Nation building is a process through which a country achieves a mature level of political status so that it becomes a committed status to uphold the welfare of its citizens and effective government in charge of the integrity of the boundary of the nation and a responsible member of the world community of the nations.
Thus, this is a process of refinement in the life of a nation to fulfill the growing aspirations of her citizens as well as to play a constructive political role at the global level, Thus, it is a process, which has been strengthened specially after the IInd world war.
A new process of nation building started taking place only a couple of years back in the then USSR, which has split now into several nations and the aspirations for enjoying the democratic life are still emerging for the citizens in the newly formed countries.
Nation building process is based mainly on the following factors:
- Economic factor in Nation building – This is the most important point through which the economic development of a nation is made and the welfare measures of a citizen are achieved.
- Modern Theory of Nation building – in the nation building process, the political scientists have suggested many modern theories on the basis of which constitutions have been written differently in different countries. That’s why, sometimes confusions arise and differences occur over the implementation of a particular ideology for the welfare of the citizens of the world.
- Political Dimension of the Nation building – -At the global level , we find different types of government like the democratically elected body of the government, the Presidential form of government, the kinship, etc. and therefore , the mode of development and welfare programmes on the areas of priority of development vary from country to country.
However, one common thing in the nation building process is to protect the national sovereignty and integrity of nation and to gear the machinery of development for the benefit of the citizens of the country –
Problems of New Nations:
- The new states were beset with several problems: Political, economic, administrative, educational and cultural problems.
- Prior to the colonial rule in these areas the political situation was amorphous.
- After the establishment of the colonial rule the foreign rule introduced common government to all within each colony.
- The removal of colonial rule exposed these states to new common problems namely because the new states when freed were at best multi-ethnic conglomerates left with self-rule. Further, they had several cultural traditions, spoke different languages, contained more illiterates than literature faced agrarian economy, included many below the poverty line suffered from infighting, agrarian problems and feudalistic tendencies.
- The native elites to power took the reins of political power. They had to take the responsibility of establishing an effective government, in this regard, they had to face the problem of legitimizing themselves before their own people, They had to make themselves acceptable as legitimate effective rules.
- They had to organize and maintain a suitable modern political operator to run the administration. The modern political operators had to be suck that it had to fit the plural traditions of the different ethnic groups within the country.
- Another problem of the creation of new economic order is to replace the traditional once. This created the problem of developing new economic institutions and techniques persuasion of coercion with the people to make them accept these innovations.
- Poverty alleviation was another problem. Several programmes meant for the removal of poverty formed the ingredient of the nation building process. in this context judicious disbursement resources and opportunities among the people of the equality principle was a must.
- There was the problem of creating modern educational system. The states had no modern education. The masses had just simple or no education. Therefore several modern educational institutions were to be created for widespread participation of population in modern educational system and institutions.
- On top of this was the problem of building up nationalistic culture, integration of all groups and elevation of the dignity of the nation in the world community