Urgent Need to Rethink and Revitalise Nationalism

The juxtaposition of the words Nationalism and Borderless World appears paradoxical and confusing at first sight but in reality raises issues that can no longer be wished away.

- Pushpesh Pant Former professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Are we living in a borderless world in the Age of Globalisation? Or, poised at the threshold of an emerging world order with nation states enmeshed inextricably with ties technological and cultural clinging on to identities forged in a fast fading past we must be ready to get rid of deadwood-identities based on concepts no longer relevant? At the outset it must be understood that borders that are most problematic and divisive are lines drawn on the political map of the planet in the era of colonialism. Contending imperial powers of Europe drew these arbitrarily settling claims carving out vast tracts of land in Asia, Africa and Latin America dividing people who shared ethnic, religious and linguistic ties. The enslaved were exploited, oppressed and dispossessed.