Soon after it became known that an Indian could have been involved in the Glasgow incident, Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, advised his British counterpart not to brand the person as an Indian terrorist. Terrorist is a terrorist, he said, and his nationality has no relevance.
A month back when Sunita Williams made a triumphant return from Space, Dr Singh was one of the first to congratulate her. I am sure that he would have told her that the whole nation was proud of her.
Now, the sword of nationalism cuts both ways. You can’t celebrate the Indianness of an astronaut on the one hand, while claiming on the other that the Indianness of the terrorist was not relevant. If a terrorist is a terrorist, an astronaut is an astronaut.
That’s why this whole idea of nationalism is anachronistic and needs to be substituted with a different model. As Bernard Shaw said, “Patriotism is the conviction that your country is the greatest, merely because you were born in it”.
A month back when Sunita Williams made a triumphant return from Space, Dr Singh was one of the first to congratulate her. I am sure that he would have told her that the whole nation was proud of her.
Now, the sword of nationalism cuts both ways. You can’t celebrate the Indianness of an astronaut on the one hand, while claiming on the other that the Indianness of the terrorist was not relevant. If a terrorist is a terrorist, an astronaut is an astronaut.
That’s why this whole idea of nationalism is anachronistic and needs to be substituted with a different model. As Bernard Shaw said, “Patriotism is the conviction that your country is the greatest, merely because you were born in it”.
7 comments:
Very wise!
very good.
regards
vijay C
neththi adi!
:)
ashu,anon: thanks
sundar : I see you are an NRI. Just wait to hear from Dr Singh, provided you are not a terrorist.
Very well said raj.
I actually wrote a write up on this some time back and i had the same view.
aru, I read your piece. I agree
Wise thoughts.
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