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Nationalism

Question
CBSEENPO11021203

“Nations identify with a particular territory.”
Explain the above statement by quoting an instance.

Solution

Nations identify with a particular territory:

Sharing a common past and living together on a particular territory over a long period of time gives people a sense of their collective identity. It helps them to imagine themselves as one people. It is therefore not surprising that people who see themselves as a nation speak of a homeland. The territory they occupied and the land on which they have lived has a special significance for them, and they claim it as their own. Nations however characterise the homeland in different ways, for instance as motherland, or fatherland, or holy land.

The Jewish people for instance, in spite of being dispersed and scattered in different parts of the world always claimed that their original homeland was in Palestine, the ‘promised land’. The Indian nation identifies with the rivers, mountains and regions of the Indian subcontinent.