Is it time to renounce nationalism and see India as it is?
A few days back I finished reading The White Tiger by Anand Adiga. It has been 12 years since the book was published and the facts are more true now that it was then. It's a common phenomenon in the social media comments section to see people taking unnecessary pride in the achievements we have. I am not saying that we shouldn’t. It's important to acknowledge the success we have got in space missions and in other strategic areas. But we shouldn’t allow it to blind us. The patriotism that we have in ourselves should not turn into a nationalism that turns a blind eye to the atrocities faced by India. In our school days, we were told to take pride in India and her glory but we were never taught to work for the betterment of our country. Now whenever I see words like ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ or ‘Proud to be an Indian’, I think about the darkness(a reference to The White Tiger). It seems like we are conveniently forgetting the orphans sold to red light areas in Delhi and Bombay or the men and women who defecate in fields because of the lack of toilets or the Dalit boy who was beaten up or maybe even killed just because he managed to love a girl of upper caste. We forget about the rapes. Some even justify it. The notion of India as a whole and her unity have been lost for some time. The very fact that the government has schemes for the betterment of people and still people are not benefitting shows the negligence and corruption at many layers. India has always given a polarizing figure to the world. And certain people of India have classified her into two. The New India or where all the metros and IT companies exist and the Old India where the dirt seeps into the lives of dwellers. But still, we cannot classify one part as idealistic because the seeds of profanity are still in all of us. The so-called modernist cannot dispose of the flawed and still take pride in India’s cricket and space program. These days, the vigilantes which check the nationalism of fellow Indians are on a rise. They police each other and believe that they have got the right to batter anyone who fails to chant ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. Such vigilantes are invalidating themselves. They are somehow under a false notion that such chants would automatically make the country better. We need to realize that our country is far from perfect. People are dying without getting food, water, and even ambulance. Caste system predominantly exists these days and unless we are willing to take off the blinds of nationalism, India is doomed to fail at the world stage. And the last thing one should do is taking pride in Ancient India. For all we know, India was always occupied people of different race and the country was always welcoming of people of difference. That has been our ethos and It should be. So I truly believe that the time has come to truly discard the notion of nationalism and see as it is.
