Skip to main content

National Anthem and Patriotism


Patriotism is the desire to see your country as one that promotes the welfare of every citizen irrespective of religious, cultural and other differences.  Patriotism has nothing to do with killing people whose eating habits differ from yours.  Patriotism has nothing to do with playing the national anthem in cinema halls or wearing the national flower on your sleeve. 

The recent order of the Supreme Court of India to play the national anthem in the movie halls before the beginning of each movie actually belittles the anthem by making it a prelude to mere popular entertainment.  Worse, most people who visit the cinema halls are not likely to be in a mood to display their patriotic sentiments; they are there for entertainment.  There will be some latecomers who will be still searching for their seats.  There will be physically handicapped or elderly people who may not find it easy to stand at attention.  There are many practical problems, in short.  What was the need for issuing this order?

Ask them what the SC order means
Is anyone’s patriotism going to be nurtured by listening to the national anthem?  Patriotism should emerge as a natural offshoot of one’s pride in one’s country, its heritage, its achievements, and so on.  India is still struggling with poverty and unemployment, malnutrition and diseases, political corruption and chicanery, and all sorts of other evils.  If I say that dealing with these evils is far more important than arresting people who protest against an irrational court order, do I become antinational?

Going through certain comments on social media such as Facebook, one will naturally wonder why today’s patriots speak the language of savages.  Can love of any kind be enforced ruthlessly?  Seeing today’s patriots, I feel my love for the nation eroding slowly.  I wish I could live in a better country.  Does my wish make me antinational?

I know I’m infinite times more patriotic than these ruffians and hooligans who go around imposing their physical might on others in the name of patriotism.  But they won’t admit it.  Because their patriotism has many axes to grind.


Indian Bloggers

Labels:

Comments

  1. K.A. AcharyaDecember 14, 2016 at 9:28 AM

    Sadly, patriotism has become an artificial label than a true feeling.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 14, 2016 at 9:36 AM

      Artificial, you said it, Kiran. It is a strategy, a ploy, a trick just to hoodwink certain sections of citizens.

      Delete
  2. Gita MadhuDecember 14, 2016 at 9:57 AM

    well said!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 14, 2016 at 10:14 AM

    Thanks Gita ji.

    ReplyDelete
  4. जितेन्द्र माथुरDecember 14, 2016 at 2:24 PM

    Absolutely right Sir. This so-called patriotism is only for the goons to implement under the pretext of the SC order.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 14, 2016 at 5:04 PM

      All these self-proclaimed patriots should be given compulsory classes in humanism.

      Delete
  5. Jyotirmoy SarkarDecember 14, 2016 at 8:22 PM

    Agree with u.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
9 comments
Read more

Machiavelli the Reverend

Let us go today , you and I, through certain miasmic streets. Nothing will be quite clear along our way because this journey is through some delusions and illusions. You will meet people wearing holy robes and talking about morality and virtues. Some of them will claim to be god’s men and some will make taller claims. Some of them are just amorphous. Invisible. But omnipotent. You can feel their power around you. On you. Oppressing you. Stifling you. Reverend Machiavelli is one such oppressive power. You will meet Franz Kafka somewhere along the way. Joseph K’s ghost will pass by. Remember Joseph K who was arrested one fine morning for a crime that nobody knew anything about? Neither Joseph nor the men who arrest him know why Joseph K is arrested. The power that keeps Joseph K under arrest is invisible. He cannot get answers to his valid questions from the visible agents of that power. He cannot explain himself to that power. Finally, he is taken to a quarry outside the town wher
19 comments
Read more

Levin the good shepherd

AI-generated image The lost sheep and its redeemer form a pet motif in Christianity. Jesus portrayed himself as a good shepherd many times. He said that the good shepherd will leave his 99 sheep in order to bring the lost sheep back to the fold. When he finds the lost sheep, the shepherd is happier about that one sheep than about the 99, Jesus claimed. He was speaking metaphorically. The lost sheep is the sinner in Jesus’ parable. Sin is a departure from the ‘right’ way. Angels raise a toast in heaven whenever a sinner returns to the ‘right’ path [Luke 15:10]. A lot of Catholic priests I know carry some sort of a Redeemer complex in their souls. They love the sinner so much that they cannot rest until they make the angels of God run for their cups of joy. I have also been fortunate to have one such priest-friend whom I shall call Levin in this post. He has befriended me right from the year 1976 when I was a blundering adolescent and he was just one year older than me. He possesse
8 comments
Read more

Kailasnath the Paradox

AI-generated illustration It wasn’t easy to discern whether he was a friend or merely an amused onlooker. He was my colleague at the college, though from another department. When my life had entered a slippery slope because of certain unresolved psychological problems, he didn’t choose to shun me as most others did. However, when he did condescend to join me in the college canteen sipping tea and smoking a cigarette, I wasn’t ever sure whether he was befriending me or mocking me. Kailasnath was a bundle of paradoxes. He appeared to be an alpha male, so self-assured and lord of all that he surveyed. Yet if you cared to observe deeply, you would find too many chinks in his armour. Beneath all those domineering words and gestures lay ample signs of frailty. The tall, elegantly slim and precisely erect stature would draw anyone’s attention quickly. Kailasnath was always attractively dressed though never unduly stylish. Everything about him exuded an air of chic confidence. But the wa
9 comments
Read more

Nakulan the Outcast

Nakulan was one of the many tenants of Hevendrea . A professor in the botany department of the North Eastern Hill University, he was a very lovable person. Some sense of inferiority complex that came from his caste status made him scoff the very idea of his lovability. He lived with his wife and three children in one of Heavendrea’s many cottages. When he wanted to have a drink, he would walk over to my hut. We sipped our whiskies and discussed Shillong’s intriguing politics or something of the sort while my cassette player crooned gently in the background. Nakulan was more than ten years my senior by age. He taught a subject which had never aroused my interest at any stage of my life. It made no difference to me whether a leaf was pinnately compound or palmately compound. You don’t need to know about anther and stigma in order to understand a flower. My friend Levin would have ascribed my lack of interest in Nakulan’s subject to my egomania. I always thought that Nakulan lived
16 comments
Read more