What is patriotism? Now, that’s one question which has hounded us for a long time now. After waves of strong xenophobic sentiments and sometimes even complete indifference, Indians face yet another definition of the same heavy duty term. Amman Madan, a professor of IIT Kanpur, puts forth:
a) Patriotism is not based upon kinship. So, in the modern Indian context it has to be different from the love for one’s community, unlike the ancient and medieval times.
b) The feeling of patriotism comes from the idea of a nation and its central institution.
In other words, Madan finds the definition of ‘patriotism’ in the current times. The feeling is the same but the definition keeps on evolving to attune itself to the social context. He quotes the example of USA, which apparently is a melting pot of identities. If we forget the famous superiority complex of the Americans, we will see the depth in Madan’s words. The man sees Indian patriotism as a strong influence that overcomes all the boundaries of caste, creed and religion to combine everyone born on the Indian land as the citizens of India. But he doesn’t stop there. He says we can always develop a sense of identification, a feeling of brotherhood without melting in a pot!
Tags: Democracy, Government, Indian society