Nation, state and diversity

A nation is a kind of large community of communities: people who feel they belong together, sharing a history, culture or destiny.

A state is different. Max Weber defined the state as a body that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in a given territory: only the state may lawfully use force, through its police and army.

There is no single feature that defines a nation: not one language, religion or race. Many nations have many languages and religions. The nearest common feature is having, or wanting, a state of its own. A nation with its own state is a nation-state.

States often fear diversity, seeing it as a threat to unity. They have used two strategies:

• Assimilation: forcing everyone to adopt the dominant group's culture: its language, its religion, its holidays, its history in textbooks. Minority cultures are suppressed.
• Integration: insisting that only one public culture exists; other cultures are allowed only in private life, at home.

India's diversity is enormous: about 1,632 languages and dialects, of which 22 are listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. By religion, about 80 per cent of Indians are Hindus and 14.2 per cent Muslims, with Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and others.

India chose neither assimilation nor integration. It recognises its communities: their languages (in linguistic states), their religions (with minority rights), their cultures. Scholars call such a country a 'state-nation': a single state in which many cultural 'nations' live together.

The idea is unity without uniformity: one country, many identities.