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

Comments

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

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

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

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

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

The Blindness of Superficiality

An Essay on Anees Salim’s novel The Blind Lady’s Descendants Superficiality is a deadly human vice though most people seldom realise it. It is easy to live on the surface of everything from one’s profession to religion. Anees Salim’s novel, The Blind Lady’s Descendants , tells us a story of superficiality as lived by quite many people. Amar, the protagonist of the novel, is 26 when he thinks that life is not worth living. He became an atheist at the age of 13. He had become a half-Muslim at the age of 5 when his little penis was circumcised partly since he ran away in pain during the process. Amar’s atheism, however, is as superficial as most believers’ religion is. What initiated little Amar to atheism is “Dr Ibrahim’s farting fit.” Islamic prayer has to follow many a rule. “If you break wind during namaaz, you break a big rule, and you are to discontinue the prayer then and there, with no second thoughts.” Little Amar was unable to control his giggles as Dr Ibrahim struggled to