A ctivity . Find out about the origins of your own State. When was it formed ? What were the main criteria used to define it ?
– Was it language, ethnic/tribal identity, regional deprivation, ecological difference or other criterion ? How does this compare with other States within the Indian nation-state ? Try to classify all the States of India in terms of the criteria for their formation. Are you aware of any current social movements that are demanding the creation of a State ?
Try to find out the criteria being used by these movements. (Hint: Check the Vidarbha movements, and others in your region…) Rabindranath Tagore on the evils of exclusive nationalism …where the spirit of the Western nationalism prevails, the whole people is being taught from boyhood to foster hatred and ambitions by all kinds of means -- by the manufacture of half-truths and untruths in history, by persistent misrepresentation of other races and the culture of unfavourable sentiments towards them…Never think for a moment that the hurt you inflict upon other races will not infect you, or that the enemities you sow around your homes will be a wall of protection to you for all time to come ? To imbue the minds of a whole people with an abnormal vanity of its own superiority, to teach it to take pride in its moral callousness and ill-begotten wealth, to perpetuate humiliation of defeated nations by exhibiting trophies won from war, and using these schools in order to breed in children’s minds contempt for others, is imitating the West where she has a festering sore… Source: On Nationalism by Rabindranath Tagore. First published in , Reprint Edition of Macmillan, Madras .