Skip to main content

Why I am not a Patriot


“A world full of patriots may be a world full of strife,” wrote Bertrand Russell in his book Why Men Fight.  Patriotism assumes that one’s own country is superior to others.  Patriotism is like religion, Russell goes on to say.  Apart from the sense of superiority, it is also founded on a sense of self-righteousness.  The patriot believes that his country possesses the ultimate truths.  There are a few bloggers who have shot to prominence in the last few months – after nationalism became a pet theme in India – who vindicate Russell’s arguments.  There is no truth outside the Gita, there is no epic greater than the Mahabharata, and there is no greater religion than the Hindu dharma, according to these blogger-patriots.

My primary opposition to patriotism is precisely the blinkered vision on which it is founded.  It prevents one from seeing the bigger picture.  It withholds one from admiring what is good in other countries.  How terrible a loser I would be if I were to shut my eyes to the whole treasure that lies in European literature!  Yes, my best friends are books and I have found the best of them coming from countries other than my own.  I’m not saying that there are no good writers in India.  I’m saying that I have found my favourite writers outside the country.  Do I cease to be a patriot when I say that?

The kind of patriotism that today’s nationalists uphold would withhold a lot of treasures apart from books too.  There’s a whole world of music, films, arts, and so on that lies out there beyond my country’s borders and is fabulously charming.  Do I cease to be a patriot because I admire those great works?

Russell argues that patriotism is no different from the tribal feeling of “loyalty to the sovereign.”  Art, music, literature, and all similar creative processes lie far beyond the tribal feeling of loyalty.  That is why patriots find it hard to accept writers and artists who question certain loyalties.  And yet art and literature cannot be loyal to narrow concepts.  Creative thinking is essentially subversive, Russell says towards the end of the book mentioned above. 

Albert Einstein subverted Isaac Newton though the latter’s genius is still valid in science.  Socrates was killed because his philosophy was subversive.  The Buddha had to face opposition from the aristocrats of his time whose system he subverted.  Jesus was a subversive.  The most serious problem with patriotism is that it prevents free thinking.  Like religion, it makes fetishes out of national symbols and motifs.  It prevents us from questioning ourselves, our beliefs, our ideas, our smugness.  It prevents us from growing.  That is why I don’t want to be a patriot.  I want to be open to whatever is good wherever it may come from. 

I admire the Gita, the Mahabharata and the profundity of the Indian philosophies.  But I also admire Spinoza and Kafka.  Kazuo Ishiguro inspires me as much the Katha Upanishad. That is why I find it difficult to embrace the kind of patriotism peddled copiously these days.


Comments

  1. I 100% agree and ditto your views!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Russell said it so well. And you have made your point too. This needs to be said. I particularly liked your line ' Art, music, literature, and all similar creative processes lie far beyond the tribal feeling of loyalty.'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Those who can produce art, music, etc, or at least appreciate them, won't take refuge in patriotism!

      Delete
  3. Well said. A creative mind is a way beyond all trivial feelings. Be it fake patriotism or religion. I agree with all your points. Very nicely portrayed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately, now many writers are also taking political stands and thus losing objectivity. Gaining certain temporary victories has become the goal of many writers!

      Delete
  4. What is being commercialized as patriotism is sham. The feeling of pride for one's nation taking the form of ridiculous worship can only be a recipe for disaster.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Patriotism is another weapon, Sunaina. They are using it for subordinating certain sections of people.

      Delete
  5. Finally! A sane voice! Love the way you said it all sir :) I have been lucky to have been brought up in a family where everyone's opinions are respected. Even though my parents belong to different religions as well as always vote for different political parties,they have never created a toxic environment in our family based on religion or politics and I grew up thinking that this must be so in every family in our society *sigh* I have no issues with people having different opinions or even blogging about it, but the tendency to brand someone who doesn't share THEIR particular opinions as 'traitor' or 'anti India' is disturbing. I mean, why can't we sit down calmly and talk about our problems, why must we always blame, point fingers, curse and abuse? Especially on social media, so much of abuse and constant bickering and a rush to prove oneself as 'ultimate patriot', My gosh, look at me babble on and on :D Thanks Sir for a sane voice!

    ReplyDelete

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 Second Crucifixion

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable                         Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv

Hate Politics

Illustration by Copilot Hatred is what dominates the social media in India. It has been going on for many years now. A lot of violence is perpetrated by the ruling party’s own men. One of the most recent instances of venom spewed out by none other than Mithun Chakraborty would shake any sensible person. But the right wing of India is celebrating it. Seventy-four-year-old Chakraborty threatened to chop the people of a particular minority community into pieces. The Home Minister Amit Shah was sitting on the stage with a smile when the threat was issued openly. A few days back, a video clip showing a right-winger denying food to a Muslim woman because she refused to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’ dominated the social media. What kind of charity is it that is founded on hatred? If you go through the social media for a while, you will be astounded by the surfeit of hatred there. Why do a people who form the vast majority of a country hate a small minority so much? Hatred usually comes from some