Dharma is an essential attribute or fundamental nature of a thing or object or a human being or anything other whatsoever, while the Nation is derived from the Latin term Natus or Natio, which stands for a particular race of human beings living in a particular place; and that makes the human association occupying the territory thereon a particular social as well as political community, characterized by similarities of social customs and conventions, historical traditions, language, food or eating habits, religion and religious practices and rituals, group celebrations and festivals etc. similarity of culture and its manifest attributes.
As a result, such commonality of ideas and ideals, behaviour, thoughts or thinking process etc. consolidate their social and political organization to make it a nation. On the other hand, Dharma is not common for all objects or human-beings or any other thing as each has its own distinctive character or feature. Because the dharma of fire is not same as that of water or air.
Conceptual Distinction
However, a particular group of objects or things viz. all fire or all air has a common character. But here in the context of social or political phenomenon, Dharma indicates towards Religion and Dharmic stands out as Religious ie. pertaining to a religion. Hence Dharmic Nationalism signifies a particular orientation of a nation which is directed towards a specific dharma and its distinct preachings as well as goals. Thus by upholding a particular religious principle and its ideals, a distinct socio-political community defines its larger social, economic and political goals and objectives in consonance with those religious principles. And that is usually characterized as Dharmic Nationalism in reference to that political society.
In fact, Dharmic Nationalism has become a kind of fascination and also a noble goal for most of the sovereign states in Islamic world where they have proclaimed Islam as their political religion or state religion. Now Islamic statehood is their socio-political identity with theocracy as their form of government, instead of being classified as a liberal, progressive, secular and democratic republic.
In the same way, Hindu nationalism, albeit in reaction to Islamic radicalism and Muslim fundamentalism, has become a force to reckon with but that is confined in only few parts of India unlike Islamic nationalism which has encompassed almost the whole world. Also there are few examples in the past to this theory where a specific ideology viz. Nazism or Fascism or Capitalism or Marxism or Communism had become a noble gospel in the form a religion though communism disapproves the term religion or religious in its doctrine or in its ideal political society.
Ideology as Religion
Thus a particular ideology becomes a kind of religion or the ideologue becomes, if not a god, but at least a demi-god in all its essence, in a political society or state and that may be characterized in all likelihood as an example of Dharmic Nationalism. Because in such kind of a political society, the ideology it upholds becomes a guiding star to be accomplished by the state machinery as well as the entire society.
As Mussolini used to say that, “Everything within a state and nothing outside the state”, and this goal stands out a sacred mission to be achieved by all those citizens living therein. Here a state obviously means the leader of that state or Mussolini himself. Or in Nazism under Adolf Hitler, the Nazi society was believed to be based on pure Aryan blood, to which he himself was a self-proclaimed representative, and hence those not belonging to this class of blood specification had no right to life. Thus Nazism that he projected became the self-defined state religion in the then Germany.
To substantiate the meaning further, Marxism calls for the “proletariat revolution” to be accomplished by the ‘workers of the whole world’, by uprooting the long-entrenched capitalist society into a classless and stateless society of workers alone, based on perfect equality and free from all kinds of exploitations and suppressions. That became the ‘north star’ of a Marxist state or a pious goal to be aimed at by all those people living in a communist state.
Thus Dharmic nationalism may largely be considered as a typical offshoot due to intense intermingling and consequent churning of religious ideas and ideals with that of socio-political goals embodied in a political society as a nation-state. While not conforming to the actual meaning of Dharma, the Dhramic tradition today in the world has confined itself around socio-political and economic discourses, as a renowned German sociologist Max Weber had categorized Religion or Dharma as those activities which are related to economic aspects. But above all, what is needed today is a liberal, progressive and democratic humanitarian order in the world, based on Equity, Equality and Justice, that the Peace Treaty of Westphalia had raised in its clarion call as long back as in 1648.
