Indian Perception Of History

[acharya]

Sovereignty Once Again



One notion extremely crucial in political philosophy, philosophy of law and international relations is that of sovereignty. A Nation, it is proclaimed, is a “sovereign”. One of the aspirations common to ethnic groups, if we were to take contemporary history at its face value, is to seek for themselves the status of a Nation. It is almost an article of faith that ‘Nations’ have a “right of self-determination”, and this is accepted by most people across the entire political spectrum. The ‘Rationality question’ is hotly debated between groups today, where the heat and the sound are those generated by the use of fire-arms; Singhalese and the Tamil murder each other, while the Christians and the Muslim have been at it in Lebanon for years; the Palestinians need a “homeland”; there are ceaseless ruminations about the ‘Assam question’ and the ‘Punjab question’. And then, of course, there is any number of ‘liberation movements’: from the Muslim National Liberation Front in the Philippines to the Eritrean National Liberation Movement in Ethiopia.



Sociologists and political scientists have been very busy trying to understand the phenomenon of Nations and Nationalism. One of the results of diligent enquiries has been the suggestion to the effect that Nations should properly be seen in relation to multiple ethnic groups, and that it is impossible for each ethnic group to constitute itself as a Nation.



I would like to add my own two-bit worth to this discussion. Where pandemonium is the rule of the day, there one more voice does not make things worse! I want to draw your attention to one of the undoubtedly many elements that has gone into producing theories or ideologies of nation-states. I will suggest furthermore that the notions of Nations and Nationhood are more unintelligible, to some of us at least, than we think.



Let me enter into the theme by way of the idea we have become familiar with, viz., ‘sovereignty’. We have come to appreciate, hopefully, not just the religious origin of this notion, but its essential dependence upon it as well. Despite the secularization, it remains indissolubly tied to its Christian context.



One of the issues with respect to the Sovereign which kept theologians and philosophers busy was whether He was transcendent or immanent. A sub-question within this issue was whether God needed to create the world or not. Did God depend on the world in some sense, i.e., was there some sense in which it could be said of God that He could not be complete without His creation and, therefore, that this world was part of God? One way of conceptualizing the dependency between God and His creation would be to look at it in terms of the relationship that obtains between the producer (or creator) and his products (or creations), and ask whether God realizes Himself in the process of creating. An affirmative answer to this question gives us the following picture: God is essentially and truly dependent on what He has created, because what He has created is a part of His Self. God is in the world in this manner. All His creations belong to Him because they are parts of His Self and, therefore, God contemplates Himself when He contemplates the world. What I have said is not a ‘heresy’, appearances to the contrary not-withstanding, even though it is not as simple as I have just formulated it. I am after a thread in the discussion, and a thread cannot he highlighted in a cloth without making the latter into the ground. Hence the simplification. It is necessary to do so, nevertheless, because this is what will make some of the discussions that ensued appear plausible.



The ‘Alien’ in Alienation



When the Sovereign gets secularized and becomes many sovereigns, and, consequently, when creation and production can be translated into empirical actions of these many sovereigns, the religious pronouncements about labour (as an atonement for Sin) fall by the wayside. (There are other reasons as well, but we need not bother about them now.)



In these secular versions, it is said that one elaborates one’s self in the world by creating things, etc. What a human being creates belongs to his self, truly and essentially, because what he creates is part of his self. Man looks at his self when he looks at the world he has created. A secularized theological belief ends up acquiring the status of a psycho-anthropological fact.



As an illustration of this theme, take Marx’s notion of alienation. In his Paris Manuscripts, he identifies four dimensions of alienation, one of them being the following: the producer alienates his self from himself, when his products belong to someone other than himself, i.e., when the product is alienated. This self-alienation, i.e., alienation of one’s self from oneself, can come about if and only if, what one alienates, viz., the product is a part of one’s self (or, even, one’s entire self). In the Marxian anthropology, not only must there be a self with parts, but the objects which one creates must also constitute such a part. Otherwise, alienation of the product, no matter how it comes about, cannot be a dimension in the self-alienation of the worker (or the producer). The idea that production is the objectification of man’s self is retained by Marx in Capital as well, where he compares the “worst of the architects to the best of the bees”. And yet, this is the irony I spoke of in the section on self, Marx claims that Man’s self is (the ‘is’ is one of identity) a set of social relations. At first sight, there does not appear anything amiss about it: after all, as Marx claims, social relations in capitalism are mediated by relations between things, or, better still, capitalist social relations are material relations. Consequently, man’s self in capitalism is composed of material things. Thus, the “reification” of human self can be attributed exclusively to capitalist social relations, precisely because human self is a set of social relations. This argument squares with the sentiment that Marx expresses else, where (Capital, Vol.3. Harmondsworth: Pelican books, p.911), thus:



“From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as the private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations, as boni patres familias (Good heads of the household).”



A “higher socio-economic formation” is not necessary to realize this absurdity that Marx refers to; another world-model, a different one, will do just as fine. The American-Indians just could not comprehend that the European settlers would want to buy land from them. “How could we sell what is not ours to sell, or yours to buy? How do you sell a Cheetah or its speed?” they asked in one of the most moving and memorable documents ever composed (It is called the “Speech of Seattle”). The idea is equally absurd to the world models of the Asian Indians as well. The difference between these two Indian communities is their degree of adaptation to the European demands: one adapted and survived; the other did not and was wiped out. One did not understand, but acted as though it did; the other failed to simulate, and paid the price for it.



Be it as that may, let me return to the argument. It appears neat, but it is not. The reason for it is that Marx needs to speak in terms of ‘objectification’, in order to give sense to ‘reification’; he has to speak of embodiments of labour-as-an-activity in order to get his critique going. If it is not possible for the products to embody the activities that produced them, money could not arise out of the circulation of commodities. This may appear an abstruse point. Besides, there are many thinkers who are also critical of the idea of “embodied labour”. What is strange about this situation is that those who criticize the idea of “embodied labour” when it comes to Marx’s theory, and those who would not know the difference between Das Kapital and Mein Kampf continue to talk of embodied labour nevertheless. To see how this could be, we have to widen the scope of the discussion.



All kinds of humanistic psychologies (not just C. Rogers’ version of it), and anthropologies which stress the dynamic nature of human self and speak in such terms as “self-actualization”, “self-expression”, “unfolding the potentials of the self”, etc., are confronted with the following problem: what is the relationship between, say, a painter and his painting, a poet and his poem, and an author and his book? Without exception, they would have to say that the product is an “actualization”, or an “expression”, in some way or another, of the person performing such an activity. But in which way precisely? One answer would be to say that in such activities human beings express themselves. A human self, it could be said, grows “richer”, or “unfolds its potential”, etc., accordingly as the activities it performs. (We are familiar with this theme from an earlier section where the self expressed itself in its actions, etc.)



But, this is not a full answer. Suppose we ask, more specifically say, the following question: what is the relationship between Rembrandt and his paintings ? Do his paintings “express” his self (his “feelings”, his “perception of the world”, his “thoughts” or whatever else you want to use), and continue to do so long after the activity that created them has ceased? From within the ambit of these theories and from the world models of the West, there is only one possible answer one could give: yes. (Because consider the next question that would ineluctably arise, if the answer is in the negative: whose self is being expressed in the paintings, then? Nobody’s? Such a stance would be flatly incoherent from within the Western model of self for obvious reasons.) How could a material object express your self unless it embodied the action which expressed it initially? It could not.



Look at what has happened as a result of this answer though. A material object, painting in this case, embodies, or expresses your self. That which embodies, expresses, or actualizes your self is, by the very definition, a part of your self. Rembrandt’s paintings belong to Rembrandt’s self (‘belonging’ should not be thought of here as standing for the juridical relations of private property), because they express, actualize, or embody his self.



We have a situation, then, where material objects constitute spatial parts of a self. An action can express a self because such an expression can be objectified. Matter, put differently, traps human actions, human self-expressions. They are the “practico-inert” of Sartre, as he made them into an eternal condition of human existence.



I hope that some amongst you are feeling a bit uneasy, because what I have said so far must be seen as flying in the face of “commonsense”. Indeed, it does. There is a problem involved here.



In no culture, including the Western culture of today, does one go around saying, “I am a table, a house, a bench, a painting, etc.” because one has produced them, and still be counted as a sane human being. The charitable might see such talk as being “metaphorical”, while the uncharitable may have such an individual committed. But, theories of anthropology, psychology and philosophy which proclaim precisely this can hardly be considered as being metaphorical. Or, again, it is not as though a fallacy is being committed here, i.e., it is not the case that these theories are talking about the property of the “species” which is not attributable to the individual members of the species. They are not talking about the “self-identity” of the species, but of our individual human selves. Everyone who speaks of “self-actualization”, etc., is accepting as self-evident what, if put explicitly, would be denied as being true. Why, then, do both ideas not appear paradoxical when taken together?



The answer, I suggest, is in their world models. Both the obscure notion of “objectification” and its mundane counterpart “self-actualization” are intuitively familiar ideas. In and of themselves, they appear both plausible and acceptable. But their familiarity and plausibility arise from the religious context where God is “everywhere” and where everything is a part of God’s self. In the process of secularizing the Sovereign into many sovereigns, everyone has carried over the predicates ascribed of the Sovereign as the attributes of the many sovereigns as well. It cannot be any other way, because the predicates that I am talking about explicate the very meaning of the word ‘sovereign’ itself. The secular version appears intuitively satisfying not because it is so, but because the religious original, whose secular version it is, is satisfying. That is why they would deny the secular version, when confronted explicitly with it (Man is not God, is he?). Nevertheless, the secular version acquires, if you will, the status of a self-evident, banal and commonplace truth (and that is why it goes unexamined).



Religion, it has been said by many, is the essence of Man alienated from himself. The task of criticism of religion is, correspondingly, one of giving Man’s essence back to himself. This is an incomplete thought, and, if I am correct, we can complete it thus: if religion is the alienated essence of man, then by being alienated, it has become an alien essence as well. Giving this essence back to Man is not to give him his original essence back, but to provide him with an alien essence. You may want to say that God is the alienated human essence. But you cannot return this to man without making all men into gods. When men become gods, they cease being the humans they once were!



Neither Marx nor the humanists can be accused of being Christians. But the world models from within which they operate(d) and which, consequently, lend intelligibility to ideas like , ‘objectification’ are profoundly so. And yet, how many of us have not gone around talking about “alienation” as though it was clear as daylight to any but the perverse?



That a theological belief about the nature of the Sovereign has ended up becoming a psycho-socio-anthropological fact is evidenced and underscored by the discussions about ethnic groups and nationhood – the theme of this section. In the following pages, I will try to provide you with some of my reasons for thinking so. It requires to be stressed, if it is not obvious by now, that the reasons I give are not the same as the justifications that the theorists provide during the course of the discussion. What I am trying to do is to show, to the best of my ability, why they could think that these ideas are plausible enough to require justification. That is, why the idea of “sovereign nations” (in its modern day versions) appears intelligible at all.









Ethnicity and Territoriality



I have already suggested that by now it is an article of faith that all nations have a “right of self-determination”. The questions are these: from whence this right? Why is it even worth the bother of looking around for justificatory arguments? Why does it not appear as nonsensical as the question, ‘why does hocus-pocus have wings?’ These questions should get something resembling a partial answer by the end of this section.



We have seen above that physical objects, material things can become parts of a self, i.e., a self can, and often does, construct an identity for itself by construing physical objects as spatial parts of itself. These objects include not only those produced by human beings, but also those which obtain independently of human intervention (e.g., earth).



We could keep our discussion simple by accepting the proposal that the relation between self (at an individual level) and materiality is not a necessary one, but a possible one. (Strictly speaking though, it is a necessary relation as well. This ‘necessity’ is not what we would call a ‘logical necessity’, but the much weaker notion of ‘technical necessity’. Insofar as human beings are born with bodies, though it is not logically necessary that they be born so, such bodies are necessary, if not sufficient, to becoming selves. That is, body, the physical object, is a necessary spatial part of every human self. As long as we keep this in mind, no harm comes if we continue to speak only in terms of the logically possible. What is technically necessary is also logically possible after all.) But, I believe, what is possible at an individual level is logically necessary when the ‘identity’ of several people as a collection is at issue. Because the identity of such a group is supra-individual, it does not suffice that each individual within that group experiences her/himself as a self. Something ‘more’ is required to enable the individual self to incorporate the “identity of the group” as an element of his own identity. He has to, that is, experience himself also as a member of the group (or as a part of it).



Obviously, there are many different kinds of groups and what makes one group different from the other lies in what they utilize in the process of creating a group identity. Groups which choose a part of the surface area of earth (as common territory for the members of the group) to build their identity are called ethnic groups in the literature. Each individual self which augments its identity by incorporating a physical territory as a spatial part of itself, and is able to see the same spatial object as a part of many other selves has built up an identity for itself as a member (or part) of the ethnic group. (I would like to emphasize that all this talk of ‘spatial parts of self’ is not some vague or imprecise “metaphorical” use of words. It must be taken utterly literally to make any sense at all.) Because territory and ethnic groups are definitionally so linked, they and ‘nationhood’ get linked together as well. Each ethnic group has an aspiration, in situ as it were, to constitute itself as a nation. But whether they succeed or not in realizing their aspiration to become the modern day sovereign nation-states, is something that depends neither on them nor on the theory. A whole number of empirical circumstances, which lie beyond the control of these ethnic groups, intervene. There is many a slip, as they say, between the cup and the lip.



The right of nations to self-determination, I would like to put to you, appears credible because it is structurally isomorphic with the notion of individual sovereignty. In the same way an individual requires a domain to be a sovereign, groups require territories where they are the sovereign. (It is in the nature of things that the individual ceases being a sovereign in anything but name exactly to the extent the group becomes the sovereign. The empirical groups cease being sovereigns in the same ratio as the nation becomes the sovereign. The magic and necromancy surrounding the phrase “The Nation is a Sovereign” does not derive from either the metaphysical nature of the ‘Nation’ or its mysterious capacity to “will”. ‘Nation’ and its relation to an empirical group existing at any given time can be rendered perspicuous enough. The powers that the ‘Nation’ derives are all secondary: they come from the “sovereign”. A ‘Nation’ is falsely accused of being a super-natural entity, whereas its guilt is by association, viz., that of being associated with the sovereign. The problem, therefore, is not how the ‘Nation’ could be anything, but that there could be a sovereign at all. Many theorists believe that it is a very difficult question to specify what the ‘Nation’ is, while they take the idea of sovereignty as being non-problematic. If I am right, they are looking in the wrong place and in the wrong direction.) Because to be a sovereign is to have a domain, to have a domain is to be a sovereign. In both cases, that of the individual and the group, the identity that is built up is primary: an individual does not require others to build a self except negatively; the ethnic groups do not require the other to build their identity at all. Both selfhood and ethnicity are autonomous creations and are not derived identities.



“Territoriality”, of course, is not sufficient to constitute an ethnic group. But, it is considered necessary. Before any attempt is made to find out what other criteria require to be met in order to become an ethnic group, a word about ‘territoriality’ is not out of place. Because territoriality and ethnic groups are definitionally related, the legitimacy of the definition depends upon the acceptability of evidence for it. A brief look, then, at the evidence we have accumulated regarding territorial behaviour.



Ethnologists and socio-biologists have provided incontrovertible evidence for the existence of the phenomenon of territoriality in animal, bird and insect domains. Each member of a species carves out an area for itself and fights off intruders who transgress its hunting, nesting and mating domain. It is important to note that only those seen to belong to the same species are considered ‘intruders’, i.e., territorial behaviour is not inter-species but an intra-species one. There is literally a mountain of literature on this subject, each documenting the case with that loving care and detail characteristic of all good ethnological and entomological studies. Personally, I take the case as settled. The concept of territorial behaviour has also generated some fascinating studies about, e.g., the results of over-crowding on both animal and human behaviour.



Though extension of ethnological studies for an understanding of human behaviour is desirable where possible, we will not be explaining anything by dubbing the notion of self that I have just talked about as an instantiation of human territorial behaviour. We will only have given it another name. To ‘explain’ the hostile reaction of an indigenous community to the influx of, say, immigrant workers as an instance of territorial behaviour is to explain nothing. The hostile reaction has been baptized with a name and names as we all know, explain nothing.



To see the point I want to make, consider a situation where a group of people fight a war against another group of people. You could, if you so choose, name this phenomenon as “patriotism” or “jihad” or just “territorial behaviour”. None of the three terms render the phenomenon intelligible; they merely baptize it. At times, it does appear as though these terms do explain, because arguments and reasoning are brought in, motivations are adduced, etc. But none of these is explanatory in nature: considerations are provided to classify this event as an instance of that phenomenon; they do not explain why that comes about at all. “Patriotism” is not the cause/reason for fighting for one’s country, ‘fighting for one’s country’ is called patriotism.







A Theory of Ethnicity



In order to go deeper into the issue, and draw the contrast between Western views and those of our world models, I will choose a slightly different strategy in this section than the ones I chose before. I would like to take a peek at one theory of ethnic phenomenon. The choice for this theory instead of others was due to its explicit attempt at developing a theory, which is quite rare in this domain of sociology.



Pierre Van Den Berghe, a brilliant if controversial sociologist, goes against the existing orthodoxies in sociology by drawing directly upon socio-biology in order to explain phenomena like ‘ethnicity’, ‘racism’, ‘caste’, etc., in his recent book, The Ethnic Phenomenon (New York and Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1982). He says that,



“Ethnic boundaries are created socially by preferential endogamy and physically by territoriality” (p.24)



Because he sees ethnism (his preferred term) as a way of maximizing fitness through extended nepotism, it becomes essential for his case to specify what he calls “ethnic markers”, i.e., those features that allow one to pick out some individual as belonging to the same/different ethny (again, his term for an ethnic group). One such ethnic marker, used almost universally by people everywhere, he says, is language:



“The way people speak places them more accurately and reliably than almost any behavioural trait. Language and dialect can be learned, of course, but the ability to learn a foreign tongue without a detectable accent drops sharply around puberty. Therefore speech quality is a reliable (and difficult to fake) test of what group an individual has been raised in. Moreover, acquisition of foreign speech is extremely difficult except through prolonged contact with native speakers, another safety feature of the linguistic test” (p.33)



Having said this much, be goes on further to make an even stronger case:



“Not surprisingly…language is inextricably linked with ethnicity. An ethny frequently defines itself, at least in part, as a speech community… Language learning is the universal human experience of childhood through which full human sociality is achieved, and through which one gets integrated in a kinship network. It is little wonder, therefore, that language is the supreme test of ethnicity” (p.34)



A bit further into the argument, he adds:



“Other languages are learned for the sake of instrumental convenience; the mother tongue is spoken for the sheer joy of it. It is probably this fundamental difference in the speaking of first versus second languages that, more than any single factor, makes for the profound qualitative difference between intra-ethnic and inter-ethnic relations. The mother-tongue is the language of kinship. Every other tongue is a mere convenience between strangers.” (p. 34-35)



Where such a situation does frequently occur, the following case is being made: because of the close connection between language as an ethnic marker and the identity of the ethnic group as a speech community, and between these two and ethnic boundaries, there is reason to assume that physical territoriality is intimately bound up with being a speech community. Leaving out the numerous qualifications and nuances present in the argument would give us the following thesis: physical territoriality often, not always, traces linguistic/speech boundaries.



If we look at European history, there is certainly something to be said in favour of this thesis: German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Polish… etc., are all languages and, for the most part, are constituted as nations as well. But if I think of India, even after its colonization, the case loses all its plausibility. My aim is not to criticize Van Den Berghe, but to share with you some of the misgivings I have regarding his thesis.



Let me begin with the following. During their colonization of India, the British created precisely the kind of territories that Van Den Berghe talks about: Cantonments. Though ostensibly so, they were not just military stations of sorts, and that is why they have retained an alien ring in the indigenous culture to this day. In these cantonments, English was not just the lingua franca. Rather, the language or speech community defined the territory. Creation of these or similar territories is not the result of racism or of colonial superiority, but an understandable reflex when viewed from the perspective of Western history. These kinds of territories were not restricted to the cities alone; their creation continued right into the heartland of India.



Why do such areas, even today, retain their alien ring? The British have upped and left a long time ago, so what explains this perception? Here is one reason: within our intuitive world models, language does not play an essential role in constituting an ethnic group, much less that territorial and linguistic boundaries coincide. As a normal course of events, one learned, where necessary, to be equally proficient in one’s ‘mother tongue’ and in the lingua franca of the community where one lived.



Obviously, I am not making the absurd claim that every Indian is bi-lingual. But what I am claiming is that the relationship between a speech community and being an ethny did not, does not, hold in India. Should this be the case, the alleged relationship between language and territory does not exist either.



Unfortunately for me though, I can give you no evidence in favour of my claims. All I can call upon are my personal experiences, and personal memories are of dubious value in the best of circumstances. So, I will not even try to mention them. All I am left with, as a result, are some considerations which may, or may not, sow seeds of doubt. But, I shall try nevertheless.



Consider a second generation German in America who does not (almost as a rule) speak German anymore. This appears to support Van Den Berghe’s thesis: the German has become an ‘American’ or, at least, has ceased being a German. Consider a third generation Tamil living in the north who continues to speak Tamil at home. Does that mean that he continues to identify himself as a member of the Tamil ethny? Prima facie, one might be inclined to answer in the affirmative: why else, it might be asked, does he continue to speak Tamil at home and not, say, Punjabi? Notice though, that this question presupposes as true precisely what being contested: the relationship between ethnicity and language. Consider now an Urdu-speaking peasant, living next door to a Malayali-speaking peasant family in an area where the lingua franca is Kannada or Marathi. If we consider further that they have been there for generations, which is not infrequent in India, we shall have to ask ourselves what kind of an ethnic identity they have. Whatever your answer, which depends on your experiences of village India, it should draw your attention to the following puzzling element in the situation: individual families continue to speak their mother-tongues at home, even while living amidst communities where the lingua franca is different from their mother-tongues. This continues for generations on end. In this sense, what is a pretty normal thing in India is almost non-existent in Europe or America (except in a special form, more about which later). When an individual family migrates to another place where the lingua franca differs from the mother-tongue, within two generations none of the family members have a mother tongue different from the language of the community. Surely, this fact draws our attention to the nature of our cultural history as something which is in all likelihood different from that of the West with respect to language and ethnic identity? Of course, the reorganization of states along linguistic lines in independent India has hopelessly confused issues forever. Our leaders accepted the conventional wisdom of the West, and instead of solving any problem with such a measure, they have merely bequeathed us with problems we could have done without. Is it really so preposterous to suggest that Van Den Berghe’s thesis merely extends European history to other cultures as well? In any case, empirical enquiry is urgently required before this question can be answered.



Caste and Territoriality



I would now like to speculate that one of the results of the Indian ‘caste system’ has been the creation of ethnies cutting across linguistic and territorial differences. A Brahmin is one, irrespective of where he lived or what language he spoke. ‘Territorial behaviour’, it could be said, was minimized by transforming the nature of interethnic relations. It is as though the aggression between such groups resembles not an intra-species aggression, but an inter-species one, i.e., aggression between different ‘caste groups’ took the form of aggression between members of different species.



A Brahmin and a sudra could share the same territory in the same way a dog and a cow can; a basic tolerance (or, if you prefer, indifference) coupled with overt aggressive behaviour every now and then. A very familiar example to all of us in India is the existence of shops and restaurants, all in the same street, catering to different ‘caste groups’ living in the same territory. The extraordinary significance of this will become apparent to those of you who know Europe a bit: Turkish cafes and shops in areas hardly populated by the indigenous people, Indian restaurants and shops in areas where only Indians live, etc. I am aware of the presence of all kinds of eating houses in the big shopping streets of Europe. This post-war phenomenon, which is due to the rise of the opulent middle classes in Europe, does not provide a counter-example to what I am saying. The ghetto formation along ethnic lines is a typical phenomenon of European culture and not, I submit, of Asian culture. It is difficult even in our modern day cities to come across a phenomenon so typical of, say, America: Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, or Hispanics generally, Blacks, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc., all have their own ghettos, territories and turf. I submit that the only thing that resembles such territories in our cultures are the cantonments – a British creation. The separate living quarters of the different ‘caste groups’ are only superficially similar to the kind of territoriality of ethnies that we are talking about.



I do not like to be misunderstood for what I have said so far and what I will be saying soon. I am neither attacking nor defending the ill-understood ‘caste system’ in India. All I am saying is that, in our cultures, ethnies require(d) neither linguistic nor territorial boundaries to be one. Therefore, the idea that Van Den Berghe proposes could turn out to be profoundly alien to our intuitive world models. It is possible that we conceive ethnies differently, socio-biology or no socio-biology.



In the last paragraphs of this section, I would like to elaborate upon the way we could possibly see ethnies and their identity. I believe I am explicating an element from within our intuitive world model. It is for you to judge whether this is indeed the case.



Ethnicity as a Relation



In our world models, ethnic boundaries are conceptual in nature and not territorial at all. Consequently, it can be drawn very sharply, but can also be left vague. It is, in its very nature, fluid. The ‘other’ ethnic groups are essential for defining one’s ethny. Brahmins as a ‘caste’ can become a group (this is an ethny) if, and only if, there are other ‘caste groups’ as well. (This would be consistent with our notions of ‘self’.) The point is not that each ethny defines itself in opposition to other ethnies, i.e., negatively. Each ethny’s identity depends upon its ability to specify the other ethnies as ethnies, and thus outline the relationship of cooperation and collaboration that may or may not obtain between them. It is to this result of the Indian caste system that I want to draw your attention: an ethnic identity is dependent upon being able to elaborate and outline the relations between ethnies. This remarkable aspect, where an ‘ethny’ becomes one by constructing the identities of other ethnies is what would enable us to build an alternative to the other view, which sees an ethny in terms of self-definition and self-identity purely in relation to itself, i.e., by virtue of endogamy, territoriality, language, etc.



In one view, an ethny is an entity which defines itself by means of certain features common to its parts. Or, each individual member identifies the other as a member of the same ethny if, and only if, each possesses the same ‘ethnic markers’. Thus, ethny can be seen as a collection of individuals. The group itself is defined intensionally so that it is possible to make out whether or not a given individual belongs to it.



The other view looks at ‘ethny’ as picking out a relation. The ethnic groups would be the relata of a relationship. This identity is constructed in the relationship, i.e., it is only as relata are they ethnic groups at all. That means to say that each individual (or a collection of them) would have to stand in a definite relationship to all other individuals in order to be part of an ethny. There are at least two relations involved: an ancestral relationship (i.e., a relation of descent), and a part-whole relation (i.e., a mereological relation). This point is not new to Van Den Berghe, because he says:



“Ethnicity is…defined in the last analysis by common descent. Descent by itself, however, would leave the ethny unbounded, for, by going back enough, all living things are related to each other.”(p.24)



True, all living things are related to each other; but the ethnic identity depends very much upon what relationship is asserted between all living things.( Not only between them, either.) It would be an impossible job for any one individual to trace her/his relation of descent, from the “big bang” through Amoeba to her/his parents. The rich lore of traditions, mythologies, and rituals, etc., preserved in a culture, and transmitted from generation to generation do precisely this, i.e., they put, so to speak, sign-posts all along the way.



We can formulate the differences between these two views in terms of the following thought experiment: suppose that tomorrow the entire humankind disappears with the exception of the French nation. Would they still feel an ethny? They would. Suppose, instead, that only Brahmins survived (in India), while the rest of the humankind disappeared. Would they continue to feel an ethny? They would not; they would lose their identity as an ethny as well.



It is this kind of a heuristic that we have in our culture. It requires to be developed into a theory as it fits our modern day sensibilities. To do so, I submit, is to begin the process of ‘decolonizing’ parts of sociology.