Page:Calcutta Review (1925) Vol. 16.djvu/385

1925]

It is a common impression in the outside world that India is inhabited by peoples of fundamentally different racial stocks, and is a congery of peoples speaking different languages and traditions; hence it is only a geographical expression and has no basis for the foundation of a nationality. Yet the Indian movement for liberation is termed by the Indians themselves as the National Movement, and everybody hailing from the geographical boundary of present-day India calls himself an Indian! So, the question turns up, is India a nation?—If not, is there any basis to form an Indian nationality? The theme of this paper is to discuss the problem of the Indian nationality; but before going into the subject-matter of the theme, we shall first take up the question, what is meant by a ‘nation’?

There have been various definitions given to this term, both from the side of the political scientist and that of the social scientist. Yet an universal definite explanation is not yet arrived at. The idea of nationality is so elusive that it cannot be expressed in a formula. In general there is a juristic definition that the population of a state is a nation, i.e., the population of a given geographical area having a government of its own is a nation. Here the word “nation” is taken as synonymous with a state and the people of the state. This is the definition common in France, English-speaking countries and also in Germany. The French lexicographer Mozin expresses the idea of nationality in a short definition that a nation is “the totality of all persons who are born in the same land or are naturalized there and live under the same government.” But this juristical definition is neither illuminating nor scientific. Against it another attempt at a scientific definition both from the Marxists