Are You a Patriot or a Nationalist?
There is a thin line of difference between patriotism and nationalism, and this line is getting sharper by the day. While both ideas stand for a strong belief, devotion and pride towards one’s nation, one definitely has way more positive connotations than the other.
Patriotism, on one hand, is the unconditional devotion to one’s own nation in all its aspects. This is indiscriminate and usually tangibly explained through the sayings, teachings, and deeds of freedom fighters, leaders of an independence struggle, et al.
Nationalism on the other can be understood as a strong undivided belief and devotion towards a certain representative entity within one’s nation that resonates the most accurately with one’s ideology. This is usually majoritarian in nature and leads to the collective oppression of all minorities, only differing in magnitude and scale.
For example consider the so-called White nationalism in the United States and Hindu nationalism in India. While the former is based on one’s belief that one race is superior than the other, the latter believes in the unhinged supremacy of one religion.
This is the basic literature that most nationalists of the world today fail to comprehend. And the number of stakeholders who don’t understand this distinction are only growing everyday.
So on the birthday of a certain Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the day after the festive consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, let me ask you – which is the India as imagined by our forefathers and which is not? Which is patriotism and which is not?
A country so keen on striving forward just turns backward? Why?
