Ethno-Nationalism and Dialects of Us V/S Them: A Critical Discourse

The accounts of ethnic nationalism in contemporary times present rather an outright peculiar and severe perspective to the one at the lower rungs of the ethnic lines, here in context the marginalized communities of Pasmanda Muslims and Dalits in the Indian Subcontinent. It is often argued that the post-’90s period has been marked by religious fundamentalism, populist regimes, and the rise of nationalistic elements that tend to dominate the socio-political and economic realms, likely the divergent force of Hindu Nationalism, paving social inequality and majoritarian beliefs. The paper unfolds in five sections. It opens with the context of contesting understandings and notions of ethnonationalism in the 21st century and how the majoritarian ideals, the Hindu Majority, are imposed as generalized notions in a country, leading to the swapping of individual identity into national identity defined through assimilative practices. It further discusses the formations of social inequalities, ideological bias, and tendencies on ethnic lines in a nation. It subsequently puts forth the analysis of how ethnonationalism imbibes the unconscious practice of othering, invoking the arguments of Us vs. Them—communally entrenched differentiation and the othering practices in our daily life that have been accustomed to being normalized concerning the ethnic relations in a social community and countrywide at large. Lastly, the paper grapples with the dilemma of the liberal democratic order in distressed times of ethnic disruptions. The secondary data is used to perform the study analysis. The bibliographic and qualitative approach is implied to compile our work, providing a cohesive multitude of perspectives. The paper upholds an intellectual inquiry into the typical pattern of ethnic nationalism that is often streamlined as competitive coexistence, inter-ethnic rivalry, multiculturalism, or identity politics. In these externalities, the communal groups compete peacefully over perceived socio-political, economic, and cultural injustices encompassing both past and present because such points of contention are usually fraught with emotional content and are extremely difficult to solve definitively. Even long-established and peaceful forms of ethnic tensions can put the governing potentiality of states to the test, as detrimental state functionaries such as electoral politics could often give rise to the temperament of ethnic relations and, therefore, saturate the national discourse with rhetoric based on interethnic suspicion, stereotype, and chauvinism. Overall, the paper proposes a critical discourse analysis of ethnic nationalism and states that it is not a unified field and how the multiple research streams described offer potential building blocks for a more complete understanding of how dialects of ethnonationalism emerge.