- Prerna Sah*

The ‘nation-state’ contrary to popular perception is anything but natural or ahistorical. It is in fact a modern day construct, ephemeral in nature. By virtue of this very nature the nation-state requires constant working upon, lest what it terms as ‘disintegrationist’ and ‘anti-national’ forces threaten its very existence.

The abstraction that is the nation-state requires a strong grounding in reality, a means to establish its legitimacy. A subtle or not so subtle means to this end is through the usage of anthropomorphic imagery of the nation-state. In other words, to give the nation-state a concrete form, it’s allegorical and personified form is projected for the world and its citizens to relate to.

Take India for instance; we have the anthropomorphic personification of the nascent nation-state in the Allegory of the Bharat Mata. The Bharat Mata, who derives her iconography from Britannia (her British counterpart), sought to give form and substance to a newly decolonized Indian state. The imagery was to enable the Indian masses to identify with and direct their patriotic fervor towards a more concretized notion of the nation-state.

t is by no means a coincidence that nation-states come to be personified and projected through the female form. The nation-state, as is defined by its territory (over which it has sovereign rights) is conceived of in terms of its nurturing capacities. Thus, it (nation-state) is the embodiment of a nurturing mother; a universal mother (of and for her ‘citizens’ only of course!).

The usage of the term motherland is crucial to evoke feelings of patriotic love towards the nation-state. But more so, it evokes a more primal bond - of that between a mother and a child; the nation-state as the care-giver/mother and its citizens as her children. The nation-state when it is depicted as a mother ravaged (by either external or internal anti-nationalist forces) and in need of protection, seeks to test the mettle of that very bond and patriotism.

The question that should come up is what this meant for women, as citizens in the pre-independence era, when the entire rubric of the Indian nationalist discourse hinged upon the imagery of the nation, personified as it were though the female form. In India, by virtue of her being a newly decolonized, democratic country, these rights were legally guaranteed to women.

However women’s role was limited as was Bharat Mata’s. While Bharat Mata’s duty was to call upon her citizens to protect her (leaving her no agency to protect herself) women were to do justice to their roles as mothers of future citizens. The shift from the more unabashedly risqué and liberated Bharat Mata (who derived her iconography from Goddess Kali) to the sari clad, demure Bharat Mata(deriving her iconography from Goddess Durga) is evident. This points to a lack of agency among the new woman citizen of the nation who was to conform to the norms of the rising educated middle class (norms of sexual conformity, chastity, e.t.c.).

The paradox of it all is not lost on me. This is of course not unparalled, as is evidenced by the powerful symbols of justice and liberty personified in the numerous Britannias, Germanias e.t.c across the world and a concomitant disempowerment and lack of full citizenship rights that women struggle with. Symbols like that of Bharat Mata provide the means through which the nation-state subtly attempts to legitimize its being and in the process also reinforces certain values it cherishes. It is needless to say that it is imperative that we challenge the inherent hypocrisy of the so-called nation-state.

* Prerna Sah, is a currently pursuing Masters in Development Studies from IIT Guwahati. She was an intern at Lokniti in the month of May 2015.