India's Armed Forces' Contribution to Nation Building

Abstract

No nation-state can be built without first creating and inculcating nationalism. The Indian paradox is that we are an old society and civilisation but we are a new nation-state in the modern political sense. In its long history, India can be considered to have been a ‘nation-state' only a few times: during the Mauryan Empire (321-185 BC), in the Gupta Age (320-500 AD), the Mughal period (1527-1857 AD), and as the British India colonial empire (1857-1947 AD). The dynamics of these near whole or complete Indian nation-states has been that each time, it has risen out of a hotbed of internecine quarrels and fighting among small states: a tendency which is sometimes felt even today. As a nation-state, India comprises a myriad stream of culture; 22 scheduled languages, 200 dialects, a dozen ethnic groups, seven religious communities with several sects and sub-sects, and 68 socio-cultural subregions. That makes us great as well as a complex society and nation. This very paradox also poses challenges in building India as a nation.