JNU nationalism class: Visiting prof talks about ‘unfreedom’, being the ‘other’ in one’s own homeland

Sitas said the concept of nationalism originated in two ways. It first emerged as a response to colonial powers, when the colonised started realising that they too had a long rich history and refused to be treated a certain way. Secondly, nationalism was also envisaged as a work of imagination, of putting together different regions.

Sitas talked about how colonialism brought about the concept of the ‘other’. “To understand nationalism, we have to look into how European powers began foraging outside their continent before moving towards settlements. These settlements started creating conditions of ‘otherisation’, where all of a sudden you are the other in a place where you were standing till yesterday,” he said.

Citing the example of slavery, Sitas said attempts to look for gold and diamonds brought the Europeans to South Africa, and ultimately turned the indigenous people into slaves, who dug out these objects for Europeans. “You needed the labour for yourself, but you needed them to be excluded at the same time,” explained Sitas.

Speaking on how India is perceived as a “laboratory of the national question”, Sitas said, “I hope that JNU, as the custodian of the national question, for which it was created, still keeps up the tradition of thinking”.