Just two years short of the country’s 80th Independence Day is perhaps the right occasion to think through the contemporary understanding and more importantly, wilful misunderstanding of patriotism in our part of the world. It is also an occasion to unpack the aggressive clamour around deshbhakti but displaying little care about the substance within it.
The historian Eric Hobsbawm argued that nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is its past. The justification for a nation against others is derived primarily from the past. Hobsbawm can be relied upon to know this. After all, it is historians who produce the past. However, Hobsbawm probably could not foresee that once produced, the nationalism project moves beyond historian(s) and their craft’s control. He probably could not also imagine in his long engagement with academia and people’s movements that a time would come when politicians with counterfactual inclinations would emerge the world over and prop up their had-it-been-so version of history against established historical facts.
My aim here is not to get into the nitty-gritty of a historian’s craft but to share some of my own insights into how patriotism is being imagined and performed in these fraught times. In India, the modern nationalism project took shape during the freedom struggle. It was moulded by the values that inspired the movement — truth, non-violence, liberty, inclusiveness, and progress. Though one could go on and add a few dozen more values, ideas and impulses, it is important to recognise that these values were not impositions from above but that they prevailed through countryside meetings, street conversations, political rallies, and demonstrations for over five decades. These are also the values that shone through in the Constituent Assembly debates. Justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity formed the constellation that lit up the early hours of the morning sky over the young republic.
The Constitution gave the people an “Idea of India” that was not singular but a toolbox of ideas of India. It never believed in majoritarian ideas of nationalism because the civilisational ethos of India always remained antithetical to such interpretation. Using this toolbox of ideas, we, the people of India, were able to forge a modern and progressive nation, bringing together extraordinarily diverse communities. Our love and affection for the nation so produced is patriotism.
With the Constitution in our hands, we, the people of India, know how to distinguish the nation from the government. The Constitution gave us a clear and unmistakable understanding that we are sovereign. Whenever a government elected by us sought loyalty and devotion, we, the people of India, were rightly alarmed. Even when it was posed as a test of our patriotism, we, the people of India, did not flinch once before renouncing such efforts. As and when efforts have been made to dilute or take away our rights, we, the people of India, have not shied away from the path of democratic resistance. Many of us need no help to remember the tactics used during the Emergency. Similar tactics are being employed now by the current regime. Sometimes shouted through megaphones, sometimes as dog whistles. Sometimes from television studios and at other times through online whisper networks.
A spirit of nationalism, guided by particular ideals and values, won us our freedom. We created a nation. However, patriotism sustains us. Patriotism, felt as a deep love for our society and cultures, makes us a better people. Patriotism, manifested as a longing for our shared future, makes us behave better.
This regime has, unfortunately, turned nationalism into a 24/7 spectacle whipping up the baser instincts of people. The game-masters work a frenzy not only among the willing and the reluctant players but also among the spectators. The objective of this game is simple – unquestioning loyalty and total submission. This is opposed to the patriotic values of the freedom struggle which defined our nation but stay true to the shape of electoral politics. For spectators, it also provides endless distraction from constitutional ideals and values.
There are no prizes for the winners either. While the players are immersed in the game world, a family member may have lost their job, a qualifying exam paper may have leaked, and the size of the thali may have shrunk. But the penalties are aplenty. Following one or the other draconian law, the government will conflate questioning it with critiquing the nation and put such individuals behind bars.
In the 78th year of our independence, we must have a football field of a distance between “loving your government” and “loving your nation”. Holding the government accountable to the people is the hallmark of true patriotism. By questioning and challenging wrong and arbitrary government actions, citizens ensure that their country remains true to the ideals and values that shaped this nation. The first step in this direction would be to not accept propaganda by the government at face value.
If the government is inefficient, corrupt, or harmful, it undermines national interests. A partisan and divisive government is not interested in the well-being of the nation; it is interested in trimming the nation down to a size to fit its narrow ideology. By working against the ideals and values that forged this great nation, it is undoing the nation itself. We must acknowledge as a collective that a true patriot cannot wish harm on some members of we, the people of India. True patriots care deeply about the well-being and progress of their nation, the whole nation.
Let us pay heed to our first prime minister who warned that majoritarianism in the cloak of nationalism is a dangerous ploy which has the potential to devour the foundational values of the nation itself.
The writer is Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, Rashtriya Janata Dal
A spirit of nationalism, guided by particular ideals and values, won us our freedom. We created a nation. However, patriotism sustains us. Patriotism, felt as a deep love for our society and cultures, makes us a better people. Patriotism, manifested as a longing for our shared future, makes us behave better. 
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