Read the passage given below and answer the questions based on it:
Historically, states have tried to establish and enhance their political legitimacy through nation-building strategies. They sought to secure... the loyalty and obedience of their citizens through policies of assimilation or integration. Attaining these objectives was not easy, especially in a context of cultural diversity where citizens, in addition to their identifications with their country, might also feel a strong sense of identity with their community ethnic, religious, linguistic, and so on. Most states feared that the recognition of such difference would lead to social fragmentation and prevent the creation of a harmonious society. In short, such identity politics was considered a threat to the state unity. In addition, accommodating these differences is politically challenging, so many states have resorted to either suppressing these diverse identities or ignoring them on the political domain. Policies of assimilation - often involving outright suppression of the identities of ethnic, religious or linguistic groups - try to erode the cultural differences between groups. Policies of integration seek to assert a single national identity by attempting to eliminate ethno-national and cultural differences from the public and political arena, while allowing them in the private domain. Both sets of policies assume a singular national identity.
In Sri Lanka, Sinhala language is the official language. This example reflects which kind of policy?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Assimilationist
Option (1) Regionalistic — Incorrect. Regionalism is loyalty to a region and its language, culture or people, often with a demand for more power or a separate state for that region. Sri Lanka did the reverse: the central government imposed one language on the whole country.
Option (2) Assimilationist — Correct. Assimilationist policies persuade or force all citizens to adopt the cultural values and norms of the dominant group. One of the interventions through which states do this is adopting the dominant group’s language as the only official ‘national’ language and making its use mandatory in all public institutions. In 1956 the Parliament of Ceylon proclaimed Sinhala, the majority’s language, the country’s sole official language despite protests from the Tamils of the north.
Option (3) Nationalist — Incorrect. Nationalism is the feeling of belonging to one’s nation, and every nation-building strategy draws on it. ‘Nationalist’ therefore does not tell which policy towards community identities the language law follows; the passage names two, assimilation and integration.
Option (4) Isolationist — Incorrect. Isolation was one side of the isolation versus integration debate of the 1940s about tribes: the isolationist side argued that tribals needed protection from traders, moneylenders and missionaries, and so should be kept apart. Sri Lanka did not keep the Tamils apart; it imposed the majority’s language on the whole country, the Tamils included.
Note 1: This is an application-based question. The passage explains assimilation and integration, and the book lists making the dominant group’s language the only official language among the interventions of these strategies. The answer comes from applying this to Sri Lanka, where Sinhala, the language of the majority, was made the sole official language and the Tamils were expected to accept it.
Note 2: The lines on the isolation versus integration debate of the 1940s, in the section ‘Mainstream Attitudes towards Tribes’ of the chapter ‘Social Institutions: Continuity and Change’, were there in the pre-rationalised NCERT, which NTA followed in 2023. This portion has been deleted from the NCERT book (2025-26), though the chapter and its account of tribal societies are still there.
NCERT (2025-26): “Threatened by community identities, states try to eliminate cultural diversity … Assimilationist and integrationist strategies try to establish singular national identities through various interventions like:
“6.2 Regionalism in the Indian Context … In the same year, 1956, that the SRC mandated the redrawing of the map of India on linguistic lines, the Parliament of Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known) proclaimed Sinhala the country’s sole official language despite protests from the Tamils of the north. One left-wing Sinhala MP issued a prophetic warning to the chauvinists. ‘One language, two nations’, he said, adding: ‘Two languages, one nation’. The civil war that has raged in Sri Lanka since 1983 is partly based on the denial by the majority linguistic group of the rights of the minority.…” NCERT (Pre-rationalised): “Mainstream Attitudes Towards Tribes … The famous isolation versus integration debate of the 1940s built upon this standard picture of tribal societies as isolated wholes. The isolationist side argued that tribals needed protection from traders, moneylenders and Hindu and Christian missionaries, all of whom were intent on reducing tribals to detribalised landless labour. The integrationists, on the other hand, argued that tribals were merely backward Hindus, and their problems had to be addressed within the same framework as that of other backward classes.…” |