Us and Them

In one of several of our free days in B-school life, a couple of stoned heads ended up talking about the overwhelming sentiment of nationalism that had immersed the entire country ever since the BJP government had risen to power in the most spectacular fashion amidst nationwide fanfare and skepticism alike. We probably got a little too carried away with the train of thought as we ended up making an amateur podcast that day. The not-so-subtle subject of this mostly embarrassing attempt was 'would you die for your country'?

Couple of months down the line I found myself discussing a similar subject with another friend. It started when I received the following WhattsApp forwards in response to an article I'd shared about Chinese aggression along border areas-

Underlying cynicism aside, the friend felt strongly about a border-less world, a universal family so to speak. As compelling as it may sound, I reckoned it was little more than utopia, which I tried to justify in the string of messages that followed. The underlying question- to put it a lot more subtly- was 'would it be possible for humankind to thrive in a border-less world'? Is it possible for us to shatter the smoke screens that the so called evil governments across the world have pulled over our eyes, dissolve borders that keep men from men, forget our irrational fears and hatred, and unite mankind once and for all?

As tall a task as it seems, at an individual level I suppose it would be fairly easy for most of us to raise our hands and sign up for such a virtuous ideological revolution. That is exactly why this question deserves a more sophisticated analysis. Taking some time out of a lazy Sunday morning and after incorporating requisite edits and explanations, I have tried to put together the same, merging the string of messages I'd shared with the friend while preserving the core idea and the overall chain of thought:

Man is an animal, think we can all agree and build upon this truth.

And a social animal at that. We can't live/survive on our own by being a loner; nature is simply too unforgiving. In fact the single greatest characteristic that puts our species at the apex of the pyramid of species (most being far more powerful than a human being) that inhabit the earth is our ability to cooperate and form long term social groups. Hence, the notion of living in communities, some sense of which is also prevalent in almost all animal species across land, water and air.

How does such a pack or tribe come to be in the first place?

The primary requirement is resemblance- commonality and shared features. This is the reason you would find (say) monkeys only hanging out with monkeys, never even with chimps, orangutans or other apes, even though the underlying genetic material giving rise to those features is so same (over 99%). It is for the simple reason that two monkeys look like one another, a chimp and a monkey do not. Birds of a feather flock together.

This is how small groups first formed. Then they expanded and very soon the first tribes came into existence based on more such shared features- tangible, observable traits and not any underlying latent ones.

But then humans somehow ended up being far higher up the evolutionary ladder. Sometime down the line we evolved the ability to string several complicated thoughts together and communicate them far more effectively and efficiently to one another than any other species on the planet. This is when an unprecedented cognitive revolution took place- groups of hunter gatherers could now come together to form bigger communities. These communities rested on shared physiological features but prospered upon shared ideas, stories, myths and belief systems. While trying to make sense out of the vast and complex world, we developed inter-subjective realities- 'truths' which couldn't (and needn't) be objectively verified, which wouldn't even mean anything at an individual level, but when practiced and repeated across vast groups, became the very fabric that helped stitch those groups into communities. That is essentially how the first civilized societies came to be.

Gradually, the features became more defined, more refined. With natural forces and migration, races soon came into existence. Entire civilizations formed and with that, these same features started getting even more refined.

Soon we came up with constructs like money (another more sophisticated inter-subjective reality), which further complicated things. This broke civilizations into socio-economic stratas- castes, religion and what not. We got 'divided' simply because those underlying features kept becoming ever more refined, shaped by nature and partly by our own endeavors to build complicated hierarchical but sustainable social structures.

However, the primal instinct of belonging-ness (which unsurprisingly also finds its place in Maslow's hierarchy of needs) based on commonalities and shared ideas prevailed. It is simply because we needed them in order to survive against those we now began to consider 'outsiders'.

Economics 101- time went by, population boomed and scarcity soon came into the picture as we came to realize that there isn't enough for everyone all the time, can never be anymore. Then started the scramble for power/resources which continues till date in different ways almost everywhere.

The core point is the fact that the underlying instinct of belonging-ness is primal and will always be there. We need to share and we only share with those who we think are 'like us'

What this implies is that the lines which my friends had so started to abhor, would invariably have been drawn. The only difference is HOW you choose to draw them - race, caste, religion, economic status or even a simple line on the map. It isn't ideal. It isn't perfect​. It is simply primal and hence necessary.

That is where the roots of modern nationalism (which began with the advent of nation states and French Revolution) lie. Basically meaning 'love your kind’, those who (you think) are 'like you'. That doesn't mean you hate everyone else. It just means when the chips are down, you'd instinctively know who's on your side and who's not.

That is why we are all doomed to talk about preserving peace while continuously preparing for war. That is why men who have nothing really to do with a piece of land are holding guns to save it from other men who have nothing really to do with that piece of land, while those who actually have homes built on those lands silently suffer. That is why some men will live their entire lives trying to engineer hate between people who will never even meet each other, ever. That is why, sadly, our defense budgets will continue to outstrip government expenditure on food, housing, healthcare and education combined. It is because we are all too human to ever escape that eventuality.

I cannot know about you but the friend still disagrees with (and hates) this line of reasoning.

Either way, we have an India-Pak cricket encounter at our hands today. And I ain't gonna waste any more time trying to convince you folks. Can't wait to see those Kashmir-hungry, militant-spawning, China-friendly, terrorist-aiding, jealous mullahs lose to the men in blue.

Oh wait a minute...