Nationalism, to put it simply, means to love the nation and is expressed by contributing to its welfare. Each and every individual should get together to contribute for building the nation but we find few people in our country trying very hard to arouse passions and instigate people against each other based on their religious beliefs, language, caste, etc. Such is the hatred spread that the people will be called patriots and nationalist or “Desh Bhakts” even after taking the life of fellow citizens.
A very narrow concept of nationalism is being promoted in our nation. The criteria to judge the degree of love for the nation is now based on how loudly you shout, “Bharat Mata ki jai”, or Vande Mataram or whether or not you stand up for the National Anthem in theatres and if you are beef eater, your love for the nation is questioned but if you are a violent Gau Rakshak, you are a patriot and a true nationalist.
This nation of ours is a diverse society. Diversity has been its strength from ages. It is not possible for anybody to segregate the people on basis of caste, religion, food habits or even region.
If anybody tries to segregate in the name of nationalism or religion then there is bound to be law and order problems as we see today.
Let us try to understand some core issues; having a better understanding of these issues would probably help us understand nationalism better.
Most important criteria to be a true nationalist would be to love this great nation and its people. The constitution guides us in this matter and does not impose the view of one group over the other.
I will not force people to believe in what I believe is right.
Also important is to know the constitution of this great nation, being a democracy it is important for us to know the preamble, the constitution, which was drafted by the leaders having a vision for this great nation of ours. How many times have we tried to get close to it is a question we need to ask ourselves.
Think again, to love the lines of a map is to love a symbol, let us get out of this hollow nationalism and try to understand that the road to peace and harmony is through love for the fellow citizens irrespective of their religion and not through the one which is circulated in the name of hate based nationalism.
