Friday, February 04, 2005

Nation and Nationalism….what’s wrong with you??

I wrote this article for one of the newspapers. I do not have any idea whether it is going to be published or not. Just read on…and rate my chances of this being published….anyway, u guys are lucky to read this before it is published…J

Today’s nationalism is not about a large entity called the ‘Nation’. Rather, it is nothing but a “pathological sense of inflammation”, a grievance about the real and imaginary wounds inflicted on people and a sense of not being able to choose one’s own destiny.

Otherwise, who could explain the uproar over the usage of the word ‘Sindh’ in our National anthem disputing whether such a word can be used hence. Even more shocking is the serious consideration the Supreme Court is giving to this issue when there are other very important matters to look into. The English sing “God Save the Queen”. Since this is not relevant to our times, will they think of changing it to say - “God Save Tony Blair”. The Singaporean National anthem is in the Malay language, which is not even one of the recognized languages of Singapore. Yet, do they raise an upheaval about it??

Another important issue is that of the match-fixing scandal, which we have brushed down the carpet but are never sure when it would raise its dirty hoods again. Dirty?? Did I say Dirty?? In a nation where corruption is touching a billion lives on a daily basis, where the majority of us are involved in some corrupt practice or other, why should we expect just those eleven cricketers to be honest? And why should it be front-page news for weeks when it is of no consequence to the lives of majority in our country? Why doesn’t the media talk about how the corrupt politicians are letting down a billion people every moment instead of igniting our passions about a few cricketers?

We live in times of guided missiles and misguided men. Caught between the prophets of imminent apocalypse and peddlers of optimism, we expend little effort towards self-criticism and consequently on a movement towards self-possession. Can we dream of a Nation which ingrains Gandhian philosophy for real and not as hogwash? A philosophy where the issue is not about trivial usage of words or money, but about ‘Nationalism’ in the true sense. ‘A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for’, said Rudyard Kipling. Let us so live life, that when we come to die…atleast we can have the glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A good post...but not better than the last. Depends on which newspaper u sent the article...:-)

- karthik

Anonymous said...

Its a nice article you have written.
Don't worry about it getting published or not, just goahead with your dreams and ambition. I Will always be there to support "U".

Harsha

Anonymous said...

I wanted to comment on ur match mixing issue. We expect just that 11 cricketers to be innocent because they are carrying the hopes of more than 1 billion. Cricket is more than a religion in India, and people expect them to give their best in every possible way. And the media doesnt talk about tht corrupt politicians because, it doesnt work like tht in India. If u expose any one then, tht media will be no more to expose anything else. And I strongly believe tht only a dictator rule(I dont mean Hitler's rule, but a monopoly rule) will change corrupted India (Just my feeling).