Nationalism By Benedict Anderson
European Model
Benedict Anderson gave a theory that how Nationalism was being created. He said that Nationalism is being created with the help of the official policy of imperialism. In early modern times, different European empires took the official policy to create an official common language of the empire. This is done to make the ruling easy. If the language of the empire is monoglot then the kings will be able to justify that these people are under our area. There will be a network among the people because of the same language. This will create solidarity. It will help the people to identify themselves as a distinguished group. If this happens then they will be nationally conscious. They will try to do national movement and slowly a nation will be created. So, the empire's intention was not to create a nation but in early modern times, this official policy of imperialism helped to create nationalism by product. For example Case of Austro- Hungary: For instance, Joseph II in the early 1780s decided to switch the language of state from Latin to German. So, in the course of time, this played an important in the unification of Germany. It is was not that they didn’t like Latin but they noticed that the Latin language would tough for everyone to speak. They wanted to fix one common language that would be easy for everyone to speak. So that they can rule them more strongly. But by doing this it helped to create nationalism by product.
British Model
Anderson argues that these Anglicized Pals lead the colonized people in the national consciousness. For Benedict Anderson, the British created the indigenous elite. They created this anglicized pals by creating an institution for their education. They educated upper class colonized people. Some of them went to Europe to get colonial education and they were actually shifted by the colonial masters. Since they were educated in British cultures for 10 to 15 years. They used to feel like the British. And when they came back home they wanted all rights like British people enjoyed but they were not given all the rights. They wanted a position in the parliament. They wanted to increase the age of the ICS exam. They wanted to give ICS exam in India. Then at a certain point, they competed against the colonial masters for these rights. They got united. Anderson also talked about print capitalism that books and newspapers became communication tools to united people. This creates interaction between people as they read the same newspaper, reading the same information in the same language. They wrote in the newspaper that they need freedom and rights and spread the message of nationalism. This is how they create nationalism. He wrote that the anglicized pals published newspapers and through this, they spread the message of nationalism, and in this way, they made people nationally conscious. He told that these Anglicized pals went to mass people to make them nationally conscious. They spread the news of nationalism to a larger group of people by making different associations, Anderson is arguing that the colonized people didn’t know anything about nationalism. They got to know all these things by being educated in the colonial institution. They got to know about enlightenment, individual rights, freedom, and history. So, they became conscious of self-identity. In this way for Anderson national consciousness was created by the British in the colonized countries like India, Africa like other colonized territories.
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