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Ironically, the fading of the "imperialist" enemy, a menace that the Communists try so hard to keep alive, aggravates the crisis. Making common cause against colonial masters often gave Asian countries—and groups within countries—a solidarity they are now losing. But there are some encouraging signs. Interracial schooling, notably in Thailand and Malaysia, is binding young overseas Chinese closer to their host nations. Officers and men of different races serve happily together in units of the Indian and Malaysian armed forces, where the military-command structure replaces communal loyalties. Above all, as industrialization spreads in Asia, traditional cleavages, based on almost exclusively agricultural ways of life, may tend to blur. In the short run, industrialization and economic competition may bring further strains, but in the long run, the machine does homogenize people. And a better life—even the mere prospect of a better life—can establish a sense of community.
What the countries of Asia need to develop is a far stronger sense of national identity. Ultimately, only a common patriotism can subdue the internal enmities between classes and races; and a strong, self-reliant patriotism should eventually exist without having to be artificially whipped up through hatred of other countries. That kind of patriotism may offer the only real resistance in Asia to Communism and its ready-made formulas for "emerging nations."
The growth of such national feelings will also require the growth of individualism, for a sense of nationhood can probably be achieved only by people who respect themselves and their own worth. A generation ago, the great leader of India's Untouchables, B. R. Ambedkar, asked Gandhi: "How can I call this land my own homeland wherein we are treated worse than cats and dogs, wherein we cannot get water to drink?" Yet gradually, very gradually, Untouchables have begun to speak of India as their nation. And so it must be for all the other "untouchables" of Asia, if the great Asian peoples are to acquire a real sense of loyalty to nation and eventually to the ideal of order.