Pride and priorities
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…if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. — E M Forster
I am not proud of being an Indian. I did nothing to merit Indian-ness. I didn’t choose to be born in India. I do feel very fortunate to belong to this great melting pot of cultures and influences, but that’s just about all. Nationality — mine, yours or anyone else’s — is a matter of chance and it would speak poorly of me if I were proud of a coincidence.
Patriotism is something those born before us feed us. We are taught to wear it on our sleeve, coat it with layers of rhetoric. We shove it in the face of anyone who comes close enough to notice and in the process, effectively eliminate any chance of sense prevailing.
Patriots grow, from being schoolboys who sing of deshbhakti with such gusto that you sometimes wish they actually knew what the songs meant, to being loud but good natured citizens who know no other way of solving a problem other than by rallying and campaigning. In their heads, Bharat Mata is armed for battle and everyone and everything is a threat.
Needless to say, such ones have little clue about how things work and why they work the way they do.
Mohandas Gandhi was against British tyranny, not the British themselves. He felt violated because he saw one man claim superiority over another, not because he saw a Britisher pummel an Indian. In South Africa, the purpose of Satyagraha was the triumph of truth and what is right, not to claim a victory over the British.
In other words, he thought it was wrong to attack people who can’t defend themselves. He realised that no consideration can outweigh what is right. He preached that the righteous need fear no force.
What Bapu did that no one else did was realise that all this didn’t apply to him alone. It is a simple fact that strangely, everyone goes blind to. He was against ‘demonising the British Empire for faults that we all possess’. It was the faults he was after.
Isaac Asimov, in his autobiography talks of anti-semitism:
Such is the blindness of people that I have known Jews who, having deplored anti-semitism in unmeasured tones, would, with scarcely a breath in between, get on the subject of African-Americans and promptly begin to sound like a group of petty Hitlers. And when I pointed this out and objected to it strenuously, they turned on me in anger. They simply could not see what they were doing.
Asimov was a Jew who saw this in spite of having gone through what Jews traditionally went through. He was never roughed up, though I doubt that would have changed anything.
I find the unfriendly neighbourhood patriot very amusing and pity myself for not sharing his gusto. He is blocking the traffic, disturbing the peace and crowding the airwaves with rhetoric. All under the fond impression that he is doing it for his love of the nation, even though he has no idea how its going to work out.
Sadly though, even when I strain my eyes, I can spot no threat to Bharat Mata except one. I haven’t the heart to tell the patriot that it’s him.
Posted on Friday, October 6th, 2006 at 5:08 pm and filed under people, essays.
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[…] Vijayendra finds the unfriendly neighbourhood patriot very amusing. […]
I would be interested to know what are you proud of, if anything at all. Most of things you get in life are by coincidence, including intelligence and upbringing. If we believe the nonexistence of “fee will” which some class of philosophy postulate, then 100% of things are beyond your control.
Your patriotic neighbour is doing what *he* thinks is good for country, which may as well be not truely so. But he isn’t at fault, is he?
Ashish: I suppose by my logic, one can only rightly be proud of choices he/she made. Of good deeds, maybe a decision that actually benefitted someone.
I think free will exists. And I am not belittling the feeling of pride. I am doing the exact opposite. I value it too much and think it is wasted too often.
I appreciate your gentle poking.
Great post! If there were more people who could think this clearly, the world would surely a better place. People confuse fanaticism for patriotism too often, and confuse people who aren’t overenthusiastic to be traitors.
I totally agree. Most of the time it is blind like grandpa philosophy : Hinduism is best or India is best or our culture best.
Patriotism like most of the things in life is abstract but has a place in life. It is needed as is the concept of Bharat Mata.
Patriotism is an extension of your love for yourself, to your street, your city, state and country. The dimensions or definitions of these things might change, but the concept still applies. It is a selfish necessity. You do it for yourself eventually. Nothing to be proud of really, compared to choices we make. But a lot of lesser mortals(!) need to be fed that way.
Nicely written. I wouldn’t want to see you writing speeches for any candidate, you speak the voice of reason, which is always the best for propoganda
Hehe, seriously though, as a forces kid, I dunno how much I can disagree with you, but I want to, simply because that’s the minority opinion here. But get back to the storywriting! That’s what I’m here for!
There is a stark difference between patriotism and activism.
In that sense, I have an aversion to any rabid activist.
Vijayendra: I suppose by my logic, one can only rightly be proud of choices he/she made. Of good deeds, maybe a decision that actually benefitted someone.
Ah, but do you really get to choose what choices you make? You are a product of a long sequence of meaningless coincidences. You didn’t choose your genes or upbringing. You didn’t design your own brain. Why, then, do you feel pride at its accomplishments?
(The question of whether or not free will exists depends on how you define it, and ultimately I don’t think it has any effect on my argument.)
Nath: Valid point.
I didn’t design my own brain. Nor do I feel proud of its accomplishments (not that it has accomplished anything of worth).
But again, I feel fortunate. Like I feel about many things good about my life.
Your wonderful argument goes both ways and there is really no way we can have tea together on this.
But I hope you will bear with me when I harp on the point again.
It is about priorities. Pride, patriotism, or any other feeling is evil when it gets in the way of clear thinking.
Mo: You and me both. I wrote this to assert my right to disagree. Not to belittle patriotism.
Gopal: Speeches eh? There’s a thought.
Just me: Did you just call my grandpa old?
witnwisdumb: Thanks. You are too kind.
Hmm….I wishthis piece could be played before the Shiv Sena marches….the reactions would have been dekhne laayak!
“Needless to say, such ones have little clue about how things work and why they work the way they do”
I agree with you. Many (though not all) so called ‘patriots’ aren’t really clued into the whats, hows and whys of what they’re doing. I think there are a lot of (evil imo) politicians who feed off the energy of such people to further their own ends.
By themselves though, these people (the former, not the latter) aren’t really harmful imo.
I am proud to be an Indian (honestly not all of the time, but mostly). I think it’s as you say, because of my upbringing. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
In fact I think if all Indians teach their children to love and honor their country - our country - to understand our great history, our amazing varied cultures, to respect all our religions - then and only then will our country live upto the image our freedom fighters had when they formed it.
Patriotism has to be taught, to be instilled in everyone. We must only be careful that we’re teaching true patriotism and not being brainwashed as part of some political game.
Btw, totally off the topic… if I may, let me pretend to be a critic for half a second… your blog is unlike most - which is in itself not a bad thing - but it took me a while (was for me anyway, perhaps I’m slow) to find your latest posts (later realised there was a big header on home page saying “Latest Post”)
Any chance we can get some sort of normal blog thingie, perhaps on some inside page with posts all sorted out date wise?
And since I’m already off the topic (and talking WAAAAY too much already) - how are you? Good I hope
Hi Melodious, Thanks for both the comments. The blog design is a work under progress. I saw most of my readership came from feeds and therefore saw it fit to have the main page at least look a bit different from what the normal top to bottom blogs look like.
Feeds anyway, are top to bottom. Your confusion worries me however. I will look into it.
Merci beaucoup! The Archives by month really sort things out. Sorry I’m such a d-uh. And thx you for humouring such a d-uh.
Will stop d-uhing now.
hmm, but why not still have a normal blog thingie? I was a lil confused, too. I still am…