What is Nationalism?
Last Sunday in a casual gathering of friends, I asked everyone, individually, do you feel proud being an Indian? Everyone stared at me sarcastically, replied with lots of weight in the voice, yes, I am proud to be an Indian, not once but repeatedly.
I am sure every Indian will reply the same way my friends respond. Me too will answer the same for the question. I wonder, though we love our country so much. Then why we compromise on many things, if we initiate actions to correct the things, we can certainly change many things on our own, for the betterment of the society and there by country.
For example, I have a friend of mine who has a habit of chewing pan, also can’t resist from spitting anywhere and everywhere. Inspite of his love and respect for the country according to him, he tend to repeat the action plenty of times a day leaving his dirty marks wherever he goes in the city.
Another friend of mine who also said he loves India a lot has a photo of his family visiting a historic place, where the group proudly wrote their names and city, to leave their signature on the monument.
Another one was proudly sharing with me that, he has never carried a helmet on road. He just handover a Rs. Fifty to anyone stop him and ask for a helmet or paper of the vehicle. The hieght from a close friend is, he never plan and get his railway tickets booked for his travel. Instead, he catch hold of someone who claims to book guaranteed confirm railway reservation, God and authorities only know how! But he gets it done by paying extra bucks.
There are many such examples we all have with us. And we also are no different from those friends of mine, where our purpose should be met. No matter some one who can’t afford and manage more money but have a valid cause and is also right to be booked on railway first. But we, who love our country a lot, will not hesitate to snatch someone’s right.
What kind of a nationalism do we have, one side we do everything to please self by not worrying or caring of impact of our acts on the fellow citizens, on the other hand we love India so much. How contradictory our patriotism is. I urge every one who feel there are many things we can initiate as an individual at a very basic grass roots level, please come forward to inspire to unite and come together to bring a positive change in our public behavior. Then we will be sure about our love and respect for our country and we will truly live to make it to the most powerful nation of the world.
Sunil Chaporkar – I love India
Images courtesy: The Hindu and unknown through Google images search.