Can a nation be called as an ‘Imagined Community’?

I would like to move my discussion from History and Historiography to the subject of nationalism in this week. As it has been repeatedly accepted by many prominent academics, the importance of having a fair understanding for the concepts such as nation and nationalism are critically important in the contemporary political setup. Particularly, we should accept that the post-colonial countries like ours have faced fundamental theoretical issues in defining the term Nation and in fitting it into our state-formation process. While accepting that we are a multi-ethnic society today, we should also not forget the fact that some of the ethnic groups, emerged in the post-colonial social-setup, and the fact that they were empowered by then colonial empires for their own benefits and were manipulated to clash with one another just for maintaining the power game.

Meaning of the word Nation

Meanings and the uses of the word nation have been in the center of this debate in the nation-state argument of classical political theories. These discussions sometime move into giving broader interpretations for the concepts of nationality, nationalism and national consciousness in theoretical terms. It is correct to say that the debate of nation becomes a prominent socio-political phenomenon with the inception of nation states in 19^th century. Since the term ‘ethnic group’ has also been used as synonymous to the term of nation, we should look at the linguistic roots of this word. The term ETHNIC comes from Greek word ethnikos which contains the demarcated meaning of some civilized human group from barbarians. And Latin sources say that the word natio which was the root for the evaluation of English word nation, means ‘a group of people who shared collective identity and common culture with identified historical origins of the group. This definition becomes more problematic when it deals with the European concept of Nationalism in late 17^th century.

Benedic Anderson, in his famous book under the name of Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, argues that the nation is not other than an ‘imagined something’ in our mind based on cultural materials shared by a group. He further says that concept of nation came into action in late 18^th and 19^th centuries in Europe using the technology of Print Capitalism which has developed shared identity among a group on the basis of culture. Emergence of newspaper and other printing materials such as ‘stories’ ‘myths’ and ‘histories’ has enhanced this development further. So, according to Anderson, it is this form of shared commonality (imagined community) which gave birth to new form of identity under different names as nations. Eric Hobsbaum, writing a perforce to his book, The Invention of Tradition, argues that the nation which comprises national ^th century. He thinks that the nation has been an ‘invented thing’ rather than an existed phenomenon based on historical facts. He further argues that the invention of cultures motivates people to think as a one group and as a one nation. In this theory, the ‘constructed commonality’ does not have any primordial links to the historical facts or a continuation of facts as something relates to the past. These two prominent theoretical interventions into the debate of nation and nationalism have been rather challenged by Anthony Smith in his book, The Problem of National Identity and has suggested another definition into the concept of nation. He argues that the creation of nation as a new phenomenon has not happened in a vacuum.  According to Smith ‘nation as an imagined something  without based on historical facts’ is problematic. The nation, Smith argues, emerged based on some sort of historical evidence and facts such as literary pieces, mythological backgrounds or archeological settings.

Dr. Charitha Herath

Senior Lecturer at the 

University of Peradeniya 

Writer can be followed via  

Twitter @charith9

Sri Lankan Debates

As I mentioned in the beginning of this column, the debate on defining the word ‘nation’ and ‘nationalism’ in Sri Lanka has been an unending task in the academia and the political society. One interesting intervention into this discussion in Sri Lanka could be seen in the famous debate between late prof RALH Gunawardane (Lesly Gunawardane) verses prof KNO Dharmadasa on the history of Sinhalese nation. The debate was initiated with Gunwardane’s paper published in Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities (1979) under the name of “The People of the Lion: Sinhala Consciousness in History and Historiography”. Gunawardane’s main argument in this paper was that the ethnic identity of Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka has not been unique or uninterrupted and the present form of Sinhalese nation was not found in the terms that the ancient Sri Lankan inscriptive literature. Therefore, Gunawardane suggests that the present form of the Sinhalese nation was a constructed phenomenon after 13 century BC and it has been nothing other than a modified version of history based on some colonial myths. Following Hobsbaum’s thesis of invention of cultures, Gunawardane concludes that the Sinhalese nation has been a construction of late 19^th century BC in the light of the development of anti-colonial thinking. This paper was challenged by prof KNO Dharmadasa in his paper titled, “The People of the Lion: Ethnic Identity, ideology and Historical Revisionism in Contemporary Sri Lanka” which was published on Sri Lanka Journal of Humanities (1992).  In his reply, Dharmadasa argues by using different historical facts that the relationship between linguistic identity of Sinhalese people as a nation can be seen beyond 13^th century BC.  Further, Dharmadasa’s position on the continuation of Sinhalese people as a culturally related one group in many years in the history has shown a new light into nationalism discussion in Sri Lanka.

There are several other serious academic interventions that can be identified as some intellectual contributions to the Sri Lankan debate on Nationalism.

Colonialism and Nationalism

Nationalism in any post-colonial social setup has direct link with the colonial encounters of that country which they have faced during many decades in their relative histories. Sri Lankan experience is not an exception. Some studies have focused on Buddhism as a ‘theoretical essence’ of Sinhalese nation which helped to create a national consciousness against colonial power. 

I will write on the relationship between Colonialism Vs Nationalism in the next column.