M. S. Golwalkar’s Rejection of Territorial Nationalism

When India became independent in 1947, a basic question hung over the new nation: what actually makes a group of people a single nation? For most leaders of the freedom struggle, the answer was simple. Everyone living within India’s borders, regardless of religion or language, was equally Indian. But one influential thinker rejected this idea outright. Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the second chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), argued that shared geography could never create a real nation. His critique of territorial nationalism and his alternative vision of cultural unity became one of the most debated ideas in modern political thought, and it continues to shape arguments about national identity even today.

What is territorial nationalism? 🔗

Before understanding why Golwalkar rejected it, we need to be clear about what territorial nationalism actually means. Territorial nationalism holds that a nation is defined primarily by its geographical boundaries. Everyone who lives within those borders, whatever their religion, language, or ethnicity, is treated as a full and equal member of the nation. This idea became dominant during the rise of modern nation-states in Europe and was later adopted by many newly independent countries.

In practice, this version of nationalism is a kind of political contract. As scholars have described it, nationals give allegiance to the state, and in return the state recognises them as citizens and protects their rights. Anyone born or residing within the territory qualifies. In our context, this would mean that a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh, or follower of any other faith born here is equally and fully Indian.

The Indian National Congress, especially under leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, largely embraced this inclusive territorial approach. The belief was that a secular, democratic framework could hold together a population that was extraordinarily diverse. This is the same principle that the Constitution of India eventually adopted, granting equal citizenship rights to all who live within the country regardless of their background.

Why Golwalkar rejected the territorial idea 🔗

Golwalkar laid out his attack on territorial nationalism in his 1939 work We or Our Nationhood Defined. His central argument was direct: merely drawing lines on a map can never produce a genuine nation. To him, a territory is not a nation; a people constitute a nation. The question that followed was who these people were, and for India, his answer was Hindus.

Golwalkar believed that without deep cultural bonds, people sharing the same land would remain strangers to one another. They would lack the emotional attachment that he considered essential for real national unity. In his view, the territorial concept that treated all residents as equal members of the nation was a “perverted” idea that had weakened the country from within. He went so far as to call this concept something that had drained the nation of its vital energy.

It is worth noting that Golwalkar drew much of his thinking from Western political scientists. He frequently referred to German-speaking theorists like Johann Kaspar Bluntschli, who distinguished the German view of the nation, rooted in shared ethnic characteristics, from the English and French view, which treated all inhabitants of a territory as nationals. Golwalkar firmly preferred the former. This is one of the ironies of his position: while he framed cultural nationalism as authentically Indian, his intellectual sources were largely European.

The German example and its troubling implications 🔗

Golwalkar’s preference for ethnic nationalism led him to a deeply controversial illustration. In We or Our Nationhood Defined, written at the height of Hitler’s rise, he pointed to Nazi Germany as a model worth studying. He cited Germany’s expulsion of its Jewish population approvingly, describing it as a manifestation of “race pride at its highest.” He suggested that Germany demonstrated how nearly impossible it was for groups with fundamentally different races and cultures to be assimilated into a single whole, and he treated this as a lesson for India.

This part of Golwalkar’s argument is precisely why his rejection of territorial nationalism remains so heavily criticised. The alternative he proposed was not simply a celebration of shared heritage but a hierarchy in which some residents belonged to the nation and others did not.

The five unities: Golwalkar’s alternative model 🔗

If territory alone could not make a nation, what could? Golwalkar offered a concrete answer in the form of the five unities. He argued that a nation is a compound of five essential elements, all of which had to be present for the nation to exist at all. He treated these as the necessary and indispensable ingredients of nationhood.

The five unities were:

• Country (Geography): Golwalkar did not completely dismiss territory. He held that a people needed a country of residence with an ancient history. But geography was only one component, not the defining factor. The land had to be sacred and meaningful, not just a random stretch of territory.
• Race: He believed members of a nation should share a common racial stock. In the Indian case, however, he kept this concept somewhat fluid, tying it tightly to religion and culture rather than treating it as a fixed biological category.
• Religion: Of all five, Golwalkar made religion the most central. He argued that it was religion that shaped the race and culture of the people living in a territory.
• Culture: Shared cultural practices, traditions, and ways of life formed the binding force that, in his view, transformed a population into a people.
• Language: A common language was needed to enable communication and transmit culture across generations. This was the weakest part of his argument, given India’s enormous linguistic diversity, and his case here leaned more on opposing the dominance of English than on identifying a single national tongue.

For Golwalkar, the loss or absence of any one of these unities meant the nation could not exist. This is what scholars call an essentialist view of the nation, where the nation has a fixed, unchanging core rather than being something constructed by shared political life.

Partition as proof of his argument 🔗

The single most important piece of evidence Golwalkar used against territorial nationalism was the Partition of India in 1947. For him, the violent division of the subcontinent was not an accident or a failure of leadership; it was the predictable result of trying to build a nation on territory alone.

His reasoning ran like this. The Congress had attempted to unite all communities under a shared territorial identity. But because Hindus and Muslims did not share the deeper cultural, religious, and racial bonds that he considered essential, that unity was always fragile. When pressure mounted, the territory split along exactly those cultural lines. To Golwalkar, Partition demonstrated that without the five unities, no amount of shared geography or common citizenship could hold a nation together.

Interestingly, Golwalkar was not alone in being sceptical of pure territorial nationalism. Even Nehru, in The Discovery of India, wrote about a cultural and historical continuity that he saw as more fundamental than mere geography. The crucial difference was that Nehru’s cultural continuity was pluralistic and absorbed many traditions, while Golwalkar’s was tied specifically to a Hindu core.

Cultural nationalism and the question of minorities 🔗

The logical end point of rejecting territorial nationalism was a clear position on minorities, and Golwalkar did not soften it. In We or Our Nationhood Defined, he wrote that those not belonging to the Hindu race, religion, culture, and language naturally fell outside the boundary of real national life.

According to this view, what he called “foreign races” in India had limited options. They could either fully adopt Hindu culture and language, hold the Hindu religion in reverence, and merge their separate identity into the larger whole, or they could remain in the country in a wholly subordinate position, claiming no privileges and not even citizenship rights. This is the most exclusionary aspect of his philosophy and the reason it stands in direct opposition to the civic nationalism that the Constitution of India later adopted.

It should be noted that defenders of Golwalkar argue his later writings, particularly Bunch of Thoughts, moved toward a more assimilationist rather than purely exclusionary tone, emphasising the absorption of all communities into a broad Hindu national identity. Even so, the framework still placed cultural conformity, rather than equal citizenship, at the centre of belonging.

Criticisms of Golwalkar’s position 🔗

Golwalkar’s rejection of territorial nationalism gained a significant following, but it also drew serious criticism that students should understand.

Diversity as strength, not weakness 🔗

The most common critique is that Golwalkar treated India’s diversity as a problem to be solved when it could equally be seen as a source of strength. Critics argue that territorial nationalism, when combined with strong democratic institutions, can successfully manage cultural differences rather than being destroyed by them. The continued survival of Indian democracy, with its regular elections and constitutional governance maintained across many languages and religions, is often cited as evidence that Golwalkar’s pessimism was overstated.

The risk of exclusion and authoritarianism 🔗

A second line of criticism focuses on consequences. By defining the nation through a single dominant culture, Golwalkar’s model risks marginalising religious minorities and suppressing legitimate cultural differences. Critics warn that a nationalism built on cultural homogeneity can drift toward authoritarian tendencies, since dissent and difference become threats to national unity rather than normal features of a free society. Scholars also point out that the conflation of religion and culture in Golwalkar’s thought makes his “cultural” nationalism difficult to separate from religious majoritarianism, despite his claims to the contrary.

Why this debate still matters 🔗

Golwalkar’s rejection of territorial nationalism is not merely a historical curiosity. The tension he identified, between a nation defined by shared territory and citizenship versus a nation defined by shared culture and heritage, remains at the heart of contemporary debates about citizenship, secularism, and national identity. Understanding his arguments helps explain why questions about who belongs to the nation continue to provoke such intense disagreement, and why the framers of the Constitution deliberately chose a different path based on equal rights for all.

What do you think? Can a nation truly hold together on the basis of shared territory and equal citizenship alone, or does lasting unity require something deeper that people hold in common? And if cultural unity does matter, how can a diverse society pursue it without excluding those who fall outside the dominant culture?

References

1. https://carnegieendowment.org/europe/posts/2015/09/east-vs-west
2. https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/nationalism-golwalkars-head-of-rss-three-decades/31781/
3. https://m.thewire.in/article/history/the-truth-of-the-ill-defined-hindu-rashtra-as-narrated-by-golwalkar
4. https://www.hindutvawatch.org/the-truth-of-the-ill-defined-hindu-rashtra-as-narrated-by-golwalkar/
5. https://swarajyamag.com/politics/why-a-seminar-on-golwalkars-views-on-nationalism-is-justified
6. https://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020616/spectrum/book10.htm