Nationalism – Myths & Realities

These days we are facing a very sickening type of nationalism in our society, which rather than protecting the interests of our nation resulting in a threat for its integrity. There is however no problem with having proud of our nation and its values but the way we are realizing this concept is flawed in its basics.

The problem with our nationalists is that they are always in denial mode to every injustice and crime against humanity committed by our state in past and present. This approach is like a pigeon which on seeing the cat closes eyes to deny its existence. However this refusal would be of no help to save it from grave danger. We could no longer behave as Dhidhrashtra* while dealing with the crimes against our own minorities, SCs & STs and other linguistic or cultural groups on the name of maintaining national honour.

The right approach to solve our problems is to first accept all of our failures audaciously, then regret for them boldly and then take every necessary step to make certain that perpetrators of such atrocious acts would face appropriate penalty by the law of land. This would help in reinstating the faith of all stake-holders of our system and would actually strengthen the footing of idea of our integral nationhood.

Along with we need to ensure the reestablishment of lives of the victims of our failures as our prime duty so that they can rejoin mainstream of our society. This would broaden our brethren by many folds and would also contribute enormously in our vibrant progress by making it more sustainable.

Wider involvement of civil society and local groups is required in addressing all of the grievances while giving complete consideration even to those viewpoints which are otherwise completely against to our self defined laws.

However it is the matter of shame that we are using muscle power against the voices for justice of ones who are already the sufferers of our atrocities on the very name of national spirit or synthetic patriotism. It is the main cause of further worsening of our troubles while endangering the very concept of our integrated existence over long run.

* For all non-Indian readers: Dhidhrashtra was the King from Kuru dynasty in great Sanskrit epic of Mahabharata. He was father of all Kauravas, the 100 villains of the epic. Blind by birth, he is known for his partiality towards Pandavas, the 5 heroes of the epic, while protecting the interests of his own sons. Pandavas were his step-brother’s children otherwise.