Narendra Modi's recent and much publicised remark in a Reuters interview describing himself as a "Hindu nationalist" has touched off a renewed debate in India on how nationalism should be defined and whether it's a pre-requisite for being a good citizen. As against Modi's formulation, there are others who call for "Indian nationalism" which would be secular and inclusive and not single out the Hindu ethos of the country.
This is more than merely a debate between competing ideologies and nomenclatures. A large swathe of research in economics, political science, and social psychology drawing on evidence from many countries tells us that when individuals identify strongly with a marker of identity such as religion or ethnicity rather than principally identify themselves by their nationality, there are potentially important consequences.
Social psychology tells us that when an individual identifies strongly with a group, she will tend to look more favourably on members of the "in-group" and less favorably on outsiders. Political science suggests further that strong ethnic or religious identification is often associated with violent inter-group conflicts. And economists tell us that when people identify strongly with their in-group, they're less likely to support public goods and welfare schemes that benefit everyone in a country and more likely to confine their charitable giving to their own community. Among the many markers of identity in India, the Hindu-Muslim divide perhaps remains the most salient. There's ample evidence that strong Hindu-Muslim cleavages are associated with, among other things, periodic outbreaks of communal violence.
Could belief in an inclusive Indian nationalism help soften the Hindu-Muslim divide and on the flip side, could the promotion of Modi's brand of Hindu nationalism have the opposite effect and widen the schism between the two communities? An important and timely new study by Prerna Singh of Harvard's Department of Government and two of her graduate students helps us answer the first question and gives us clues about the second.
Singh performed a randomised online survey in which Hindu respondents were asked how much they would be willing to donate to a non-governmental organisation involved in relief activities in the aftermath of a natural calamity in this case a fire. The test subjects were presented with two scenarios, involving Hindu and Muslim victims of the disaster respectively. The "treatment" group was first shown an Indian map shaded in the colours of the flag, whereas the "control" group weren't shown this image and just asked to complete the survey. The image of the map was intended to psychologically heighten or "prime" a sense of national identity over and above any attachment to a Hindu identity that the test subjects might have.
The authors acknowledge that their sample isn't representative of the population at large, since by definition it's restricted to people who read English, have an internet connection, and moreover, have the time and interest to participate in online surveys. In other words, these are educated urban middle class people, whom they argue would be most in the position to make charitable contributions of the type tested in the survey. They're also the class of people who most likely have been exposed to the current debate on nationalism.
Professor Singh's main finding is that "priming" an inclusive Indian identity does indeed encourage Hindus to be more generous towards Muslims in terms of charitable giving than they would otherwise be. What's more, the group that's been "treated" with the priming effect is more likely to identify themselves as Indian rather than Hindu as compared to the control group. In other words, the priming of an inclusive Indian identity seems to have beneficial effects. Strikingly, the study also speaks to another hugely important identity marker in India, caste. It turns out that, in the control group, there's a markedly stronger preference among lower caste rather than upper caste respondents for giving to Hindus rather than Muslims. Note that the Hindu names in the fictitious news story were deliberately kept caste neutral so that a respondent would know only that they're helping a fellow Hindu not someone necessarily from their own caste.
In the treatment group, however, the stronger preference of lower caste respondents to help Hindus over Muslims is greatly reduced, which strongly suggests that the priming of an inclusive Indian identity affected the attitudes even of those respondents who would likely have a strong preference for giving to their in-group.
The bottom line is that evoking an inclusive Indian identity seems to make the majority community more receptive to giving charitably to the minority community. The study suggests that when Hindus look beyond their narrow religious identity and embrace an inclusive Indian identity, they're more likely to see Muslims as fellow Indians rather than an outside group less deserving of their help. However, this research cannot directly tell us whether priming a Hindu nationalist identity as Modi appears to be doing would have similar effects. In fact, as Professor Singh told me, she believes the results would be "very different and perhaps the exact opposite". The main policy implication that would come out of this research is that in a large and diverse country such as India, we ought to take seriously the value of nation building campaigns that try to promote an inclusive sense of Indian nationhood rather than dismiss them as pointless chest thumping. But it's key as Professor Singh notes that such campaigns do indeed promote an inclusive and secular rather than a majoritarian definition of the Indian identity.
We probably need fewer billboard hoardings that proclaim Hindu nationalism and many more which proclaim, "I am an Indian first".
