it’s Udhayanidhi Stalin calling Sanatan Dharma a disease that needs to be eradicated or A Raja insinuating that Bharat is not a nation, Bharatiya media needs to be more critical in evaluating these comments within the larger context of anti-Bharat woke leftist discourse that has the participation of all sorts of global stakeholders. Political parties cannot turn into anarchist organizations. By virtue of being a registered political party in Bharat, DMK must adhere to certain decorum. It cannot question the nationhood of a country it owes its existence to and based on which it has secured the right to contest elections. The Election Commission should take strict cognizance of such nonsense and ask political parties to refrain themselves from making such divisive comments that go against the integrity and sovereignity of Bharat.

A Raja is not the first opposition politician to make such a comment regarding Bharat’s nationhood though. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is a veteran in this game. In May 2022, he remarked that Bharat is not a nation but a “union of states” while addressing students at Cambridge University, UK. While speaking at the event, he reportedly said that the word nation was a “western concept”. “Think of India like a Europe that is politically and economically united – that is what India achieved 70 years ago. The RSS see India as a geographical India. For us, India comes alive when India speaks and dies when India goes silent. What I see is going on is a systematic attack on the institutions that allow India to speak”, he said, as per various media reports.

Full marks to Rahul Gandhi for the eloquent speech but perhaps in his enthusiasm to corner the RSS, he forgot that Bharat is a country whereas Europe is a continent consisting of separate independent nations. Therefore, declaring that Bharat is less of a country and more similar to Europe is akin to suggesting that Bharat be divided into different countries, just like Europe consists of different countries. Breaking up Bharat into multiple individual nations would be an anarchist’s dream. But to see the political parties of Bharat which have secured the mandate to contest elections from the citizens of Bharat is an alarming trend. That’s why I repeatedly say that the Election Commission of Bharat should take note of this and ask political parties to refrain from making such comments.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, questioning the nationhood of Bharat is a woke intellectual syndrome. It is a soft power tactic to break Bharat from within and make Bharatiyas question the idea of patriotism itself. “The amazing thing about India is that anything goes by. The boundaries between nation-states are fluid. The real beauty of Bharat lies in its diversity. The RSS-BJP has a very narrow and fundamentalist idea of Bharat”.

These kinds of statements are common in woke intellectual circles. The worst part is the youth gets influenced by these statements and gets drawn into all kinds of secessionist and anarchist movements. The western press also encourages such literature that questions the nationhood of Bharat; nonsensical fancy studies interrogating the nationhood of Bharat and examining the notion of citizenship in the Bharatiya context are encouraged in the Humanities and Social Sciences departments of elite western universities. The anti-Bharat discourse perpetuated within the country and at the global level works in tandem to brainwash the Bharatiya youth into getting rid of any emotional and patriotic connections they have with their own country.

That is precisely why you see that the moment a Bharatiya becomes highly educated, especially in the Social Sciences and Humanities tradition, they start looking at their own country with negativity and hatred. Almost everything about Bharat starts to seem exploitative, regressive, patriarchal, etc. This is precisely the effect of woke leftist brainwashing that makes Bharatiya youth detach themselves from the idea of Bharat as a nation.

The book “Ten Heads of Ravana: A Critique of Hinduphobic Scholars” edited by Rajiv Malhotra and Divya Reddy exposes the subtle anti-Bharat and anti-Hindu propaganda of renowned Bharatiya scholars and intellectuals like Shashi Tharoor, Devdutt Patatnaik, Romila Thapar, Ramachandra Guha, etc. According to the book, intellectuals like Tharoor, Pattanaik, Guha, etc. pretend to talk about the core of being a Bharatiya and seem to be saying good things about Bharat and Hindu Dharma, but what they do is whitewash the horrors of colonization, Islamic invasion, etc. and cunningly dismantle the idea of Bharat having a unified civilizational ethos. Intellectuals like Tharoor would say that Bharat has no unified history since it’s a melting pot of cultures, and therefore, the project of defining Bharat through the prism of Hindu nationalism is divisive and misleading.

 By talking in such convoluted jargon, these scholars work actively to dismiss any idea of Bharat having a unified and coherent civilizational ethos. All great ancient cultures of the world, be it the Chinese, or the Greek civilization, present themselves before the world as a coherent entity with a unified history and cultural ethos. Even a country like the UK which has its fortunes built on the loot and plunder of countries across the world, presents the “colonial legacy” as some sort of a unifying factor in its history.

The US, despite the horrors of slavery and the mistreatment of Native Americans, takes “pride” in its history and projects a unified cultural narrative. Despite all the criticism it’s been receiving lately, the UK still sells its “colonial legacy” as some kind of binding factor for the culture of former colonies, even long after they have been liberated, as it were. Nobody questions that. On the contrary, many so-called Bharatiya intellectuals sing paeans of praise for the Empire saying the British brought development to Bharat and all that stuff. But when it comes to Bharat projecting a unified civilizational ethos and cultural history, everyone gets a headache. Why is it so?

That’s because if Bharat succeeds in projecting a coherent cultural narrative, Bharatiyas will begin to take pride in their culture and identity. Patriotism will become cool amongst the educated Bharatiya youth. That would majorly interfere with the woke leftist dream of dismantling Bharat from within. That is why I think the onus is on the media and civil society to adopt a more critical perspective when it comes to anti-Bharat statements made by the likes of A Raja. Extreme circumstances need extreme measures. Being a fence-sitter and pretending to be “neutral” won’t cut it anymore. I rest my case.