ramdev bharadwaj - Multicultural Society and nation

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Multicultural Society, Multiculturalism & Nation Building

By

Prof. ram dev bharadwajDepartment of Political Science

Rani Durgavati University

Jabalpur(MP) 482001.India

WE are living in a world together with different nationalities, colours of the skin and

religious belief. When different people live together they form a multiculturalsociety. When we talk about multicultural society we dont only talk about

different religion religionandracebut we also mean different culture. In the

category culture we also include the sub-cultures such as Goths, homosexuals, first

language and shared history.

A multicultural society is a society, Group, school or organization where people of

different races, cultures and religions live, work and communicate with each other in

peace. There are many multicultural societies all over the world where communities live

in peace with each other, in some countries this is sometimes not the case

Understanding Multicultural Society & Multiculturalism:

multiculturalism is described by academic analysts as diversity management policies

of governments. In a more activist context, multiculturalism stands for a left-radicalistattempt to overturn dominant, monocultural conceptions of history and society, whichwere considered ethnocentric or even racist multiculturalism because it allegedly

depoliticizes or aestheticisms difference by emphasizing the cosmetic celebration of

cultural diversity, rather than the socially It is defined as transformative struggleagainst racism or white supremacy.multiculturalism stands for a strategy of

containment of resistance and revoltrather than for a true desire forthe elimination of

racial/ethnic oppression.

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* Lecture delivered in an International Seminar on Nation Building in Multicultural

Society, organized by Rajiv Gandhi Chair in Contemporary Studies, Allhabad CentralUniversity, Allhabad, March 4th & 5th ,2011
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In a more postcolonial vein, the celebrationistnotion of diversity the practical

expression of which can be witnessed in the proliferation of multicultural festivalsorganized by local governments in areas with a high presence of migrant populations is

often dismissed by cultural critics because of its exoticizing, folkloristic, and consumerist

nature: Multiculturalism in Australia isacceptable as acelebration of costumes,customs, and cooking From the perspective of postcolonial and postmodern theorymulticulturalism is criticized for its implicit assumption that ethnic groups are the

inherent proprietors of culture and that cultures are fixed and static realities.(a)

These diverse critical strands have in common that they consider multiculturalism, as astate-managed policy and discourse, as not going far enough in transforming the white-

dominated dominant culture. (b)Hence, the term critical multiculturalism is sometimes

coined as a radical alternative to liberal multiculturalism. Unlike the latter, the formersees diversity itself as a goal, but rather argues that diversity must be affirmed within a

politics of cultural criticism and a commitment to social justice

As Australian prime minister John Howard said in1988: that multiculturalism had

acquired a certain meaning and place in our society, (a) as a way of imposing theunifying umbrella of national identity on the tapestry of diversity , (b) which he, and

others like him, consider as having a dangerous potential for unleashing centrifugal

forces within society. Very similar controversies have raged in other countries as well.In the UK, multiculturalist notion of Britain as a community of communities, was

widely criticized by conservatives as a recipe for the balkanization of society.In the USA, multiculturalism was similarly attacked for promoting national division, asreflected by J. Schlesingers best-selling book, The disuniting of Invoking the USs

motto E pluribus unum, Schlesinger argues that multiculturalism, especially in its radical

version, is based on a cult of ethnicity . All these critics stress the need for acommon culture if a nation is to function peacefully. One effect of the fallout of the

terrorist attacks on the USA on September 11, 2001, has been a heightened concern withthe possibility of a global clash of civilizations (Huntington, 1993), specifically

between Islam and the West, with grave implications for the place of the millions ofMuslims now living in liberal-democratic societies. As they are now in danger of being

positioned as the enemy within, and their culture and religion

dismissed as backward or inferior by some extremist right-wing politicians, especially in

Western Europe (including the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi), the

multiculturalist credo of valuing and protecting cultural diversity is increasinglycountered by a renewed call for assimilation or for a halt on immigration altogether

unrealistic desires in the complex realities of the globalized, postmodern world.

Asglobalization has become generally, if sometimes reluctantly accepted as a fact of life,the issues which were first addressed by multiculturalism (a) that is, how to deal with

the proliferation of ethnic and cultural differences within the nation as national

borders become increasingly porous have become increasingly urgent and complex,even as the term itself is becoming more and more problematic. (b) As the name

Multiculturalism it is still necessary as an heuristic conceptthat points to the uneasy and

contested space between exclusionary and homogenizing modes of nationalism, on theone hand, and on the other, the unrealistic utopia of a rootless cosmopolitanism where

everyone is supposedly a world citizen in a borderless world.


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.Living in multicultural society has also some advantages. People can get to know many

cultures, their lifestyles, traditions, habits, cuisine and music. In big cities there are many

different restaurants which offer their national food and drink together with an existingnew atmosphere. Experiencing and understanding different cultures is the first part of

acceptance. In a truly multicultural society you will find people of different backgrounds

or religions living together and even getting married.

development of multi culture society

Multicultural society has a lot in common with migration . Due to the migrating of

different cultures and races we now have our modern multi cultural societies. Thehistory of any multicultural society is highly linked to migration. The United

States, Canada, Australia and in Europe the Netherlands, Britain, Spain and France

are the biggest multicultural societies. In Asia is India the majorMulticultural

society. We will discuss these societies one by one in the terms of their historicalperspective. All these historical experience and an examples be described under

following points -

1. Netherlands as a multicultural society: On 26 July 1581, independence of The

Netherlands was declared, and finally recognized after the Eighty Years War-

1568-1648.. The years of the war also marked the beginning of the Dutch GoldenAge a period of great commercial and cultural prosperity roughly spanning the

17th century. In Netherlands there are large numbers of people coming from all

over the world. Although many of them speak Dutch; the national language of the

Netherlands, they also have their own languages, norms and values, religionaccording to which they are spending their lives which give rise to a multicultural

society. Since the multiculturalism is highly linked to the policies of the

government and about its foreign affairs and European Migration Policy .

2. Inhabited for millennia by First Nations (aboriginals), the history of Canada hasevolved from a group of European colonies into a bilingual, multicultural

federation, having peacefully obtained sovereignty from its last colonial

possessor, the United Kingdom. France sent the first large group of settlers in the17th century, but the collection of territories and colonies now comprising the

Dominion of Canada came to be ruled by the British until attaining full

independence in the 20th century.

3. During the early twenty first century, the average year-on-year demographicgrowth set a new record with its 2003 peak variation of 2.1%, doubling the

previous record reached back in the 1960s when a mean year on year growth of

1% was experienced. This trend is far from being reversed at the present momentand, in 2005 alone, the immigrant population of Spain increased by 700 000

people. Spain has become the open door laboratory on immigration . So the

people coming from all over the world are making Spain a multicultural society

4. Inhabited for millennia by First Nations (aboriginals), the history of Canada hasevolved from a group of European colonies into a bilingual, multicultural

federation, having peacefully obtained sovereignty from its last colonial
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possessor, the United Kingdom. France sent the first large group of settlers in the

17th century, but the collection of territories and colonies now comprising the

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Dominion of Canada came to be ruled by the British until attaining full independencein the 20th century.

5. Immigration to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland since1922 has been substantial, in particular from Ireland and the former colonies of

the British Empire such as India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, South

Africa, Kenya and Hong Kong under British nationality law. Others have come asasylum seekers , seeking protection as refugees under the United Natuins1951

Refugee Convention, or from European Union population at the time) were born

abroad, although the census gives no indication of their immigration status or

intended length of stay.

6. In 2006, there were 149,035 applications for British citizenship, 32 percent fewer

than in 2005. The number of people granted citizenship during 2006 was 154,095,

5 per cent fewer than in 2005. The largest groups of people granted British

citizenship were from India, Pakistan, Somalia and the Philippines. In 2006,134,430 people were granted settlement in the UK, a drop of 25 per cent on 2005.

Meanwhile, migration from Central and Eastern Europe has increased since 2004

with the accession to the European Union of eight Central and Eastern Europeanstates, since there is free movement of labour within the EU. The UK government

is currently phasing in a new points based immigration system for people from

outside of the European Economic Area. So it is clear that in UK there are a largenumber of people coming from outside of the UK with different langages, norms

and values which makes the United Kingdom a multicultural socuiety.

7. Spain is also very rich in its multiculturalism . Spain has recently experienced

large-scale immigration for the first time in modern history. According to theSpanish government, there were 4,145,000 foreign residents in Spain in January

2007. Of these, well over half a million were Moroccan while the Ecuadorian s

figure was around half a million as well. Romanian and Colombian populations

amounted to around 300,000 each. There are also a significant number of British(274,000 as of 2006) and German (133,588) citizens, mainly in Alicante, Mlaga

provinces, Balearic Islands and Canary Islands. Chinese in Spain are estimated to

number between 10 to 60,000, and South East Asian groups such as Filipinoswhose country was a former Spanish possession created a small community in

Spain immigration to Spain. Immigrants from several sub-Saharan Africancountries have also settled in Spain as contract workers, although they representonly 4.08% of all the foreign residents in the country but still playing a role in

multicultural society.

8. In case of France, out of 59.9 million people there are 4.2 million foreigners .The

period between the two world wars saw great advances and progression in artistic,literary and cultural movements, with France a key player in their development

and evolution. The period between the two world wars saw great advances and

progression in artistic, literary and cultural movements, with France a key playerin their development and evolution. The Eiffel Tower was built for the

International Exhibition of Paris of 1889 commemorating the centenary of the

French Revolution. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII of England,


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occupation, transitional government, and the use of propaganda to communicate

governmental policy.

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Theory of Social Integration of Nation Building

The theoretically the concept of Nation-building advocated by American academics

like Karl Deutsch,Charles Tilly and Reinhard Bendix with the processes of nationalintegration and consolidation that led up to the establishment of the modern nation-state--

as distinct from various form of traditional states, such as feudal and dynastic states,

church states, empires, etc. Nation-building is an architectural metaphor which, strictlyspeaking, implies the existence of consciously acting agents such as architects, engineers,

carpenters, and the like.

However,the concept of nation-building became for political science what

industrialization was to social economy: an indispensable tool for detecting, describing

and analyzing the macrohistorical and sociological dynamics that have producedthemodern state. The traditional, pre-modern state was made up of isolated communities

with parochial cultures at the bottom of society and a distant, and aloof, statestructure at the top, largely content with collecting taxes and keeping order.

-------- Through nation-building these two spheres were brought into more intimate

contact with each other. Members of the local communities were drawn upwards into thelarger society through education and political participation. The state authorities, in

turn, expanded their demands and obligations towards the members of society by offering

a wide array of services and integrative social networks.------------Thesubjects of the monarch were gradually and imperceptibly turned

into citizens of the nation-state. Sub state cultures and loyalties either vanished or lost

their political importance, superseded by loyalties toward the larger entity, thestate.(a)The first phase resulted in economic and cultural unification at elite level.(b) The second phase brought ever larger sectors of the masses into the system through

conscription into the army, enrollment in compulsory schools, etc. The burgeoning mass

media created channels for direct contact between the central elites and peripherypopulations and generated widespread feelings of identity with the political system at

large.

In the third phase, the subject masses were brought into active participation in theworkings of the territorial political system. Finally, in the last stage the administrative

apparatus of the state expanded. Public welfare services were established and nation-wide

policies for the equalization of economic conditions were designed.

1, In the oldest nation-states of Europe, along the Atlantic rim, the earliest stage of

these processes commenced in the Middle Ages and lasted until the French Revolution.

While it is impossible to pin-point exactly when the entire nation-building process wascompleted, it certainly went on for several centuries.

2, In the mid-1970s, discussions on nation-building took a new turn. In a seminal article

pointedly titled Nation-building orNation-destroying? Walker Connor launched a

blistering attack on the school of thought associated with Karl Deutsch and his students.

Connor noted that the nation-building literature was preoccupied with social cleavages

of various kinds--between burghers and peasants, nobles and commoners, elites andmasses--but virtually or totally ignored ethnic diversity. Since nation-building in the


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Deutschian tradition meant assimilation into the larger society and the eradication of

ethnic peculiarities, Connor believed that in world history it had produced more nation-destroying than nation-building.

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To Understand Nation - the nation is cultural and ethic entity and state is political andgeographical entity. Therefore there are two aspects of nation and nation building to behighlighted first ethnic aspect of nation building and second cultural aspect of nation

building . some of the scholar also describe about imagination concepts.

Nation is the product of imagination= Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm have strongly

underlined the myth aspect of the nation . that The nation is a product of imagination in

the sense that the members of the community do not know each other personally and canonly imagine themselves to be in communion with each other. However, Andersondistanced himself from Gellner and Hobsbawm who took the imagination metaphor

one step further, interpreting it in the direction of invention and fabrication. The

nation should not be defined as false consciousness

Ethnic aspect of nation= Anthony Smith, Rasma Karklins and others developed

Connors themes further in another direction, strongly emphasizing the ethnic aspect ofthe nation. Smith insisted that they have a long prehistory, evolving out of ethnic cores.

Smith and his disciples retained but re-employed the term nation-building introduced

by the earlier, modernist school of thought. In accordance with their neo-primordialistunderstanding of all modern nations as products of age-old ethnic building material

they heavily underlined the cultural, symbolic, (ethnic) and myth-making aspects

of nation-building:

Liberal tradition consider cultural aspects of social integration and nation building= In the liberal tradition of the 19th century we may identify two somewhat divergent

views on national integration (i) One dominant line of thought regarded the cultural andlinguistic dissolution of the minorities into high cultures. This process was often

labeled assimilation, acculturation or amalgamation rather than integration

A classic expression of the assimilationist view may be found in John StuartMills Considerations on Representative Government: Experience proves that it is

possible for one nationality to merge and be absorbed in another: and when it was

originally an inferior and more backward portion of the human race the absorption isgreatly to its advantage. For example French nationality.

According to Lord Acton, cultural diversity as a blessing for the members of societyand a safeguard against tyranny: Acton considered all cultures as equal or equallyworthy of preservation. On the contrary, one of the main reasons why people from

different cultures ought to be included in the same state was that inferior races could

thereby be raised, by learning from intellectually superior nationalities: In fact, Actonwas prepared to use such phrases as the cauldron of the State in which a fusion takes

place through which the vigor, the knowledge, and the capacity of one portion of

mankind may be communicated to another.

Most of what was written on nation-building and integration in the 1960s and 1970s

stood in the combined tradition of Mill and Acton. To Karl Deutsch and hisdisciples, nation-building and national integration were but two sides of the same coin,


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indeed, simply two ways of describing the same process. A major object of nation-

building was to weld the disparate population elements into a congruent whole, byforging new loyalties and identities at the national (= state) level at the expense of

localism and particularistic identification.

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Deutsch specified four stages by which he expected this process to take place(i) Open orlatent resistance to political amalgamation into a common national state;(ii) minimalintegration to the point of passive compliance with the orders of such an amalgamated

government; (iii)deeper political integration to the point of active support for such a

common state but with continuing ethnic or cultural group cohesion and diversity, andfinally (iv), the coincidence of political amalgamation and integration with the

assimilation of all groups to a common language and culture.

The classical theory of nation building was an endeavor to understand the evolution of

Western states. Inevitably, it reflected Western realities. Nevertheless, its proponents

maintained that the theory was applicable also to the study of non-Western societies. Thisbelief was based in part on a linear perception of history which was not always made

explicit: all societies were,by the inner logic of human development, bound to pass

through the same stages. In addition, most nation-building theorists believed that Westernsociety was really a better society to live in. If they were not compelled by the forces of

history to emulate the West, the leaders of non-Western states ought to do so--for their

own sake and the sake of their population.

In fact, contrast with the outside world was from the very beginning part and parcel of the

endeavor. It was certainly not fortuitous that this theory developed in the 1960s. Theincreased interest in the genesis of states came as a response to the flurry of new state-

making in the wake of decolonization in Africa. Nation-building theorists wanted tounderline that states could mean very many different things in different settings,

and that one should not too readily equate these new, hastily created political contraptionswith the sturdy, time-tested nation-states of old. At the very most, these new members of

the international community should be viewed as nation-states in the making only. A fair

number of the contemporary nation-building projects, it was assumed, would neversucceed. Such unfortunates would either sink back into non-existence, or remain interna-

tionally recognized states devoid of any national character.

Rokkan remarked that the one distinguishing factor that set nation-building in the new

states off from the old processes was the time factor. Developments which in Western

Europe had lasted for centuries, now had to be telescoped into decades. Under suchcircumstances the various phases could hardly be kept apart, but would overlap or evenrun parallel. This, in his opinion, would produce fundamentally different conditions.

The risks of wrong turns and discontinuities would multiply.Likewise, the element of

conscious social engineering in the nation-building process would increase. Nevertheless,Rokkan felt that the new states could learn from European experience, more from the

smaller countries than from the large, more from the multiculturally consociational

polities than from the homogeneous dynastic states, more from the European latecomersthan from the old established nations.

The assumptions which informed the nation-building debate in the post-colonial era of

the 1960s and 1970s have a bearing also upon the debate on nation-building in the post-Communist world of the 1990s. Once again we see the state authorities and scholars


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in todays newly independent countries employing the categories and terminology of

Western political science to describe--and prescribe--social processes in their owncountries, while their Western colleagues hasten to remind them that similarities in

terminology easily may obscure significant differences in substance.

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The Process of Nations and Nation-Building in Eastern Europe have two very

different meanings: as a community of a state and as a community of culture the civicnation vs. the ethnic nation. Just for an Example, In Eastern Europe--east of the Elbe--the ethnic understanding of the nation has deep roots, whereas the civic concept has

tended to have very few adherents. There are probably two important, interrelated reasons

for this.(A) First, in the West the bourgeoisie was the main motor behind the civicnation-state and civic national consciousness, (B) while in Eastern Europe the national

bourgeoisie has traditionally been conspicuously absent.Trade and commerce were

regarded as not very prestigious occupations, often relegated to outsiders. As a result,ofA+B the thin stratum of bourgeoisie that could be found was very often of foreign

stock--diaspora groups of Jews, Armenians, Germans and Greeks. Such groups were

frequently vilified as un-national leeches on the national body.

In addition, (i) the imperial, dynastic state held its ground much longer in Eastern

Europe than along the Atlantic rim. Both the Habsburg and the Romanov empires

collapsed only as a result of the cataclysm that was World War I (ii)The cultural andterritorial heterogeneity of the East European empires was not a result of their size only.

It also reflected the fact that their rulers were far less energetic and systematic nation-

builders than were their Western counterparts. (iii)As long as the state was imperial, thenation could remain cultural and non-state.(iv)In Russia, the ethnic understanding of the

nation was reinforced rather than weakened after the Bolshevik take-over.(v)The 1920s

and early 1930s saw a vigorous policy of promoting (often this meant: creating) newelites among these groups.This is usually referred to as the policy ofkorenizatsiya or

nativization, but one leading Western expert on Soviet nationality policies prefers tocall it the Soviet policy of nation-building.(vi)Russian culture, and especially the

Russian language, certainly enjoyed a privileged position and was forced on the non-Russiansas well..

ramdev bharadwaj - Multicultural Society and nation

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