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ABSTRACT
By following Johann Gottfried Herder's cultural nationalism, the paper illustrates the centrality of languages in the formation of modern nation states. Herder further enables us to comprehend the significance of a common cultural core for national unity; the negative role of uniformity that leads to exclusionary policies; and the development of dissension into armed conflicts among ethnicities and nations. Thus, Herder reveals that linguistic nationalism takes the dangerously ethnic turn when its civic elements are not properly utilised. Through Herder's method, I demonstrate the cause of conflict between language and cultural rights and other human rights. For this, I examine why the peoples of Sri Lanka and undivided Pakistan defined themselves primarily in ethnic terms during decolonisation and in religio-linguistic terms after independence. By comparing the 1930s’ Sri Lankan vernacular (Swabasha) movement with the language movement (Bhasha Andolon) of 1952 in the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), I delineate the nature of challenges that marginalised peoples face regarding their cultural rights in decolonised societies. Since the societies require clear directions for nurturing ethnic cooperation, I suggest that the strategic aspects of Herder's idealism can pave the way for this.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Grace Cheng, ‘The Relationship between Nationalism and Human Rights: An Introduction to the Dimensions of the Debate’, in Nationalism and Human Rights: In Theory and Practice in the Middle East, Central Europe, and the Asia-Pacific, ed. Grace Cheng (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 1–20.
2 Paul Gordon Lauren, The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 107–9.
3 Craig Calhoun, ‘Nationalism Matters’, in Nationalism in the New World, ed. Don H. Doyle and Marco Antonio Pamplona (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006), 16–40.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Emir Yazici, ‘Nationalism and Human Rights’, Political Research Quarterly 72, no. 1 (2019): 147–61.
8 Robert J.C. Young, Empire, Colony, Postcolony (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).
9 Ibid., 81.
10 J.G. von Herder, ‘Treatise on the Origin of Language (1772)’, in Herder: Philosophical Writings, ed. Michael N. Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; editor's emphasis through quotation marks added to Herder's natural laws), 65–166.
11 J.G. von Herder, ‘Fragments on Recent German Literature (1767–8) [Excerpts on Language]’, in Herder: Philosophical Writings, ed. Michael N. Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 33–64.
12 Sonia Sikka, Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference: Enlightened Relativism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 184.
13 Herder, ‘Treatise on the Origin of Language’, 152.
14 Ibid.
15 Frederick M. Barnard, Herder on Nationality, Humanity, and History (Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003), 34.
16 Young, Empire, Colony, Postcolony, 82.
17 Ibid., 139–40.
18 Royal J. Schmidt, ‘Cultural Nationalism in Herder’, Journal of the History of Ideas 17, no. 3 (1956): 407–17.
19 Nira Wickramasinghe, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age: A History (Oxford: Oxford University, 2014).
20 Ibid., 8.
21 J.G. von Herder, Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004), 119.
22 Wickramasinghe, Sri Lanka in the Modern Age, 27.
23 Ibid., 56.
24 A. Sivanandan, ‘Sri Lanka: Racism and the Politics of Underdevelopment’, Race & Class 26, no. 1 (1984): 1–37.
25 Jawaharlal Nehru, ‘“Tryst with Destiny” Address to the Constituent Assembly of India in New Delhi’, Online Speech Bank – American Rhetoric, https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jawaharlalnehrutrystwithdestiny.htm (accessed April 5, 2019).
26 Herder, Another Philosophy of History, 128.
27 Siri T. Hettige, ‘Economic Policy, Changing Opportunities for Youth, and the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka’, in Economy, Culture, and Civil War in Sri Lanka, ed. Deborah Winslow and Michael D. Woost (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004), 115–30.
28 Bruce Kapferer, Legends of People, Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1988), 7.
29 Ceylon State Council Debates, vol. 1, 25 May 1944, col. 748, p. 809.
30 Herder, Another Philosophy of History, 128.
31 Qadri M Ismail, ‘Unmooring Identity: The Antinomies of Elite Muslim Self-Representation in Modern Sri Lanka’, in Unmaking the Nation: The Politics of Identity & History in Modern Sri Lanka, 2nd ed., ed. Pradeep Jeganathan and Qadri Ismail (Colombo: Social Scientists’ Association, 2009), 62–107.
32 Sri Lanka House of Representatives Debates, vol. 24, 7 June 1956, col. 939, p. 101.
33 See Deirdre McConnell, ‘The Tamil People's Right to Self-determination’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 21, no. 1 (2008): 59–76.
34 Safar Ali Akanda, Language Movement and the Making of Bangladesh (Dhaka: The University Press Limited, 2013), 201.
35 Herder, Another Philosophy of History, 105.
36 Hanne-Ruth Thompson, ‘Bangladesh’, in Language and National Identity in Asia, ed. Andrew Simpson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 33–54.
37 Weekly Personal Reports, Mountbatten Papers, file no. 207, 17 April 1947.
38 Abdullah Haroon, ‘Address of 10 October (Resolution 5 of the Sind Muslim League Conference)’, The Statesman, October 11, 1938.
39 Ataur Rahman Khan, Two Years of Chief Ministership, 6th ed. (Dhaka: Nowroz Kitabistan, 2011; my translation), 29.
40 Herder, Another Philosophy of History, 115.
41 Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism (London: Penguin Books, 2010), 41–2.
42 Ibid., 42.
43 A.J. Wilson, Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism: Its Origins and Development in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London: Hurst & Co., 2000), 12 (emphasis in the original).
44 Mahomed Ali Jinnah, Quaid-i-Azam Mahomed Ali Jinnah: Speeches as Governor-General of Pakistan 1947–1948 (Karachi: Pakistan Publications, 1976), 86.
45 Alyssa Ayres, Speaking Like a State: Language and Nationalism in Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 43.
46 Kazi Motaher Hossain, ‘Literature in the New Situation’, Dilruba 1, no. 8 (1949; my translation): 535–7.
47 Herder, Another Philosophy of History, 119.
48 United Nations Observances, ‘International Mother Language Day 21 February’, The United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/events/motherlanguageday/ (accessed April 14, 2019).
49 Michael E. Brown and Sumit Ganguly, ‘Introduction’, in Fighting Words: Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in Asia, ed. Michael E. Brown and Sumit Ganguly (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2003), 1–17.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Rehnuma Sazzad
Rehnuma Sazzad is an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. Her research interest lies in the exploration of cultural identities related to the decolonised, diasporic, and indigenous realms. Her first monograph, Edward Said's Concept of Exile: Identity and Cultural Migration in the Middle East (2017), creates a portrait of illustrious intellectual practice in today's world by adding new depths to discourses of resistance, home and identity. She is currently working on her second monograph reflecting on linguistic nationalism in decolonised South Asia.