Skip to main content

Nationalism in the time of Globalism

In the verdict that hanged Afzal Guru, the Supreme Court observed that "... the collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded..."  The plain truth was known to all that there was only a circumstantial evidence against Guru, nothing that could fetch him the hangman's noose.  But the nation wanted a hanging, and Guru was hanged.

We don't want this sort of entertainment any more - that's what some students of JNU said.

Going against national pastimes is treason; doesn't JNU know that?

Some criminal elements took advantage of the opportunity to shout antinational slogans.  Such elements should be dealt with appropriately.  If they belong to ABVP, they should be taught good manners first. If they are other disgruntled elements, the national conscience may require to be satisfied.

Is nationalism justified when we have opened up everything including our self-respect to the global market? We have a Prime Minister who spends most of his time abroad. Our economy is driven by MNCs. We are begging other countries to come with investments. How can we shout nationalist slogans when the foreigners come to "Make (in) India"?

Anti-national sloganeers should definitely be tackled in such a way as to satisfy the national conscience. But nationalist organisations should realise that they have become pathetic anachronisms.

Comments

  1. But what is wrong in asking other countries to invest in India?
    As for the students the university in charge should handle the case and not media or government.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did I imply that asking other countries to invest is wrong? I'm saying that nationalism and globalism can't go together.

      Delete
  2. hmmm, I am not following much into this news simply because these incidents after Hyderabad suicide and other college/University controversies looks fishy. Why would a government that is aiming for 10 years would invite such direct controversies in their time that too in its first two years? Dirty Indian Politics that gives damn to development!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How can we ignore this issue, Roohi? It started long ago with Pune film inst followed by Madras Univ and Hyderabad Univ and now continues with JNU and Jadavpur....

      BJP is digging its own grave and sadly of India as one unified nation. Development is bullshit except for Ambanis and Adanis and some Ramdevs!

      Delete
  3. every time there is a election around, RSS-BJP started Us versus Them debate to polarize the voters, this incident labeled all criticizers of government as antinational

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Us-Them division is the Parivar's battery, sustenance. Now the 'other' has become 'the traitor'.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

The Vegetarian

Book Review Title: The Vegetarian Author: Han Kang Translator: Deborah Smith [from Korean] Publisher: Granta, London, 2018 Pages: 183 Insanity can provide infinite opportunities to a novelist. The protagonist of Nobel laureate Han Kang’s Booker-winner novel, The Vegetarian , thinks of herself as a tree. One can argue with ample logic and conviction that trees are far better than humans. “Trees are like brothers and sisters,” Yeong-hye, the protagonist, says. She identifies herself with the trees and turns vegetarian one day. Worse, she gives up all food eventually. Of course, she ends up in a mental hospital. The Vegetarian tells Yeong-hye’s tragic story on the surface. Below that surface, it raises too many questions that leave us pondering deeply. What does it mean to be human? Must humanity always entail violence? Is madness a form of truth, a more profound truth than sanity’s wisdom? In the disturbing world of this novel, trees represent peace, stillness, and nonviol...

The RSS does not exist

An organisation that has 80,000 branches in India does not exist legally in any document. This is the cover story of The Caravan this month. By the way, The Caravan is one of the very few publications that still continues to exist in spite of being overtly critical of Narendra Modi and his Sangh Parivar. The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not registered as an organisation under any of the usual Indian registration laws such as the Societies Registration Act or as a trust or company. It functions as an unregistered voluntary organisation, though it is arguably the largest public organisation in the country. This situation makes the organisation absolutely unaccountable to anyone, argues The Caravan . The RSS is not legally required to file annual returns to the Tax department or disclose its financial details publicly though it deals with thousands of crores of rupees every year especially after Modi became the Prime Minister of the country. The membership of the organisat...

No Problems Only Opportunities

You’ve probably heard this joke. A young man walked into his office one morning and found a beautiful young lady sitting in his chair. He called the MD and said, “Sir, I have a problem.” The MD replied, “Don’t you know our company’s motto, young man? No Problems, Only Opportunities .” When Suchita of The Blogchatter sent me a mail with the topic of this week’s blog hop –  - the first thing that came to my mind was the above joke. I know many people – too many, in fact – who went through terrible problems. My own life was a series of problems in none of which was there the consolation of any beautiful woman. One essential lesson I learnt from life is that life is a series of problems. You solve one and then arises the next one. Now I have reached an age when problems are no more problems: they are life itself. If you ask me what was the biggest problem I ever dealt with, it was my last years in Shillong. I was a lecturer in a college drawing a fat salary stipulated by the U...