essay on patriotism and nation building in india

Essay on Patriotism in India

Students are often asked to write an essay on Patriotism in India in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Patriotism in India

Introduction.

Patriotism in India refers to the deep love and respect that Indians have for their country. It’s a powerful sentiment that unites people of different religions, languages, and cultures.

Historical Significance

India’s struggle for independence was a great example of patriotism. Freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, and Rani Lakshmibai showcased their love for the country through their sacrifices.

Patriotism Today

Today, Indians express patriotism in various ways, like celebrating national festivals, respecting national symbols, and contributing to the nation’s development. Patriotism inspires Indians to work towards a better India.

In conclusion, patriotism in India is a binding force that promotes unity and progress. It reminds us of our duties towards our nation and encourages us to contribute to its growth and prosperity.

250 Words Essay on Patriotism in India

Patriotism, a sentiment that binds individuals to their homeland, manifests itself uniquely in different regions. In India, a country rich in cultural diversity and historical significance, patriotism is a deeply ingrained sentiment that transcends geographical, linguistic, and religious lines.

Historical Context

India’s patriotism is rooted in its struggle for independence. The collective fight against colonial rule fostered a sense of unity and patriotism among the populace. Figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, and Subhash Chandra Bose instilled a deep sense of national pride and patriotism that continues to resonate today.

Patriotism in Modern India

Modern Indian patriotism is a delicate blend of cultural pride, political consciousness, and social responsibility. It is reflected in the respect for the Constitution, adherence to democratic principles, and commitment to social justice. The youth, in particular, are channeling their patriotic sentiments into social activism and political participation, shaping a more inclusive and equitable India.

Patriotism vs Nationalism

While patriotism is a unifying force, it’s crucial to distinguish it from aggressive nationalism. Patriotism is about love for one’s country and its values, while nationalism can lead to an exclusionary mindset, often at the expense of minority groups. It’s incumbent upon Indian society, particularly its youth, to foster a patriotism that is inclusive and respectful of India’s diverse population.

Patriotism in India is a complex, multifaceted sentiment that is deeply woven into the country’s social and cultural fabric. It is a force that, when channeled correctly, can drive India towards a more inclusive, equitable, and prosperous future. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, it’s crucial that Indian patriotism evolves to reflect these changing dynamics.

500 Words Essay on Patriotism in India

Patriotism, a term that signifies love and devotion towards one’s motherland, is an emotion that runs deep in the veins of every Indian. It is not merely a sentiment but a value that shapes the nation’s collective consciousness. In India, patriotism is a dynamic blend of cultural pride, historical legacy, and an unyielding spirit of unity.

The Roots of Indian Patriotism

Indian patriotism has its roots deeply embedded in the country’s rich history and diverse culture. The ancient Indus Valley Civilization, the profound philosophies of the Vedas, the architectural marvels of the Mughal era, and the non-violent struggle for independence from British rule, all contribute to the patriotic fervor. This sense of national pride is not confined to historical achievements but extends to the country’s diverse culture, languages, and traditions.

Patriotism and the Freedom Struggle

The Indian freedom struggle was a testament to the immense patriotism that prevailed among the country’s citizens. Figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, and many others ignited the spirit of patriotism, leading millions in their quest for freedom. The non-violent resistance and civil disobedience movements demonstrated the power of unity and patriotic devotion, eventually leading to India’s independence in 1947.

In contemporary India, patriotism continues to be a driving force for progress. It manifests in various forms – from the enthusiastic celebrations of national festivals like Republic Day and Independence Day to the collective efforts during natural disasters, and the unwavering support for the Indian cricket team. The recent surge in digital India initiatives, startup culture, and space exploration endeavors exhibit a new face of Indian patriotism, where the focus is on innovation and progress.

While patriotism is a noble sentiment, it is essential to differentiate it from nationalism. While patriotism is love for one’s country and the willingness to sacrifice for it, nationalism often implies a sense of superiority and disregard for other nations. In a diverse country like India, it is crucial to foster a sense of patriotism that respects diversity and promotes unity, rather than a divisive nationalism.

Patriotism in India is a potent force that has shaped the country’s past and continues to influence its future. As India moves forward on the path of development, the spirit of patriotism can act as a guiding light, ensuring that progress is inclusive and respectful of the country’s diverse culture and heritage. The challenge lies in channeling this patriotic fervor towards constructive actions that contribute to nation-building, rather than allowing it to devolve into narrow nationalism. As Swami Vivekananda rightly said, “We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet.” This is the kind of patriotism India needs today – one that empowers individuals and strengthens the nation.

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Essay On Patriotism And Nation Building In India

"Even if I died in the service of the nation I could be proud of it every drop of my blood will contribute to the growth of this nation and to make it strong in dynamic"

Depth of patriotism in the words of a former prime minister.

~Shrimati Indira Gandhi

Introduction: Patriotism, defined as the love and devotion for one's country, plays a pivotal role in the process of nation-building. In the context of India, a nation with a rich history, diverse cultures, and a multitude of languages, the significance of patriotism goes beyond mere sentiment. This essay explores the interconnection between patriotism and nation-building in India, examining how a collective sense of love and commitment to the country contributes to its unity, development, and progress. Historical Context: India's struggle for independence, led by iconic figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Subhas Chandra Bose, was rooted in the deep-seated patriotism of its people. The fight against British colonial rule was fueled by a shared desire for self-determination, justice, and freedom. The sacrifices made by countless individuals during this period exemplified the power of patriotism in shaping the destiny of the nation. Unity in Diversity: India's strength lies in its diversity – a tapestry woven with different languages, religions, traditions, and ethnicities. Patriotism serves as a unifying force that transcends these diversities, creating a sense of shared identity and purpose. The acknowledgment and celebration of this diversity within the framework of a united India showcase the inclusive nature of patriotism, fostering national cohesion and integration. National Symbols and Emblems: Patriotism finds expression in the reverence for national symbols and emblems. The Indian flag, the national anthem, and other symbols evoke a sense of pride and loyalty among citizens. These symbols serve as a reminder of the collective identity that binds people across the vast expanse of the country. The respect for these symbols becomes a tangible manifestation of the intangible but powerful sentiment of patriotism. Social Cohesion and Harmony: Patriotism contributes significantly to social cohesion and harmony within India. The recognition that every citizen is an integral part of the larger national family fosters a sense of responsibility towards each other. Patriotism acts as a moral compass, guiding individuals to contribute positively to the social fabric and work towards the collective well-being of the nation. Education and Civic Values: The education system plays a crucial role in instilling patriotic values in the younger generation. Through curricula, textbooks, and extracurricular activities, students are introduced to the history, values, and cultural heritage of their country. Civic education emphasizes the importance of responsible citizenship, encouraging students to actively participate in the democratic process and contribute to the nation's progress. Economic Development and Progress: Patriotism is closely linked to the economic development and progress of a nation. A strong sense of love for one's country motivates individuals to work diligently, invest in local industries, and contribute to the growth of the economy. The belief that the prosperity of the nation translates to the well-being of its citizens reinforces the symbiotic relationship between patriotism and economic progress. National Defense and Security: Patriotism plays a crucial role in ensuring the defense and security of the nation. Citizens who love their country are more likely to support and contribute to the armed forces, recognizing the need to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation. Patriotism becomes a driving force behind the commitment to national security and the protection of fellow citizens. Conclusion: In conclusion, patriotism serves as a powerful force in the ongoing process of nation-building in India. It is a sentiment that binds the diverse fabric of the country, fosters social cohesion, and contributes to economic progress and national security. As India continues to evolve and face new challenges, the enduring spirit of patriotism remains a guiding light, inspiring citizens to work together towards a brighter and more prosperous future for the nation.

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Essay on Patriotism for Students and Children

500+ words essay on patriotism.

Essay on Patriotism: Patriotism refers to the passionate love one has for their country. This virtue pushes to citizens of a country to work for their country selflessly and make it better. A truly developed country is made up of true patriots. In other words, patriotism means keeping the country’s interest first and then thinking about oneself. Patriotism can be specifically seen during times of war. Moreover, it helps in building the nation stronger. There are other significances of patriotism as well.

Significance of Patriotism

Usually, we refer to our country as our motherland. This further proves that we must have the same love for our country as we have for our mother. After all, our country is no less than a mother; it nurtures us and helps us grow. Everyone must possess the virtue of patriotism as it makes it better.

In addition, it also enhances the life quality of the citizens . It does that by making people work for the collective interest of the country. When everyone works for the betterment of the country, there would be no conflict of interest. Thus, a happier environment will prevail.

After that, peace and harmony will be maintained through patriotism. When the citizens have the spirit of brotherhood, they will support one another. Hence, it will make the country more harmonious.

In short, patriotism does have great importance in developing the country. It eliminates any selfish and harmful motives which in turn lessens corruption. Similarly, when the government becomes free of corruption , the country will develop faster.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Great Patriots of India

India has had a fair share of patriots from the very beginning. The struggle for independence gave birth to various patriots. These patriots have made a lot of sacrifices for the county to flourish and prosper. Their names have gone down in history and are still taken with respect and admiration. Some of the greatest patriots of India were Rani Lakshmi Bai, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, and Maulana Azad.

Rani Lakshmi Bai was one of the most famous patriots of the country. Her courage and bravery are still talked about. Her name always comes up in the revolt of 1857. She revolted against the British rule and to fight for independence. She gave her life fighting on the battlefield for our country.

Shaheed Bhagat Singh is another name that is synonymous with patriotism. He was determined to free India from the clutches of the British rule. He was a part of several freedom struggles. Similarly, he also started a revolution for the same. He dedicated his life to this mission and died as a martyr for the love of his country.

Maulana Azad was a true patriot. The first education minister of India played a great role in the freedom struggle. He traveled through cities and created awareness of the injustices by the British. He united people through his activism and led India to freedom.

In conclusion, these are just a few who were patriots of the country. They lived for their country and did not hesitate before devoting their lives to it. These names are shining examples for the generations to come. We must possess patriotism and work for our motherland to see it succeed.

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Essay on Patriotism: Samples for Students in 100, 250, 500 Words

Updated on
Oct 13, 2023

Essay on Patriotism: Patriotism can be defined as one’s love and loyalty towards their country. Everybody loves to serve their country and take it to new heights. These people are referred to as patriots. The feeling of patriotism allows a set of people to come closer. It must be promoted for the betterment of the country as well as the people residing there.

Those who are true patriots work towards building their nation in whichever way they can. Here are essays on Patriotism of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exam. You can select any Patriotism essay as per your interest.

Also Read: Maharana Pratap: The Patriotic Hero of the Century

Essay on Patriotism in 100 Words

Patriotism in India is a fervent devotion and love for one’s country, deeply ingrained in its rich history and diverse culture. It transcends mere flag-waving and extends to an unwavering commitment to the nation’s progress. Patriotism finds expression in the sacrifices made by countless freedom fighters for India’s independence, serving as a timeless inspiration.

This sentiment is not confined to any particular religion, caste, or creed; it unites Indians from all backgrounds. It is evident in the respect for the national flag and anthem, symbolizing the collective pride of 1.4 billion people.

Patriotism isn’t blind allegiance; it involves constructive criticism and an earnest desire for India to reach greater heights. It fuels the spirit of nation-building, fostering unity in diversity and preserving the values that make India unique. In a rapidly changing world, patriotism remains the bedrock upon which India’s future is built, reminding all Indians of their duty to their beloved motherland.

Also Read- Famous Personalities Of India

Essay on Patriotism in 250 Words

Patriotism is a powerful force that has shapes a country’s history and continues to influence its present. In this essay, we will explore the significance of patriotism in India, its historical roots, and its manifestations in contemporary society.

Historical Roots of Patriotism

India’s rich history of patriotism can be traced back to its struggle for independence against British colonial rule. Visionaries like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Subhas Chandra Bose inspired millions with their unwavering love for the nation. Their sacrifices and dedication instilled a deep sense of patriotism in the hearts of Indians.

Diverse and United

India’s diversity in culture, language, and religion is a testament to its unity in diversity. Patriotism in India transcends these differences, binding the nation together. Indians take pride in their heritage, from the majestic Himalayas to the serene backwaters of Kerala. This love for the motherland fosters a sense of belonging and unity.

Modern Expressions of Patriotism

Today, patriotism finds expression in various forms. Indians celebrate their independence on August 15th with flag-hoisting ceremonies, parades, and cultural events. Social media has provided a platform for citizens to express their love for India, and campaigns like “Make in India” promote economic patriotism by supporting indigenous products.

Patriotism in India is a deep-seated emotion that binds its people together. Rooted in history, it has evolved to suit the modern world. As India continues to progress, patriotism remains a guiding force, reminding citizens of their responsibilities and the importance of unity in building a brighter future for the nation.

Also Read: Education of Rabindranath Tagore

Essay on Patriotism in 500 Words

Introduction.

Patriotism in India is an enduring sentiment deeply etched into the collective psyche of its citizens. This essay explores the multifaceted dimensions of patriotism, tracing its historical roots, examining its contemporary expressions, and highlighting the challenges and responsibilities it entails.

Historical Legacy of Patriotism

1. The Freedom Struggle: Patriotism in India finds its origins in the arduous struggle for independence from British colonial rule. Visionaries like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Subhas Chandra Bose became iconic symbols of unwavering love for the nation. Their sacrifices and dedication stirred the hearts of millions, laying the foundation for modern Indian patriotism.

2. Iconic Moments: The Salt March, Quit India Movement, and Dandi March stand as enduring symbols of patriotic fervor. These historic events not only marked milestones in the journey towards independence but also demonstrated the power of non-violent resistance and unity.

Diverse and Unified

1. Unity in Diversity: India’s remarkable diversity in culture, language, religion, and geography is a testament to its unity in diversity. Despite these differences, Indians share a common bond of love for the motherland. This sense of belonging transcends regional and cultural boundaries.

2. Cultural Expressions: India’s rich cultural tapestry, from the majestic Himalayas to the vibrant festivals of Holi and Diwali, serves as a canvas for expressions of patriotism. Songs, dances, and traditional rituals celebrate the nation’s heritage and its people’s attachment to it.

1. National Celebrations: Independence Day and Republic Day are grand celebrations that unite the nation. Flag hoisting ceremonies, parades, and cultural performances showcase the pride Indians take in their country’s achievements.

2. Economic Patriotism: Initiatives like “Make in India” promote economic patriotism by encouraging the consumption of indigenous products. Supporting local businesses and industries is seen as a way to contribute to the nation’s growth.

Challenges and Responsibilities

1. Upholding Democratic Values: Patriotism must go hand in hand with upholding democratic values. Respecting the Constitution, ensuring equal rights, and promoting social justice are crucial aspects of being a patriotic Indian.

2. Tackling Divisions: While patriotism unites, it can also be misused to promote division and intolerance. Indians must be vigilant against divisive ideologies that threaten the nation’s unity.

3. Environmental Responsibility: Protecting India’s natural heritage is an essential facet of patriotism. Preserving forests, rivers, and wildlife ensures a sustainable future for the country.

Patriotism in India is a timeless bond that has withstood the test of time. Rooted in a history of struggle, it has evolved to encompass the vast diversity of the nation.

As India continues to progress on the global stage, patriotism remains a guiding force, reminding citizens of their responsibilities and the importance of unity in shaping a brighter future for the nation. It is a sentiment that continues to inspire and define India’s identity in the modern world.

Ans. Patriotism arises organically and holds great importance in safeguarding a nation’s cultural and historical legacy. It involves a deep sense of pride in being a representative of one’s country. Patriotism encompasses a profound love for the nation and a willingness to endure any hardship for the sake of one’s homeland.

Ans. The top 5 points of a best patriot are a unique fondness for one’s native land, a feeling of personal connection to the nation, a particular care for the welfare of the country and readiness to make sacrifices to advance the nation’s welfare.

Ans. The term “patriot” refers to an individual who harbors a deep affection for their homeland and is willing to courageously uphold and protect it. This definition has remained constant since the word was introduced to the English language in the 16th century, although it has faced occasional scrutiny and debate over the years.

We hope that this blog essay on Patriotism has given you some known and unknown facts and secrets about Patriotism. For more amazing reads on essay writing , follow Leverage Edu.

Aditi Gupta

A bachelors in Journalism and Mass Communication graduate, I am an enthusiastic writer. I love to write about impactful content which can help others. I love to binge watch and listen to music during my free time.

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Patriotism Essay

Essay on Patriotism

Patriotism is more than just a word; it's a feeling that resides deep within the hearts of individuals who share a common bond with their country. In simple terms, patriotism is the love and devotion one has for their homeland. This essay explores the essence of patriotism, its significance in our daily lives, and how it contributes to the overall growth and prosperity of a nation.

Defining Patriotism

At its core, patriotism is about love and loyalty to one's country. It's the recognition of the values, culture, and shared history that bind people together. This sentiment is not limited to grand gestures or extraordinary acts; it often finds expression in simple, everyday actions that collectively contribute to the betterment of society.

Love for the Land

Patriotism begins with a genuine love for the land one calls home. It's about appreciating the natural beauty, diverse landscapes, and resources that make a country unique. Whether it's the rolling hills, expansive plains, or the sparkling waters that surround us, patriotism involves recognizing and cherishing the inherent beauty of our homeland.

Cultural Identity

A strong sense of patriotism is closely tied to cultural identity. It's the pride in the traditions, languages, and customs that have been passed down through generations. Embracing and celebrating cultural diversity fosters a sense of unity, enriching the fabric of the nation with a tapestry of different backgrounds and experiences.

Shared History

Patriotism is also rooted in a shared history that forms the foundation of a nation. Understanding the struggles, triumphs, and challenges faced by previous generations fosters a sense of continuity and responsibility. By acknowledging the sacrifices made by those who came before us, we honor their legacy and contribute to the ongoing narrative of our country.

Individual Responsibility and Civic Duty

One of the essential aspects of patriotism is the recognition of individual responsibility and civic duty. It's not just about enjoying the benefits of living in a particular country; it's about actively participating in its growth and development. This can range from voting in elections to volunteering in local communities, each act contributing to the collective well-being of the nation.

Patriotism in Daily Life

While grand displays of patriotism, such as national celebrations and parades, are noteworthy, it is in the small, everyday actions that the true essence of patriotism is often found. Acts of kindness, respect for fellow citizens, and a commitment to upholding shared values are all expressions of patriotism in daily life.

Respecting Differences

A patriotic individual understands the importance of unity in diversity. Respecting the differences among fellow citizens, whether they be cultural, religious, or ideological, is a testament to a mature and inclusive patriotism. It involves fostering an environment where everyone feels valued and accepted, contributing to a stronger and more harmonious society.

Environmental Stewardship

Caring for the environment is another manifestation of patriotism. Recognizing that the health of the land directly impacts the well-being of its inhabitants, a patriotic person takes measures to protect and preserve natural resources. This can involve sustainable practices, conservation efforts, and a commitment to reducing one's ecological footprint.

Education and Knowledge

Promoting education and knowledge is a patriotic act that invests in the future of a nation. By valuing learning, supporting educational initiatives, and encouraging intellectual curiosity, individuals contribute to the development of a knowledgeable and skilled population. A well-educated society is better equipped to face challenges and drive innovation, ensuring the continued progress of the nation.

Economic Contribution

Contributing to the economic prosperity of the country is an integral part of patriotism. This involves not only being a responsible consumer but also actively participating in the workforce. Whether through entrepreneurship, hard work, or innovation, individuals play a crucial role in building a robust and thriving economy that benefits everyone.

National Pride and Unity

Patriotism fosters a sense of national pride and unity. This pride extends beyond individual accomplishments to a collective celebration of the achievements of the entire nation. It's about recognizing and highlighting what makes the country unique and exceptional, fostering a shared sense of identity that transcends individual differences.

Challenges and Criticisms

While patriotism is generally seen as a positive force, it is essential to acknowledge that blind nationalism and exclusionary practices can emerge if taken to extremes. A healthy patriotism embraces diversity and encourages open dialogue, recognizing that different perspectives contribute to the strength and resilience of a nation.

Patriotism: A Historical Perspective

An essay on patriotism seems incomplete without delving into the historical context, particularly the role of freedom fighters. They are the heroes of times when the quest for freedom ignited the spirits of individuals who sought independence in economic, social, political, and cultural aspects.

India's Patriots

The history of India’s freedom struggle shines through the immortal courage of heroic personalities like Veer Damodar Savarkar, Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, and many more. These great patriots fought for the country and against the atrocities perpetrated on the countrymen.

Singing slogans of ‘Vande Mataram’, ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, ‘Jay Hind’, these patriots went to the cross for the country with a smile on their faces and pride in their hearts. A very inspiring quote by Swami Vivekanand, says, “Do you love the country? Then, come, let us struggle for higher and better things; look not back, no, not even if you see the dearest and nearest cry. Look no back, but forward!”

The gist of Swami Vivekanand’s thought is that when you have started your journey on the path of the country’s welfare, then there must not be any looking back. All you need is to create a list of the priority things that you want to do for your country. Once you accomplish one thing just move ahead with the next one. The slogans like Jai Hind or Bharat Mata ki Jai work as your motivation on the path of doing something for the country. So, are you prepared to do something special for the nation?

Patriotism in Different Roles

People express their patriotism in different ways and in different roles. Soldiers, scientists, doctors, politicians, and other citizens express their patriotism through their hard work in their profession.

Indian soldiers are role models for the youth of India. Highly scrupulous, positively secular, completely apolitical, with an ethos of working hard, simple needs and frugal habits, a soldier is the epitome of courage and unflinching devotion to the country.

Mangalyaan or Mars Orbiter Mission is one of the best examples of scientists' devotion toward the country. In the pandemic situation, the hardship of doctors and nurses proves their devotion towards their country.

Patriotism does not always mean that you have to sacrifice your life for your country; contributing good service towards the country and its people is also equivalent to your sacrifice.

Mathunny Mathews has set a great example of patriotism. Mathews was an Indian, a resident in Kuwait, and was one of the people credited with the safe airlift evacuation of about 1, 70,000 Indians from Kuwait during the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Only celebrating the flag hoisting ceremony on 15th August and 26th January, posing for photos with the flag, and posting on social media doesn’t imply that you are a true patriot. A real patriot is a person who has a true love for his country. He fights against the atrocities upon his countrymen by insiders or outsiders of the country.

Patriotism by Freedom Fighters

An essay on patriotism seems incomplete without the mention of freedom fighters. They are the heroes of the times when we all wanted to get freedom. We all need freedom in economic, social, political, and cultural aspects. These were the people who did not give a second thought before offering complete sacrifice to stay in a free country.

Patriotism is a simple yet profound celebration of love for our country. It encompasses a range of sentiments, from appreciation of the land and culture to a commitment to individual responsibility and civic duty. Patriotism is not a static concept; it evolves as societies grow and change. By embodying the principles of patriotism in our daily lives, we contribute to the collective well-being of our nation, ensuring a brighter future for generations to come. In the end, patriotism is about recognizing the beauty in our shared journey and working together to build a stronger, more united society. Explore the meaning of patriotism, its significance, and the diverse ways in which people express their love for their country. Learn about the role of patriotism in the lives of individuals, from freedom fighters to modern-day citizens, and understand how it contributes to the development of a nation.

FAQs on Patriotism Essay

1. How is patriotism important for a country?

Patriotism helps in promoting brotherhood and belongingness among the citizens of a country. Corruption takes a back seat when the feeling of fraternity exists among the citizens. Also, the love for one’s country creates a feeling of responsibility towards the countrymen and brings forth the best of their services, in various fields.

For example, when an IAS officer is a true patriot at heart, he will ensure that there is no corruption in his immediate system and best efforts are being delivered by his team. Similarly, doctors, soldiers, scientists, and people from every walk of life put their best efforts into serving their countrymen, when they have patriotism deep down in their hearts.

2. What are the important points to be written in an essay on patriotism?

The following outlines will help you write an essay on patriotism in your own words.

What is the meaning of patriotism in simple words?

How is patriotism different from nationalism?

Who were the great patriots of India?

Role of patriotic personalities in India’s freedom struggle.

Showcasing patriotism on Independence Day and Republic Day through social media posts is not always a sign of true patriotism.

How does patriotism play a role in the development of a nation?

These are the basic points for this essay topic, and you may add more examples of patriotic personalities and emphasize the role of patriotism in safeguarding the interests of a nation, in your essay, depending upon the required word count.

3. How can I express my patriotism?

There are many ways to express your patriotism. Some common examples include:

Participating in civic duties, such as voting and volunteering.

Obeying the law and respecting the national symbols.

Educating yourself about your country's history and culture.

Supporting your country's athletes and teams in international competitions.

Contributing to social causes and community development efforts.

4. Is patriotism the same as nationalism?

No, patriotism and nationalism are not the same. Patriotism is a positive feeling of love and pride for one's country, while nationalism can be a more extreme and exclusionary ideology that emphasizes the superiority of one's own nation over others.

5. Can patriotism be dangerous?

Yes, patriotism can be dangerous if it is used to justify harmful actions, such as discrimination against other countries or groups of people. It is important to remember that patriotism should be combined with other values, such as tolerance, respect for human rights, and a commitment to international cooperation.

6. What are some good examples of patriotism in history?

There are many examples of people who have expressed patriotism in positive ways throughout history. Some famous examples include:

Martin Luther King Jr.'s fight for civil rights in the United States.

Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent resistance to British rule in India.

Nelson Mandela's fight against apartheid in South Africa.

The volunteers who helped rebuild communities after natural disasters.

7. What are some common arguments against patriotism?

Some people argue that patriotism is outdated, irrelevant, or even harmful. Some common arguments against patriotism include:

It can be used to justify war and violence.

It can lead to blind obedience and a lack of critical thinking.

It can be used to exclude and discriminate against minority groups.

It can be a form of tribalism that creates divisions between people.

Before and after independence: How patriotism has changed over the years

HYDERABAD: August 15 the day we celebrate India’s freedom from the British, the day we show our love for our country and the day (apart from Republic Day) most of us feel patriotic.

While we are caught up with our daily grind and make time to reflect upon the sacrifices of our jawans and the fight that our freedom fighters put up, for some, being patriotic is their way of life. Ahead of the 75th Independence Day, we speak to the real heroes about their sacrifices and the people who have witnessed pre-Independence India.

Nawab Najaf Ali Khan, the grandson of H.E.H late Nizam VII of Hyderabad Nawab Mir Osman Ali Khan and the son of late Prince Hasham Jah Bahadur, recollects how Hyderabad was during the pre-independence era and how the city has changed now. “Before Independence, Hyderabad was one of the best States in all aspects.

It had all amenities of its own and was truly an independent State — a well-functioning transport system with its own railways, airways, roadways, thermal power stations, world-class universities which admitted students from all religions, castes and creeds, etc. Hyderabad, under my grandfather’s rule, was the most well-governed and prosperous State of pre-independent India. Today, it has become fast-paced where there is no harmony among people of different walks of life. Religious intolerance towards other faiths, harbouring of enmity between communities which is encouraged by politicians — all of these make today’s Hyderabad vastly different from what it used to be in my grandfather’s time,” he says.

For Najaf Ali Khan, the concept of patriotism has changed over the years. “Times have changed; different people have different perspectives about patriotism. Patriotism means loyalty towards your motherland and being compassionate to the people you share this beautiful motherland with. My family has ruled this land for more than 200 years, and patriotism to me is ensuring that the work and efforts of my grandfather don’t go in vain.”

Every defence personnel in the country lives their life based on the Chetwode Credo. ‘The safety, honour and welfare of your country comes first always and every time. The honor, welfare and safety of the men you command comes next. Your own ease, comfort and safety comes last always and every time.’

Col Tarun Kumar, who had volunteered to go to the Siachen glacier for Operation Meghdoot as the observation post officer (OPO), lives by the Chetwode Credo. “Every dictionary defines patriotism as one’s love and devotion to the country. To us, in the uniform services, especially in the armed forces, this is the very ethos on which we have been brought up. This exactly what the Chetwode Credo is based on. Most people talk about patriotism on August 15 and January 26. All of a sudden faujis are remembered and when a soldier’s mortal remains arrive in the city, they raise slogans,” he says.

But patriotism, Col Kumar says, comes naturally. “It is the environment that creates this upbringing. The goodness of people gets suppressed because of the surroundings. The younger generation will not follow us till such time you do something good. As a commanding officer, your lonely at the top, you need to make important decisions. But at the end of the day, were my decisions for the people’s good or worse? That’s all that matters.” Speaking about what is freedom, he says: “You have to work for yourself and that is where your freedom lies. When you are strong, you become an inspiration and that’s where your journey of growth begins. Find your own pace and that is what freedom, liberation and empowerment are.”

Aparajita Acharya, the daughter of late Major Padmapani Acharya, was raised by her mother alone. Based on the stories her mother told her about her father, she had penned a coffee-table book, Our Babloo, The Hero of Drass. Aparajita does not believe in chasing an ideal abstract definition of ‘patriotism’. “Patriotism to me is a non-negotiable aspect of my life; a feeling and duty I owe to my nation that has given me so much. I believe a lot of us question the smallest, harmless gestures of patriotism, demanding a logic that raises the question of hypocrisy.

"Not everything in life needs scientific reasoning. We love our parents every day, yet we unapologetically voice it on corporate-invented celebrations such as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. How are these celebrations any different than freedom over the years? We need to make a larger effort in reinventing the definition of our nation time and again. Let us be grateful for the good and constructively work towards betterment. Let this year be all about giving deserved credit, recognition, criticism and realistic goals rather than chasing an ideal abstract definition.”

Charulatha Acharya, wife of Late Major Acharya, lost her husband when she was pregnant with Aparajita. For her, patriotism was always about having a deep connection with her country.

“Whichever country you are born in, we call a country as motherland and we cannot point fingers at it. We have to be loyal to our country and not think about it only on specific days or occasions. We remember the sacrifices of soldiers and leaders on a few occasions only. The way we believe in our religion, we should have the same faith in our country as well. We should instill these values in our kids, talk to them about the sacrifices different people have made for the country to be independent. Not only during national celebrations, but we have to remember the essence of Independence always,” she says.

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18 Nation, nationality and nation building in India

Chandan Kumar Sharma

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction: Defining the Concepts

2. Nation State and Nation Building

3. Nation and Nation Building in India

4. Conclusion

5. Summary

NATION, NATIONALITY AND NATION BUILDING IN INDIA

Introduction: Defining the Concepts

Defining Nation, nationality or nationalism is a complicated exercise. These terms are often used to imply a multiplicity of interrelated phenomena, leading to their ambivalence. One reason for such ambivalence is that they all have the etymological origin in the same Latin word ‘ natio ’ which implies birth or descent.

A dominant view in the past was that to become a nation, a people sharing common race, language, religion, etc must live together in a geographical area. However, this view does not have much currency now. The generally accepted view today holds that rather than sharing attributes like common race, language, religion, etc it is the sentiment of common consciousness that forms the basis of a nation. A nation has a political meaning which is distinct from a nationality. A nationality is transformed into a nation when it organises a state or at least cherishes a common will to live together in a state for the future.

When the territorial boundary of a state is co-terminus with the cultural, linguistic and ethnic division of the people (nation) within it, it becomes a nation state which is different from the state forms, for example, the empires, of the earlier times which constituted more than one, and often several, national groups. The concept of nation state based on the concept of ‘one nation, one state’ became a dominant mode of state forms in the Western Europe. This also subsequently came to form the nation building projects of the newly independent states in various parts of the world. But problems emerged as most of these countries were multi-national in nature, incorporating several nations or groups with near-nation status. Empirical experiences have shown that there rarely exists a country in the modern world where ‘one nation, one state’ model can be observed. On the contrary, one witnesses not only several nations within the territorial boundary of a single state but also a single nation spreading over more than one state. For example, the United Kingdom, Russian Federation, India, the United States of America, etc are examples of multi-national states while the Kurds, the Tamils, the Hazaras, etc are examples of trans-state nations implying they are spread over more than one state.

Historian Eric Hobsbawm writes that ‘nations’, contrary to popular belief, are not as old as history. “The modern sense of the word is no longer than the eighteenth century…” (1990: 3). He admits that what characteristics classify a group of human beings as a ‘nation’ is difficult to answer (ibid: 5). Nevertheless, he points out that attempts have been made to establish objective criteria for defining a ‘nation’ based “on single criteria such as language or ethnicity, or a combination of criteria such as language, common territory, common history, cultural traits or whatever else.” But all such objective definitions have failed because “only some members of the large class of entities which fit such definitions can at any time be described as ‘nations’” though exceptions are there. Hobsbawm also shows that “the criteria used for this purpose – language, ethnicity or whatever – are themselves fuzzy, shifting and ambiguous” (ibid: 6).

Sociologist T.K. Oommen offers what he calls, “some tentative definitional proposals of a nation/nationality, state/citizenship and ethnic/ethnicity” (1997: 19). In his definition the “nation is a territorial entity to which the nationals have an emotional attachment and in which they invest a moral meaning; it is a homeland – ancestral or adopted”.(ibid) The state, on the other hand, “is a legally constituted institution, which provides its residents with protection from internal insecurity and external aggression” (ibid). Making the distinction between the state and nation, he says that while territory is common to both, “there is a crucial difference between national territory and the state territory; the former is a moral, and the latter a legal entity…If the state and the nation are coterminous, we have a nation-state. But most states today are multi-national, poly-ethnic, or a combination of the two” (ibid).

He then goes on to say that for the sustenance of a nation, “the people should be in a position to communicate with one another, that is, they should have a common language…(however,) it is not the case that all those who communicate in the same language necessarily make a nation…It is the combination, the fusion of territory and language, that makes a nation; a nation is a community in communication in its homeland” (ibid). Thus, according to Oommen, “a common homeland and a common language (ancestral or adopted) are the critical minimum markers of a nation and national identity” (ibid: 20). On the other hand, Oommen defines nationality as “the collective identity that the people of a nation acquire by identifying with the nation” (1997: 19). This view equates nationality with citizenship. However, nationality is often used as a synonym for ethnicity. In this sense, various cultural groups constituting a nation are described as nationalities.

Anthony D. Smith defines nation as “named human population sharing an historic territory, common myths, and historical memories, a mass public culture, a common economy and common legal rights and duties for all members” (1991: 14). However, Smith’s definition of nation is criticized on the ground that it does not distinguish a nation from an ethnic group. Barrington points out that the idea of territory is central to all definitions of nation and is the distinguishing feature between nation and other social categories such as an ethnic group (Barrington 1997: 712). According to Barrington, nations are groups of people linked by unifying traits (myths, values, symbols, etc) and the desire to control a territory that is thought of as group’s national homeland. It is not necessary that they actually control any such territory (ibid: 713). He further points out that the word ‘nation’ is often mistakenly used as synonyms with ‘ethnic group’ or ‘ethnicity’. However, although a nation can evolve from an ethnic group it is more than an ethnic group because of its belief in its right to territorial control. More importantly, nations need not be based on certain ethnic identity. For example, the American nation is not based on any shared ethnic identity although the Americans share certain cultural features such as origin myths and symbols and language (ibid).

Emphasizing the difficulty in offering a stable definition of nation, historian Prasenjit Duara writes, “The instability of the concept of the nation is such that we are unable to even say whether it is in ascendancy or in decline” (1996: 4). The definitional ambiguities associated with the term ‘nation’ have its own impact on the conceptualization of the term ‘nationalism’. It is pointed out that the definitions of nationalism reveal more about the definers than about the defined (Aloysius 2000 [1997]: 11). Under such a situation, “to expect a consensus on contested political realities or a single, overarching paradigm explanatory of all manifestations of the national phenomena is illusory, at least for the time being” (ibid: 14).

Renowned theorist of nationalism Benedict Anderson (1995 [1983]) contends that nationality, nation-ness as well as nationalism, are cultural artifacts of a particular kind (ibid: 13). They are “notoriously difficult to define, let alone analyze” (ibid: 126). He argues that a nation is an act of imagination (ibid: 15) by underlining the fact that nations were not the determinate products of some given sociological conditions like language or race or religion— they had been imagined into existence. He also describes some of the major institutional forms through which this imagined community comes to acquire concrete shape. He further emphasizes that the “twentieth-century nationalisms and nation states have a profoundly modular character” (ibid: 123). Historical experience of nationalism in the west provided all subsequent nationalisms with a set of modular forms from which nationalist elites in Asia and Africa had chosen the ones they liked.

Etienne Balibar writes that he and Immanuel Wallerstein consider, “‘nation’ and ‘people’ as historical constructs, by means of which current institutions and antagonisms can be projected into the past to confer a relative stability on the communities on which the sense of individual ‘identity’ depends.”(Balibar and Wallerstein 1998: 10) According to them, No nation, that is, no national state, has an ethnic basis, which means that nationalism cannot be defined as an ethnocentrism except precisely in the sense of the product of a fictive ethnicity. To reason any other way would be to forget that ‘peoples’ do not exist naturally…either by virtue of their ancestry, a community of culture or pre-existing interests. But they have to institute in real (and therefore in historical) time their imaginary unity against other possible unities (ibid: 49).

Balibar further writes that the term ‘fiction’ should not be taken in the sense of a pure and simple illusion without historical effects. As he contends, No nation possesses an ethnic base naturally, but as social formations are nationalized, the populations included within them, divided up among them or dominated by them are ethnicized— that is represented in the past or in the future as if they formed a natural community, possessing of itself an identity of origins, culture and interests which transcends individuals and social conditions (ibid: 96).

According to Social anthropologist and political philosopher Ernest Gellner, “Nationalism is primarily a political principle,” Gellner emphasizes, “which holds that the political and the national units should be congruent.” (1983: 1). He further writes, “…nations, like states, are a contingency, and not a universal necessity…” (1983: 6). Explaining the relationship between ‘nationality’ (or ‘ethnicity’) and ‘nationalism’, Gellner has this to say, Ethnicity or ‘nationality’ is simply the name for the condition which prevails when many of these boundaries converge and overlap, so that the boundaries of conversation, easy commensality, shared pastimes, etc., are the same, and when the community of the people delimited by these boundaries is endowed with an ethnonym, and is suffused with powerful feelings; ethnicity becomes ‘political’. It gives rise to ‘nationalism’, when the ‘ethnic’ group defined by these overlapping cultural boundaries is not merely acutely conscious of its own existence, but also imbued with the conviction that the ethnic boundary ought also to be a political one. The requirement is that the boundaries of ethnicity should also be the boundaries of the political unit, and, above all, that the rulers within that unit should be of the same ethnicity as the ruled (1994: 35).

In the ‘Preface’ to his Ethnicity and Nationalism (1991), Political theorist Paul Brass states that “ethnicity and nationalism are not ‘givens’, but are social and political constructions” (Ibid: 8). They are created by the elites of ethnic groups with the object of “protecting their well-being or existence or to gain political and economic advantage for their groups as well as themselves” (Ibid: 8). He further argues that ethnicity and nationalism are modern phenomena inseparably connected with the activities of the modern centralizing state arising out of specific types of interactions between the leadership of centralizing states and elites from non-dominant ethnic groups, especially but not exclusively on the peripheries of those states” (Ibid: 8-9).

Brass argues that when an ethnic group demands “a major say for the group in the political system as a whole or control over a piece of territory within the country, or they demand a country of their own with full sovereignty” with an aspiration to “national status and recognition” and achieves “any one of these goals either within an existing state or in a state of its own” it becomes “a nationality or a nation” (1991: 20). From this viewpoint, a nation “may be seen as a particular type of ethnic community, or, rather, as an ethnic community politicized, with recognised group rights in the political system” (ibid). It follows from this that “nations may be created by the transformation of an ethnic group in a multiethnic state into a self-conscious political entity or by the amalgamation of diverse groups and the formation of an inter-ethnic, composite or homogeneous national culture through the agency of the modern state” (ibid).

Nation State and Nation Building

When modern nation states came into being especially in Western Europe, the ethnic identities of many of the constituent groups within the nation states were lying dormant so much so that their ‘distinct’ identities were almost ignored. The concept of the nation state subscribed to a definition of nation that accords a central place to the idea of state in which the term ‘nation’ was held synonymous with the most dominant group within the so-called nation state. The idea working behind this concept of nation was that the smaller or marginal communities living within a particular nation state in course of time would assimilate with the dominant group or else over a period of time would move toward the formation of their own nation states.

It is this perception that has inspired the dominant group within the nation state to assimilate the other smaller constituents in the name of the nation-building exercise. In some cases, this exercise achieved relative success depending on the “effectiveness of their projects of cultural standardization” (Baruah 1999: 4). But in most of the cases this project faced serious problems. The dominant groups in these cases carried out their agenda of nation construction through the exercise of their influence in the economic, political, cultural, and demographic spheres without taking into consideration the ethos and aspirations of the smaller communities. The concept of nation-building thus comes to be metaphorically described by McCloskey as a “handsome neo- classical building in which political prisoners scream in the basement” (cited in Baruah 1999: 1) which treats people, as Bauer puts, as “lifeless bricks, to be moved by some master builder”(Ibid: 1).

At this stage, it is worthwhile to take note of Wallerstein’s observation on the phenomenon of nation-building. Addressing the question as to why should the establishment of any particular sovereign state within the interstate system create a corresponding ‘nation’, ‘a people’, he states that this happens as states in this system have problems of cohesion as they often face threat of both internal disintegration and external aggression. The creation of a ‘national’ sentiment reduces such a threat (Balibar and Wal1erstein 1998: 81). He writes, “(T)he government in power has an interest in promoting the sentiment, as do all sorts of subgroups within the state. Any group who sees advantage in using the state’s legal powers to advance its interests against groups outside the state or in any sub-region of the state has an interest in promoting nationalist sentiment as a legitimation of its claims. States furthermore have an interest in administrative uniformity that increases the efficacy of their policies. Nationalism is the expression, the promoter and the consequence of such state-level uniformities”(ibid: 2).

The attempt at creating such uniformities, however, leads to politico-economic and cultural suppression and marginalization of the smaller nationalities within these states. This eventually reinforces a sense of separate identity among the latter vis-à-vis the dominant community/communities as being deprived and repressed. In an attempt to politically mobilize this new identity consciousness, against the hegemonic designs of the centralizing state, the elites of the smaller nationalities take recourse to a project of cultural hegemony rooted in their history— partly real, but largely imagined — much after the model of the modern state. It is through this process that the nationality movements emerge in the modern nation state. Led by their elites, these movements mobilize themselves asking for more political, economic, and cultural rights from the state. The latter naturally attempts to subvert the aspirations of the smaller groups in order to maintain its existing status. This intensifies the political expression of the smaller groups even farther. However, the struggle of a nationality group demanding more rights and privileges for itself and its simultaneous interaction with the State, does not necessarily lead to the consolidation of its identity, it also often leads to the growth of fissiparous tendencies underscoring the existence of cleavages within it.

Nation and Nation Building in India

It has been pointed out that the post-independence Indian state despite its multi-ethnic character has been engaged in a project of nation building which subscribes to the western notions of nation-state in which, ideally speaking, language, religion, and political sovereignty have co-terminus boundaries. Dwelling on the overall nation-building experience in India and other parts of South Asia, Phadnis and Ganguly write, “post colonial nation-building approaches (in the region) focused almost exclusively on creating a unified ‘national identity’ based around either common political values and citizenship or a putative majoritarian ‘ethnic’ identity. The aim of both approaches, on the whole, has been to produce a pulverized and uniform sense of national identity to coincide with the state boundaries that seldom reflect ethnic divisions on the ground. This type of outlook towards nation-building, as promoted vigorously by the modernization school of thought, refused to accept the notion that states incorporating more than one ‘ethnic nation’ could be both stable and harmonious” (2001: 13).

Political scientist Ishtiaq Ahmed commenting on the nation-building enterprise in the South Asian elites argues, “(T)he elites which took over power at the time of British withdrawal were compelled by a host of internal and external pressures to reduce or eliminate the incongruence between state and society…the nation-building process in all…(the) countries have been confronted by serious separatist challenge. Each case of separatism constitutes a unique specimen of state-society contradiction…” (1996: 15).

This nation-building exercise that the post-independence Indian state adopted with the objective of the construction of a pan-Indian identity stood in the way of the fulfilment of economic, political, and cultural aspirations of various ethnic groups located within its territory fuelling protest movements among them. As Krishna says, “(W)henever state elites in the region (South Asia) have attempted to ride roughshod over the rights and aspirations of so-called peripheral minorities (religious, linguistic, regional, or other), the result has been either a violent partition/secession or that emergence of ethnonationalist movements that have attempted to achieve those ends.” (Ibid: 13-14).

This point finds support in other scholars too. Ghose and Chakrabarti, for example, point out that despite the recognition of the fact that the future survival of the nation-state in India would depend on acceptance of the plurality of nationalities, there continued to be a strong strain of thought that sought to do away with group identities in the name of national integration generating a lot of resistance in areas like the northeastern region of the country (cited in Misra 2000: 155).

On the other hand, these groups are also not homogenous identities. They are often constituted by a number of other smaller ethnic configurations living in geo-social proximity. This process of the formation of a crystallized ethnic identity by incorporating such smaller groups is still operative in several parts of India, especially its north-eastern region. It is to be recognized that prior to the establishment of the colonial rule, India did not exist as an integrated politico-territorial entity. There existed various nationality groups with different, if not conflicting, territorial and political loyalties. Quite a few of them emerged simultaneously with the pan-Indian identity and some even predated it. Some of these nationalities were engaged in their own project of cultural hegemony (Baruah 1999: 8).

The colonial regime, besides making India into an integrated politico-territorial entity, also created new regional politico-territorial units incorporating willy-nilly more than one, in most cases several, such nationalities. This integration, however, was impelled by the administrative and economic motives with the total exclusion of attempts to bind the territory with the feelings and emotions of nationalism. On the contrary, in order to continue its exploitation unabated, the colonial administration took full recourse to the policy of ‘divide and rule’, thereby also hindering the ongoing process of nationality formation among the above-mentioned nationality groups.

But colonial exploitation and repression, so universal throughout the British India, had instilled in various communities within it a common sense of bondage, as being deprived and marginalized. This in turn inspired them to fight united against the colonial regime. The fact that India long existed as a cultural and social entity, despite all its internal variations, helped. Although, the constitution of leadership of the Indian freedom movement was not exactly all Indian in character in that it did not have any noteworthy representation from the smaller or peripheral communities, not much opposition was raised against the former in view of the ultimate objective of the movement.

Eric Hobsbawm (1990: 164), thus, very aptly describes India as a polity that grew out of anti-colonial movement. It is in the wake of this movement that the Indian nationalist leadership woke up to the idea of one Indian nation by incorporating the various ethnic and linguistic entities within the colonial state. The Indian nationalist leadership tried to carry out this objective after independence in the name of the policy of nation-building, through its own project of cultural hegemony. However, some scholars point out that treating the Indian response to the British colonial rule under the unified title of the nationalist movement is nothing but a rarefied reading of the movement which is insensitive to the regional variations and is ideological in intent and character (Aloysius 1999: 6).

Regional Nationalist Identities and Linguistic States

Nevertheless, almost simultaneously to the independence of the country, demands came from various nationalities from its regions for a greater recognition of their identity within the new dispensation of the state. Language became the mainstay of this new identity aspiration. It posed a new challenge to the nation building exercise of the recently-independent Indian state.

The colonial state created territorial units that were not based on any obvious principle, except administrative convenience, and the quite accidental timing of conquests (Kaviraj 1999: 224). This practice gave, “…sub-colonial advantages for some linguistic groups, simply because those were the first to receive colonial education and formed the natural reservoir for personnel for colonial administrative expansion…Resentment against this kind of sub-colonial dominance was bound to find expression after independence…(M)ovements for regional autonomy began soon after independence with the demand for the recognition of an Andhra state (Ibid: 224-5).

The post-independence Indian State was initially unsympathetic to the demand for statehood based on distinct linguistic identity. Jawaharlal Nehru opposed such a scenario for fear of creating inward-looking states that would imperil the consolidation of Indian nationhood, and even encourage separatism (Tillin 2013). Political scientist Sudipta Kaviraj also holds that Nehru’s opposition to the linguistic states was due to the “anxiety that more homogeneous regional units might lead to the weakening of the political imagination of the Indian nation” (Kaviraj 1999: 225).

However, in the face of pressing demands, the States Reorganization Commission (1956), recommended the reorganization of states on linguistic lines and a number of new states were created staring with the creation of a separate Andhra state from the erstwhile Madras state as a result of a very strong campaign launched in the Andhra region in the early 1950s for the reorganisation of state boundaries around linguistic communities – rather than administrative histories. In the subsequent years, more linguistic states were created in south and west India. States were created for speakers of Kannada (present-day Karnataka), Malayalam (Kerala), Marathi (Maharashtra) and Gujarati (Gujarat); and later Punjab and Haryana were divided too (although religion, as well as language – Punjabi and Hindi – was at stake in the latter instance) (Tillin 2013).

Although the cultural foundation of India’s regionally based sub-nationalism was the languages of the region, the problem with the north-east region of the country arises from the fact that the region has so many linguistic groups that it is not realistically possible to reorganize it on linguistic lines. Assam, the home of the largest linguistic community in the region, viz., the Assamese, was for long a separate British province which incorporated many areas like the districts of Naga Hills (present Nagaland), Khasi and Jaintia Hills (present Meghalaya), and Lushai Hills (present Mizoram). These areas, after independence, have been made into separate provinces not on the basis of the linguistic principle. Rather, the guiding principle(s), singularly or collectively, that led to the making of these provinces were religion, race, geographical and physical distinctiveness, etc. beginning with the formation of separate province of Nagaland in 1963. Subsequently, states of Meghalaya and Mizoram were also created.

However, the demands for separate states from different regions did not stop. Creation of Jharkhand (bifurcating Bihar), Uttarakhand (from Uttar Pradesh) and Chhattisgarh (from Madhya Pradesh) in the year 2000 was in response to such demands. Statehood demands for Vidarbha (from Maharashtra), Budelkhand (from Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh) have been continuing for quite long. There has been demand for further division of Uttar Pradesh. Statehood demands for separate Gorkhaland (bifurcating West Bengal), Bodoland (from Assam), etc also have been there for quite some time now. A number of the statehood movements mentioned above, however, moved away from the language-based identity assertion and made regional inequality as the basis of their demand. The most recent example of this is the creation of the new state of Telangana by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh in 2014 although this demand can be traced back to late 1960s. Further, some scholars argue that such demands for creation of new states have to be understood in the context of the decentralization of political life and economic change in India (Tillin 2013).

Rise in the Politics of Regionalism

Politics of regionalism in India can be traced back to the Dravidian identity assertion in Tamil Nadu. Interestingly, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) of Tamil Nadu at an early stage asserted its aim for an independent state for the Dravidians. Although they dropped this idea afterwards, they vehemently opposed the move of the Central Government to introduce Hindi as the official language of Government of India in 1965 and it was mainly their opposition which prompted the Central government to continue with both Hindi and English as official languages of the Government of India. In April 1974, the DMK government brought in a resolution in the state assembly urging the Centre to accept the Rajamannar Committee

(http://interstatecouncil.nic.in/rajamannar.html) recommendations on state autonomy and amend the Constitution of India to pave the way for a true federal system.

Similarly, the Shiromani Akali in Punjab articulated their political, economic and cultural views in the Anandpur Sahib Resolution in 1973

(http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/punjab/document/papers/anantpur_sahib_re solution.htm). It clearly underscored that India is a federal and republican geographical entity of different languages, religions and cultures. It stated that in order to safeguard the fundamental rights of the religious and linguistic minorities, to fulfill the demands of the democratic traditions and to pave the way for economic progress, it was imperative that the Indian constitutional infrastructure should be given a real federal shape by redefining the Central and State relations.

Early 1980s witnessed the emergence of some new political parties such as the Telegu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh and Asom Gana Parishad in Assam asserting regional aspirations against the alleged domination of the Central government. Gradually, the country also saw the emergence of political parties like Shiv Sena in Maharashtra founded on anti-immigrant ideology. As Indians from one region have moved in far more greater numbers to another region in the last couple of decades, such anti-immigrant ideology has spread into various other parts of India in recent times posing questions about one Indian identity for all its citizens and the nation building exercise of the Indian state. As Aloysius puts, Indian “(N)ationalism, instead of giving birth to one national society, seems to have delivered a whole litter of communities divided from one another in terms of language, religion, region and caste” (1997 (2000): 1).

Secessionist Challenges

The regional nationalist assertion in India has not been confined only to the demand for creation of linguistic states or for fulfilment of other regional aspirations within the Indian nation state. The latter has had to face the challenges of secessionism from its various regions. Starting with the Naga insurgency in the northeastern region immediately after the independence, such secessionist movements had spread to other groups in the region such as the Mizos, the Manipuri Meteis, the tribal groups in Tripura and the Assamese. Since the early 1980s, the Khalistani insurgency in the state of Punjab assumed a serious turn. Similarly, separatist movement in Kashmir has been a continuous source of challenge to the Indian nation state. Although, Indian state has been negotiating with these movements by various means, sometimes with success, questions have also been raised about the faultlines that using of some of such means, especially military force and repressive laws, have unfolded.

It is, however, to be noted that the Indian state has tried to address the question of diversity of the country in terms of various constitutional provisions for a number of groups and states. In fact, much before the independence of the country, the leadership of the anti-colonial freedom movement acknowledged its staggering diversity which makes it impossible to imagine India in the frame of the western nation states. Therefore, they adopted an inclusive approach to the future nation building in India which was embedded in the phrase “unity in diversity” emphasizing an underlying unity of the people of India despite the differences in language, culture, history, and so on.

After the independence of the country, the leadership of the freedom movement got this understanding enshrined in various provisions of the constitutions. For example, backward groups and communities within the country have been accorded with various provisions to safeguard their political, cultural and economic interests. While the state of Jammu and Kashmir, a Muslim majority state, was given a special constitutional status under article 370, several states in the northeastern India, inhabited by a majority of tribal population, have also been given special constitutional status where the traditional customary laws of the tribal groups often get precedence over provisions of the Indian constitution. Similarly, many tribal communities which have not been given separate states have been given special status under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the constitution. This is how Indian state has accommodated not only regional aspirations but also the aspirations of the minorities and disadvantaged groups.

Despite a more inclusive constitutional mandate, critics point out that the Indian state often shows a tendency to engage in a project of cultural homogenization in the mold of the dominant Hindi-Hindu culture (Jaffrelot 1993; Hansen 1998) seeking to establish a culturally more uniform nation state. Oommen also contends, “the central issues of nation building in India revolve around the persistent tension between the Hindi-speaking twice born Hindus, who define themselves as the norm-setters and value-givers, the cultural mainstream, and a multiplicity of other primordial collectivities occupying the periphery of the system, depending upon their positioning in the socio-cultural space of India (1993: 473).

Such a tendency of privileging one set of language, culture and religion, mainly belonging to the politically and demographically dominant north India, over others pose to marginalize language, culture and religions of other regions as well as minority communities. In fact, within the followers of Hinduism too there are many and serious regional variations in terms of their rituals, customs and food habits. In a multi-cultural, multi-linguistic, multi-religious society like India, such attempts at homogenization have thus generated apprehensions among the communities which are at the receiving end of such homogenization projects. The attempt of the Government of India to introduce Hindi as the official language of India, for example, has faced repeated resistance time and again. The Anti-Hindi agitations of 1965 forced the central government to abandon its efforts to introduce Hindi as the only official language of the country and to continue with English as the other official language.

Further, the Indian Centre is enormously strong. In constitutional terms itself, India is a union of states. The Indian polity was so designed professedly to keep the newly independent nation with a large number of ethnic identities politically/territorially intact. But the power of the Centre vis-à-vis the states kept on growing far exceeding the original constitutional sanction. Such centralizing tendencies have given rise to rise of politics of regionalism in different parts of India.

Nevertheless, it is to be noted that many of these regional or sub-national articulations and movements, often steered by the interest of the regional elites, have been addressed by the Indian state within the broader framework of the Indian nation state. However, for a long term solution to the conflict between the nation building project of the Indian nation state and the aspirations of smaller nationalities and communities, scholars have argued for a creation of a federal state sensitive to the identities and aspirations of various groups within it. Misra, for example, advocates for “greater decentralization of powers and a radical restructuring of Centre-state relations” (2000: 161) as a solution to the problem.

Sanjib Baruah argues for a shift in the policy of the Indian State from nation building to that of federation building. Referring to the recurrent secessionist movements in the northeastern region of India, he says, “(O)nly a bold new project of genuine federation–building that takes our complex multinational history seriously — and framed as an alternative to nation-building — can become a viable alternative to independentist thought that captures the hearts and minds of so many young people in India’s troubled northeast” (2002: 37). Similar recommendations were made by the Sarkaria Commission (http://interstatecouncil.nic.in/Sarkaria_Commission.html), constituted by the Government of India, which submitted its report on the centre-state relationship in India in 1988. But these recommendations are yet to see implementation. There is no gainsaying that how Indian state negotiates between its concerns about the unity and security of the Indian nation and the rising aspirations of a large number of nationalities within its territorial boundary will largely shape the nature of the Indian nation and nationalism in the times to come.

In the above, we have discussed about the concepts of nation and the other related concepts such as nation state, nationality, nationalism and nation building. A nation is often confused with ethnic group and state. While a people sharing common myths, language, customs, history, religion, etc may constitute an ethnic group, to become a nation it must have an association with a homeland, real or imagined. The state, on the other hand, is a legally constituted institution. While, territory is common to both, there is a crucial difference between national territory and the state territory in that the former is a moral and the latter a legal entity. When the territorial boundary of a state is co-terminus with the cultural, linguistic and ethnic division of the people (nation) within it, it becomes a nation state. The concept of nation state based on the concept of ‘one nation, one state’ became a dominant mode of state forms in the Western Europe and subsequently came to inform the nation building projects of the newly independent states in various parts of the world including India.

The Indian state is constituted by many groups and nationalities. Some of these preceded and some emerged simultaneous to the Indian nation which grew out of the colonial rule in India. The anti-colonial rule gave rise to the idea of Indian nation and nationalism which went on to inform the nation building exercise of the post-independence Indian state. Although the Indian constitution offers a more inclusive mandate with regard to the Indian nation building, critics argue that the Indian state have been engaged in a project of cultural homogenization in the mold of the dominant culture seeking to establish a culturally more uniform nation state. This has stood in the way of political, economic and cultural aspirations of the smaller nationalities and other minorities prompting different kinds of protest and assertions among them. While the Indian state has achieved some success in addressing some of these issues and concerns, problems remain calling for a more inclusive nation building in India.

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Misra, Udayan 2000 The Periphery Strikes Back: Challenges to the Nation-State in Assam and Nagaland. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.
Oommen, T. K. 1993 “Insiders and Outsiders in India: Primordial Collectivities in Nation Building ”, in Understanding Indian Society. Ed. Yogesh Atal. Har-Anand Publications. New Delhi. 1997 Citizenship, Nationality and Ethnicity . Polity Press. Cambridge.
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National Identity and Patriotism – Essay for IAS Preparation

October 12, 2019 by Sandeep

The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose. – Richard Grant

A simple statement once made by Richard Grant, actually conveys a very powerful message. Human beings have and will always try to identify with or build themselves an object or an idea to identify with. Identity, as described in the Oxford Dictionary, is the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is.

This abstract commodity indulges a sense of uniqueness as well as a sense of unity in a person. Additionally, it makes the individual responsible towards his morals and his community, with which, he shares his identity.

Identity plays and important role in building a nation. Thus exists the idea of national identity; the sense of belonging to one nation. It promotes nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language. It also tends to give rise to a host of other ideas that people tend to incline towards.

For example, expressing one’s national identity in an extreme fashion. This usually is marked by the feeling that their nation is the most glorious of all and paves way to unchained and blind loyalty towards the nation. This extremist ideology is termed as chauvinism, an irrational belief of superiority. But if directed towards positive love for nation, having a sense of attachment and devotion to the motherland, National identity forms the basis of Patriotism.

For a country to prosper, it is important that it maintains internal and external stability. And that is only possible when its citizens have mutually shared respect and love for each other. National identity and patriotism as two important factors that help build such a mentality in population and take the nation on the road to development and peace.

Are you preparing for IAS Exam? Check out the UPSC 2020 linked article.

Concept of National Identity and Patriotism

Benedict Anderson, a notable historian and political scientist, has defined nation as an ‘imagined community’. It implies that a nation is formed on the basis of many factors that many individuals come together and imagine.

The foundation of this imagination is the deep-rooted camaraderie that the people share with each other. No matter the size of the country, or the foul exploits and inequality that might prevail in the community, it is this imagination that binds them together. Quoting Anderson to solidify the statement,

“Over the past two centuries for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willing to die for such limited imaginings.”

As earlier mentioned, national identity is a social concept that man generated which includes self-categorisation and effects. When a person categories himself as a part of a nation, he is affecting his emotions by inculcating the sense of belonging, identification and emotional attachment to the idea of nation.

These emotions charge the individual positively, which is not only beneficial to himself, but to the community as a whole. He is able to generate acknowledgement from his fellow citizens, which comes in the form of recognition, appreciation and motivation. This reinforces his feelings and makes him work selflessly towards the betterment of his nation.

National identity builds as a collective phenomenon which stems from the nation’s history. Beliefs, values, assumptions and expectations are networked around the society and mould a person’s perspective towards himself and the world.

But the concept of patriotism has fluctuated down the timeline of our nation. When the first signs of maltreatment’s began to erupt during the early British rule, those who revolted against them were considered to be the first patriots. Subsequently, the idea of patriotism that was prevailing in the pre-independence society was those who selflessly fought for the freedom of the nation.

Figures emerged all around the countries with ideologies varying from radicalism to non-violence, but a common goal of eradicating the colonial rule in the country. Contemporary to them, there existed patriots who worked for the empowerment of the oppressed in the existing Indian communities.

Two examples would be Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Ishwachandra Vidyasagar, who worked in the fields of social upliftment and educating the masses to help develop the community socially. Once they were successful, our independent nation was not yet devoid of enemies.

The torch of exemplary patriotism was passed down to the soldiers of our nation, who laid down their lives in wars to maintain the sovereignty of our nation. By the end of the twentieth century, the definition of patriotism was included those who contributed in the development of India socially, economically and technologically and defended the nation and national interests against anti-national organisations.

Instilling National Identity and Patriotism

India has been a model example of unity in diversity. It is a land where people practice almost all the religions in the world, speak variety of languages, celebrate a ton of festivals and follow multiple heritages and traditional practices. To bind such a country into a nation where cultures vary every few hundred kilometres, it is important to establish a common ground which will instil national identity amongst the citizens.

The preamble of our constitution defines an Indian citizen as sovereign socialist secular democratic. Hence, using specific religion, language, cultures and traditions is beyond the thought to be used as a factor to inculcate national identity. Instead using geographical, historical and abstract ideas as symbols do the work.

The most important of all of these symbols is the national flag, designed by an ardent freedom fighter from Andhra Pradesh, named Pingali Venkayya. The national flag had risen in the face of a huge crisis, the atrocities of the British Raj. It had united the oppressed Indians across the length and breadths of the nation to rise against the evil and achieve a common goal of independence.

The national flag is not only an iconic representation of our nation, but it also acts as the spirit of our nation. Hoisting the flag to mark an achievement is not only a proud moment for the individual who does so, but for the whole country who share the same pride with him.

Be it soldiers capturing enemy bunkers, mountaineers reaching summits, sports personalities winning the first place or reaching the moon. Every time the tricolour is unfurled in such situations, it sends an immense feeling of pride across every Indian heart.

In the similar way, our national anthem as well as our national song binds the country into one melodious harmony. The verses penned by two of the greatest figures of literature’s Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim C. Chattopadhyay, captures the essence of the nation and the responsibility which each and every citizen has towards it.

Additionally, our leaders decided to create more symbols and ideologies that would function as the said ‘common ground’ to instil national identity. The peacock, the tiger, lotus and the lion capital- all are the said examples that every Indian should be familiar with and must honour.

While passive devotion and love for one’s nation arises out of national identity, proactive display of selflessness towards the nation will only be undertaken by a patriot. Patriotism is an attribute that is derived from the deep empathy that lies within every human being. In some it is active, while in some, it is dormant.

Patriotism can hence, only be induced in a person once he understands that his well-being lies in the well-being of the others. If from a tender age, a person is made aware of the rich heritage of our country, the struggle for independence and the sacrifices that people have made for their nation, they will start valuing the moral of selflessness and keeping the nation first.

The brightest and the most successful of the leaders that have emerged be it during the 100 years of war that we fought for our freedom or developing our nation into a powerful economy, they all have patriotism as a common aspect of their personality.

The ideas of national identity and patriotism have existed for centuries together on this planet. The first nations that had developed in the western segment had initiated this ideology and ever since, it has been always utilized to cater to the public interest. But the flow has not been smooth. There have been many a issues that have arisen and challenge the viability of national identity and patriotism.

Ethnic Identity is one of the major threats to national integrity, especially in our country. The varieties of ethnic groups that exist in India have often come into conflict when it comes to empower their ethnic identity. The history bears witness to the Khalistan Movement that originated around 1971 amongst the Sikh diaspora.

It was subdued by operation Bluestar but it cost us our first woman prime minister’s life. Even in the modern times, there are separatist organisations continuously batting for country-hood of their ethnic states in the north-east. The ULFA, Naga National Council, NLF Tripura, etc. are some examples.

Another problem that arises is due to immigration. India has seen two massive scale immigration’s, one on the western front during the partition, the other on liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 on the eastern front. Immigration leads to in-flow of people from other countries or regions outside the governance of the nation they are arriving in. They bring their own lifestyles and culture with them, which may or may not be shared by the people of the country.

It gets difficult for a nation to encourage the immigrants to develop a national identity. For India, it has not been a big problem since both the times, immigration had occurred from parts of territories that once belonged inside its borders. So the cultural gap was not unbridgeable. Still, the fact that immigrants might be considered outsiders and stand a probability to be alienated looms as a threat to a healthy national identity.

Globalisation also is a major challenge to national identity. This ideology promotes ‘global community’ through various actions like foreign exchange, trade, tourism and education. It instils the sense of common values that the people of the world possess and view themselves world citizens.

While morally, it sounds very compelling, this trend makes it difficult for the prevalence of national identity as it undermines the importance of being a citizen of your own country.

Finally, the aspect of a person’s civil identity clashing with his national identity can cause a massive problem in keeping the integrity of a nation. The biggest example of this is the Kashmir issue, which has been exploited by both the contesting countries and remains unresolved.

Today, after more than seventy years since we were liberated from the colonial rule, India has once again come under fire of multiple crises. Ranging from security issues like terrorism, Maoism, civil riots to social problems like poverty, unemployment, women’s safety to economic scams and corruptions.

There is a plethora of maladies that India suffers from. This is not because modern Indians are devoid of a national identity. Every Indian, no matter where he is, will never deny his origins and nationality. But that is not enough for us to solve the problems. We have to take responsibility and become self-driven in tackling the issues that we face today. Our ancestors fought the British so that we could live in an independent nation.

The patriotism that they had in their blood, serve as a model source of inspiration for us. Our main goal is to free our nation from the socio-economic issues that are eating through it from the inside. Simultaneously, we should also focus on developing our nation so that it can stand as a world power and commands the respect of other countries around the globe.

Importance of Patriotism Essay

To be a patriot means to zealously love and support one’s country and its interests. In other words, a patriot is someone who is loyal to his motherland, its people and the political system and works for its development. Being a patriotic does not mean to abide by the words of the individuals who are in power. It is the loyalty towards the country and its political system and not towards any political leader.

In India Patriotism is closely associated with nationalism though the two differ slightly. Patriotism is identified with valor, sacrifice and indomitable love for the motherland. It had played a significant role in freedom struggle and still does in keeping the nation united against any threat.

Long and Short Essay on Importance of Patriotism in English

Here are short and long essay on Importance of Patriotism of varying lengths to help you with the topic in your exams/school assignments.

After reading the Importance of Patriotism essay you will know what is patriotism and significance of patriotism.

You can select any Essay according to your requirement for the school/college debate, essay writing competitions or other similar occasions.

Short Essay on Importance of Patriotism – Essay 1 (200 words)

Patriotism is the love and respect for one’s country. It is not about blindly following the beliefs and cultural values of the country. It is to take pride in one’s origin and work for the prosperity of the country. Patriotism is very important. The feeling must especially be born in the youth of the country so they act as responsible citizens. Youth is the future of the nation and for the bright future of the country it is important for them to protect and preserve the nation and act in its best interest to make it outshine.

We should stop complaining about the flaws of our government and instead work for the growth and development of the country. It is better to be the change first to bring the change. It is important to love the nation we live in and focus more on what it has given to us and what we can give back to it. We need to be united and stand together for the progress of the country for its improvement.

It is important to show patriotism in our actions and be proud of the country we live in. We all need to always stay united and devoted for the betterment of our nation.

Essay on Patriotism: Love of the Country – Essay 2 (300 words)

Introduction

Patriotism is the feeling of love and devotion for one’s country and a sense of alliance and brotherhood with its citizens. It is to unconditionally support and respect the nation. Patriotism develops naturally and is important for the protection of a country’s culture and historical heritage. It is to take pride in representing one’s nation.

Patriotism: Love of the Country

Love of the nation and the zeal to submit oneself to any kind of hardships for the sake of one’s county is patriotism. It inspires people to live, love, fight and die for the country. For a patriot, no sacrifice is big enough when it comes to protect the honour of his country. He can even sacrifice his life for his nation. Freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Jawaharlal Nehru and many more fought for the freedom of our nation. They were true patriots that invoked the feeling of patriotism in numerous other citizens.

Love of the country can be a combination of many different aspects related to one’s nation such as cultural, political, traditional or historical aspects. Some define patriotism as the attachment to one’s land. Patriotism involves love for the citizens of the nation and the urge to live in harmony with all regardless of gender, ethnicity, race and religion. We cannot love our country without loving its people. The unity and oneness among people can only lead to the progress and development of the nation. Patriotism also involves serving the nation. It is about going ahead and volunteering to serve the nation and its people whenever need be. It is about abiding the laws and acting responsibly by paying taxes.

To conclude, we can say patriotism primarily means to serve the nation and its citizens. It is to stay united and make our nation a better place to live in. It is to take pride in our nationality.

Essay on Patriotism and Love for My Country – Essay 3 (400 words)

Patriotism is the feeling of love and respect for one’s country and a sense of comradeship with its citizens. It is the attachment to one’s land – its cultural, historical, social and political aspects.

The Feeling of Patriotism

Patriotism is not just love and respect for one’s country but also the will to serve it. A true patriot is an active worker who works for the progress and development of his country. He takes pride in representing his nation. A patriot is one who fights for the freedom and peace of his country. There are occasions when one has to selflessly serve the nation and sacrifice personal pleasure and leisure. Patriots don’t even hesitate to scarify their life for the nation.

Mahatma Gandhi and other prominent leaders of his era infused the feeling of patriotism in Indians due to which we gained independence from the British rule. There are many patriots who selflessly serve the nation and do not hesitate to sacrifice their comfort and happiness for their motherland. Indian army men are the best examples of true patriots.

Patriots Serve the Nation Selflessly

We have also seen many patriots in the past. Subhash Chandra Bose, Tipu Sultan, Bhagat Singh, Rani Lakshmibai, Jawaharlal Nehru and Chandrashekhar Azad are some of the great patriots of India. A true patriot may not think that his country is the best but still love his country and work hard to make it a better place. Patriots work for the betterment of their country and welfare of their fellow beings.

It is our moral duty to support and love our own mother land. The feeling of patriotism is important for many reasons. Without the feeling of patriotism our country would not develop. Imagine if the soldiers did not fight for the country selflessly then it would be hard for the country to protect itself from the enemies jeopardizing its safety.

We owe the freedom of our country to the patriots who fought for our country and those guarding it. Without them we would not enjoy the independence. We must be proud of the achievements our nation attained in the past and should also be proud of the present achievements. We must work hard for its development and prosperity.

If we do not have patriotic feelings or develop patriotic feelings in our children then who is going to step forward to eradicate social evils or fight for the country? Love for the country is the feeling that naturally develops like the love for family. I love my country very much and am proud of it.

Essay on Patriotism in India and Youth – Essay 4 (500 words)

Patriotism is the feeling of love, respect and pride for one’s country. The elderly citizens of India, especially those who have seen the hardships during the freedom struggle, feel that the youth of the country are not patriotic. However, this is not true. The thought process of the youth of the country is just a bit different from the earlier generations.

The youth of India doesn’t believe in blindly following the idea of loving everything about the nation. They believe in themselves and own up the responsibility towards nation. They show love in their actions by working hard and making their country a better place in whatever way they can.

Contribution in Country’s Development: A Reflection of Love

While there may be some youngsters who sit back and criticize the government and the system of the country most of them work hard to make the country a better place to live. Our country has developed rapidly as we all are united and have worked together for the progress of the nation. We have better education system, improved healthcare, better infrastructure and a stable economy.

It is the efforts of the youth of our country that have paid off. The youth today is hardworking and intelligent and is serving the country in its own unique way. Their contribution in various fields that has led to the development of the country is their reflection of love for the country.

Youth of India Raises Voice to Eradicate Evil

The youth of India is not diplomatic or political. It is direct in its approach and voices its opinion straight from the heart. Youth wants the country to be a better place by eliminating the bad. They want to end social evils like rapes, corruption and terrorism.

The youth of India is constantly active on social media and raises voice on various social issues like depression, suicides, trolling and other such evils that harm the people of our society. They should not be misunderstood or underestimated as they are the future of the nation.

Accepting Change for Country’s Development

Youth is the most important part of the country and they do not want to damage their nation or its image. They don’t want to destroy the culture but want to change with the changing time and that’s what progress is. Youth is ready to accept western culture and ideas that benefit our society. Overall youth is interested in the development of the nation. They want the nation to develop not only economically but also culturally. They are more thoughtful, supportive and appreciative towards the natives of their community.

Patriotism among youth is seen in socio-economic and political terms. They are well educated and independently vote for their ideal leaders. They not only just vote for their leaders but are also capable of criticizing and questioning them when required. They are well aware that it is the government of people, for the people and by the people.

Youth wants the country to be a safe and better place where they can live freely. They want their voice to be heard, understood and accepted in the society. They love their country and want to work in the favour of the nation and its people.

Long Essay on Importance of Patriotism – Essay 5 (600 words)

Patriotism is the feeling of love for one’s motherland. Patriotism lies in our actions. It is the zeal with which we work towards the betterment of the nation. It is the pride that we feel in representing our nation. One who is ready to actively support his country and is ready to do anything for it is a patriot. It is the natural attachment and the feeling of respect for the land where we are born and grow.

Importance of Patriotism in Life

It is important to practice patriotism in everyday life and volunteer to work for the progress of the nation. This includes paying taxes, obeying the laws, voting and being active to bring about social and economic welfare. It is standing up for views and ideas in the favour of the community.

Patriotism is the kind of motivation that motivates people to work hard for the progress of the nation. It is to never let go of the unity in diversity and to dutifully stand in the face of any kind of tyranny. It is the desire and passion to serve the nation in any way one can.

Common Good: Patriotism is important for the welfare of the community. It is a common commitment that the citizens make by accepting their responsibility to work together with other members of the community for the welfare and progress of the nation. Everyone shares equal rights here and the progress and development of every single individual leads to the development of our country.
Loyalty: The concept of patriotism includes loyalty towards the country and its constitution. Patriots are loyal to their motherland. It is like being loyal to the family. A family would break if we have internal disputes and are not loyal to one another. Same way it is important to remain loyal to our nation.
Love and Affection: Patriotism is not only the love for the country but also the love for the citizens of the nation. It includes the feeling of love and affection for the people and being united even in diversity.
Equal Rights: In a direct democracy, all the citizens have equal rights and the government represents the will of all the people. Irrespective of the caste, religion, community and sex of the individual the laws for all the citizens are the same. It is enjoying the same rights and unity in diversity. A patriot will always actively participate in the elections by voting to choose his leader or change his leader for the welfare of his community. It lends strength to the people of the nation.
End of Evils: Patriotism must be seen in every action of the citizens. We must not indulge in unlawful acts such as cheating on customers, paying less tax, seeking bribe, exploiting the vulnerable, adding more water to the milk and other corrupt practices.
Philanthropic Act: Patriotism reflects in philanthropic acts. Serving our fellow citizens is the best we can do. We must help people in need and relieve suffering by giving time, effort or money. It is to voluntarily act to improve the quality of life of people around.

So modern day patriotism is not just about sacrificing life for the country but it is to act responsibly for the welfare of the nation and its citizens. It is not just to accept ideas but also to take stand for your own ideas and opinions. Patriotism can be practiced in our day to day actions by doing small deeds to serve our nation. The progress and development of community, city, state or the nation depends on its people.

Related Information:

Essay on Patriotism

Essay on Nationalism

Speech on Patriotism

National Integration Essay

Speech on National Integration

Money essay, music essay, importance of education essay, education essay, newspaper essay, my hobby essay.

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Patriotism Essay - 100, 200, 500 Words

Essay on patriotism -.

Patriotism can be defined as the attachment and commitment that one feels towards their` country or nation. Being a "good citizen" in the traditional sense means to have a sense of patriotism, sometimes known as "being patriotic". Those who love their country and desire to defend it against enemies are called patriots. Patriotism is one’s desire to show respect and love for their country and fellow citizens.

100 Words Essay On Patriotism

“Citizenship consists in the service of the country.”- Jawaharlal Nehru .

The term "patriotism" refers to loyalty and respect for one's country . Patriotism signifies a devotion to a specific political community but not necessarily to its current system of government. Patriotism can be defined in several ways, emphasising different aspects of the concept.

Scholars have proposed various definitions of patriotism. One such definition holds that patriotism strengthens national bonds and fosters national loyalty when people of the country share a common belief in their country's superiority and show affection for national symbols. Scholars have agreed on patriotism in support of nationalism based on superiority and foreign sovereignty.

200 Words Essay On Patriotism

The slogan given by Subhash Chandra Bose - "Give me blood, and I will give you freedom", shows their patriotism and determination towards the country.

Patriotism has a protective nature, both aggressive and cultural . Patriotism is proof that a country is united in pursuing a common goal. Patriotism is a term that has no intention of putting pressure on other people, and it defines a place that is the best in the world and has the best lifestyle and people's boundaries toward this idea. Social psychologists emphasise the primary characteristics of patriotism as loyalty, love, and desire to belong to a country. Patriotism is not the same for everyone; it is not just to sacrifice one’s life; one can even show patriotism by giving selfless services to the country.

Finally, patriotism may be viewed as a social construct that emerges gradually because of an individual's cultural engagement. It is usual for individuals to express their love and compassion for places they adore, just as it is natural for children to express their love for their parents and the organisations in which they engage. However, throughout the process of developing nations, individuals felt that they were members of society far more significant than themselves.

500 Words Essay On Patriotism

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.” - George Bernard Shaw .

The concepts of "loyalty," "commitment," and "dedication" are essential to the concept of "patriotism." In its most condensed form, patriotism is a person's passion for their country or nation and is one of the oldest political virtues. Its appeal is more emotional than analytical and requires accepting responsibility for the political system or state. Patriotism is based on an often-unspoken idea, the political equivalent of the saying "blood is thicker than water," reminding individuals that they should prioritise their family over all others.

How Is Patriotism Expressed

Patriotism can be expressed using the terms "love for country", and nationalism, also known as "loyalty to one's nation," are sometimes used interchangeably. Nationalism, sometimes mistaken for patriotism, refers to a distinct phenomenon: the actual or aspirational merger of a shared ethnicity and state sovereignty. Real patriots (our freedom fighters) showed the true meaning of patriotism by sacrificing their own lives for the sake of our country. The freedom we enjoy in terms of economic, social, political and cultural aspects is due to them only.

Patriots | Patriotism was extreme in India at the time of British reign. Some of the greatest patriots are Shaheed Bhagat Singh, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar Lal Nehru and much more, who contributed the utmost for the freedom of our country.

Nationalism and Patriotism

Nationalism and patriotism are two expressions that demonstrate an individual's connection to their country. People tend to believe that they mean the same thing but that there is a significant difference between nationalism and patriotism. While nationalism emphasises the inheritance of language and cultural unity, patriotism emphasises values and beliefs and aims to achieve love for the country and nation.

Patriotism comes from a country's freedom, justice, and equality principles. A patriot believes that the country's government and people are decent and strive for a better life. Nationalists believe that their country is superior to the others. This also implies distrust or disapproval of other nations, implying that they are competitors. Nationalists often demand worldwide dominance, whereas patriots do not.

Examples Of Patriotism

Patriotism can be seen by standing for the national anthem and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The most common way to show patriotism is to help in nation-building and economic growth. However, there are other ways of representing patriotism.

Voting in elections

Proudly displaying your country's achievements

·Paying taxes and obeying all laws

Celebrating national holidays

Buying local items

Volunteering

Pros And Cons Of Patriotism

Few nations survive and thrive without some level of patriotism among their citizens. People come together to overcome obstacles because they have a love of the nation and a sense of shared pride. The possible drawback of patriotism is that if it turns into a political doctrine, it may cause individuals to turn against one another and even cause the nation to abandon its core principles.

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EssayBanyan.com – Collections of Essay for Students of all Class in English

Essay on Patriotism

Patriotism is identified by a sense of responsibility and love towards the motherland and fellow citizens. The principle of service before self is eccentric to patriotism.

Short and Long Essays on Patriotism in English

I am giving below three essays of different word lengths for my readers.

Patriotism Essay 10 Lines (100 – 150 Words)

1) The feeling of love and respect for the country and its people is called patriotism.

2) A patriotic is a person that always chooses the nation before everything.

3) Patriotism is the devotion and attachment to the nation.

4) A true patriot can even sacrifice his life for the country.

5) Patriotism is a feeling that encourages people to contribute to the nation.

6) Honesty, bravery, and courage can be found in a patriotic person.

7) Patriotism is helpful in a country’s development and growth.

8) Patriotic citizen is respected everywhere.

9) Soldiers are the true patriot of our nation.

10) Patriotism helps to establish peace and harmony in society.

Essay 1 (250 Words) – What is Patriotism and its Significance

Introduction

Patriotism is a feeling that encourages service to the motherland as the utmost priority. Responsibility for the nation becomes more significant than one’s own personal life or issues. Patriotism in one line could be expressed as ‘service before self’ where service refers to the ‘service to the nation.’

Identifiers of Patriotism

There are some certain identifiers of patriotism. They are clear signs indicating the existence of patriotism in a person or in a community. Some of the most prominent identifiers are listed below –

Unconditional love for the nation.
A general concern for the state of fellow citizens.
Zeal to protect the nation from external threats as well as internal conflicts.
Unity among the masses belonging to different backgrounds, keeping in mind the larger interest of the nation.
A sense of accountability to the state of the nation.
A sense of service towards the nation and its people.
Upholding the principles of democracy and the rights of fellow citizens at all costs.

Significance of Patriotism

Patriotism is an important prerequisite for the progress of a nation, more significantly so for a nation as culturally diverse as India. It is patriotism that unites Indians belonging to different religions and cultures and compels them to work for the overall good of the nation and its people.

Patriotism unites people, who keep service to the nation before self and protect the rights of each other, upholding the principles of democracy.

Patriotism is at the core of national development. It unites people to defend their nation and also to work for its growth and prosperity.

Essay 2 (300 – 400 Words) – Patriotism and its Examples

The word ‘patriotism’ had been eccentric to the Indian freedom struggle, even long before that. It was patriotism that had united people from different backgrounds together. In this essay we will understand a simple definition of patriotism; some examples of patriotism and its significance.

Patriotism in Simple Words

In simple words, patriotism is a sense of responsibility, love, and respect towards one’s nation. It is also identified by a sense of unity as well as concern for other citizens. A patriot puts the nation first, before his/her own issues. It is identified by a deep sense of duty towards the nation even above self.

Examples of Patriotism

Indian freedom struggle is the best example of patriotism. When East India came to India, the latter was a disintegrated group of small to large kingdoms, having their own governance and rules.

Subsequent British atrocities and unjust trade policies instilled unrest among the original inhabitants of the continent. This unrest consequently led to a territorial unity arising more out of the need of the time than anything else.

Kingdoms and their subjects knew that they have to stay united if they ever have to fight the British out of their land. This developed the concept of one nation that is India and zeal to defend her freedom and the right of her inhabitants. This feeling of risking ones’ own life for the freedom of the nation and her people is nothing but patriotism.

The history of Indian freedom struggle is replete with many patriots who never gave it a second thought before sacrificing their lives and belongings for the freedom of the motherland.

Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, Mahatma Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai are few patriotic names that have given their all to the service of the nation.

Modern Day Patriotism

Patriotism today has become a broader concept than it was a century before. Today, patriotism is in participating in national development and taking part in national festivals, enthusiastically. It is not necessarily identified by fighting for the nation and for the rights of its people, but also by working for its improvement and ensuring the prevalence of democracy.

Patriotism is an essential requirement for democracy to be established and for it to be successful. India is a perfect example of how patriotism acts as the binding principle between different communities, who together participate in nation-building keeping the interest of the nation before self.

Essay 3 (500 – 600 Words) – Types and Qualities of Patriotism

Patriotism is a sense of love for one’s motherland and ethnic roots. There is much similarity between patriotism and nationalism, but the former includes a patriotic and unconditional love for the motherland. It is an ideology that inspires citizens to defend their motherland till their last breath.

Types of Patriotism

There are primarily two types of patriotism namely, blind patriotism and constructive patriotism, that we will discuss now.

Blind Patriotism

Blind patriotism is identified by a strong and assertive love for the nation and heritage, often compromising with human rights. Let us understand it with a simple example – Self-declared patriotic groups harassing couples at market places and parks, in the name of preserving the conservative culture of the land, is an example of blind patriotism. People of groups with blind patriotism; tend to think that their ideology is in the best interest of the nation, even if it sidelines the basic principles of democracy and human rights.

Constructive Patriotism

Unlike blind patriotism, constructive patriotism has democratic principles at its core. There is a feeling of oneness and a sense of responsibility towards fellow citizens. There is also an urge to contribute to the nation’s progress and growth as well as its safety. The concept of constructive patriotism is to put the interest of the nation before self. It is constructive patriotism that compels a soldier to defend his/her national borders as a primary duty. His/her own family comes after the service to the nation and its safety.

Qualities of Patriotism

There are few qualities of patriotism that are evident in the person or in the society. When we talk about the qualities of patriotism, it must be kept in mind that it is constructive patriotism that we are talking about. Following are some of the qualities of patriotism –

Love for the nation

Patriotism includes an undeniable love for the nation. There is a visible zeal in the person or community, for doing something for their motherland. It could be anything from defending territories to helping fellow citizens to take part in national activities.

Concern for Fellow Citizens

This is also an important quality of patriotism identified by a sense of responsibility and accountability towards fellow citizens. For example, a soldier defends the boundaries keeping in mind that he/she is defending the millions of families of fellow citizens. Similarly, a patriot will always long for helping fellow citizens in need. There is a general sense that the nation is not separate from its inhabitants and the interest of both needs to be protected.

Sense of Sacrifice

This is indeed the most important characteristic of patriotism. A true patriot never hesitates in sacrificing his/her own life to the service of the nation. There is even a sense of pride in sacrificing all for the nation. Patriots don’t repent their losses; rather they derive pleasure from the sacrifices.

Taking part in nation-building

You don’t necessarily need to be a soldier or a revolutionary to be a patriot. You can be a simple citizen engaged in his/her day to day activities, yet be patriotic. If you take part in nation-building activities, participate in national festivals, keeping always the growth of the nation and concern for fellow citizens, you too are very much a patriot.

Patriotism must be viewed together with unity, love for the nation and citizens, and also an urge to do something for the nation. It is not a separate entity but the inclusion of many nationalistic feelings and activities with the interest of the nation and its people at the core.

FAQs: Frequently Asked Questions

Ans . The word patriotism has been derived from the Latin word ‘Patria’ that means country.

Ans . We should stand in attention whenever national anther is sung.

Ans . We can show love to our country by becoming good and responsible citizens of the nation.

Ans . East Germany is stated as the least patriotic country in the world.

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Dr Ambedkar’s vision on Nationalism and National Integration

This article is written by Dhananjai Singh Rana , Student, BBA LLB (Hons.), Amity Law School Noida. The article deals with the deliberation on the life and teachings of Dr BR Ambedkar and his ideologies.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Dr B.R Ambedkar was the architect of the Indian Constitution and was also India’s first Law and Justice Minister. He devoted his complete life to combat the annihilation of caste by proliferating a motion against the evils of sophistication discrimination. Being himself a Dalit, he made all his efforts to vary the hierarchical structures of Indian society and restoration of the same rights/justice to the marginalized and abolition of untouchability. He stood for an entire reorganization and reconstruction of the Hindu society at the precept of equality unfastened from casteism. He encouraged equality of possibility. He opted for non-violent and constitutional strategies for the sake of resolution of social issues.

B. R Ambedkar- History

Dr B R Ambedkar was born in 1891 into an untouchable caste, stated as mohar – a bunch which was regarded by the British as ‘inferior village servants’. He experienced racial discrimination from an early age, which he defined vividly in his later writings. When at the University, he was not even allowed to touch the taps to quench his thirst and was only allowed to drink water from the tap if it was opened by someone from the upper caste. Ambedkar’s father was a respectable soldier in the Indian Navy and wanted his sons to be educated. At that point, instructors were often reluctant to interact with Dalit youngsters, frequently refusing to mark their exams. Ambedkar turned out to be first in his community to graduate high school and went on to pursue BA in economics and politics at Bombay University, where he met Saraji Rao, the maharajah of the princely kingdom of Baroda. The Maharajah turned into a lively suggestion of social reforms, inclusive of the removal of untouchability. He subsidized Ambedkar’s further education abroad, first at Columbia University, where he finished his Master’s and his PhD, and later at London School of Economics.

All through this period, Ambedkar studied economics, records, and politics, and wrote on a variety of topics, inclusive of the records of caste in India. There’s additional proof in his letters about his perception on schooling as a path to progress, with a specific emphasis on lady schooling. In 1917, Ambedkar’s studies were disrupted with the aid of the conflict and accordingly the termination of his scholarship. He became obliged to go back to India, where he was forcibly reminded of his untouchable reputation, something which he had been incapable of escaping even in the west.

He was even appointed as a Professor at the Sydenham University of Trade and Economics in Bombay, where he was subjected to racial discrimination by his fellow mates. This was the time when he started to campaign in support of Dalit rights. In 1919, he gave proof to British of the desire of separate electorates and reserved seats for untouchables and spiritual minorities, before the Government of India Act, 1919 which laid the first (very limited) foundations for Indian self-authorities. In 1920, he started a weekly Marathi paper, which strongly criticized the caste hierarchy and concerned a Dalit awakening and mobilization towards equality. He also gave motivational lectures convened via the maharajah of Kolhapur, both of which culminated in powerfully symbolic inter-caste dining. It was with the aid of the maharajah of Kolhapur that he was able to return to London and complete his studies at LSE, and his criminal education at Grey’s Hotel.

On his return to Bombay in 1924, Ambedkar intensified his campaign for social reform by establishing the Basharat Hankering Sabha (Group for the Wellbeing of the Excluded) to market socio-political awareness among the Dalits and lift public awareness of their grievances. Over the subsequent twenty years, he played a key role in organizing the untouchables. He created Dalit newspapers, social and cultural institutions, attended more conferences of the Depressed Classes, initiated protests against discrimination in temple entry and access to water, and passionately promoted Dalit access to education. At an equivalent time, he took opportunities offered by the British government to petition for political rights, even on occasions when the Indian National Congress chose to boycott the constitutional reform discussions, for instance during the Simon Commission. He also founded two political parties to contest elections that were granted by the British in 1937 and 1946, although these had little success against the well-resourced Congress Party.

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Views on Nationalism

Dr Ambedkar was a social reformer who at the very youth of his career realized what it meant to be an untouchable and the way struggle against untouchability might be launched. The social movement of the caste Hindus couldn’t win him to their side due to his existential understanding of the pangs of untouchability. The problem of untouchability for social reformers was a serious issue. This problem was exterior to them in the sense that it affected only the untouchables. They had never experienced the sinister blows of untouchability.

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s perception of Indian nationalism started with different objectives, which amounted to the welfare of the marginal section of the society. He wanted equality and civic rights for those persons who were bereft of them for thousands of years. Without the upliftment of the lower strata of the society, a nation can’t get momentum for its overall development and can’t have strength in real sense. He had full faith within the greatness and traditional culture of his country and therefore the dignity of his countrymen. Nationalism in him started as a protest, both external domination, and internal oppression. He held the British Empire liable for the negligence of the welfare of Indian people. He argued that status granted to people was “midway between that of the surf and therefore the slave”. Consistent with him, these enforced servility and bar to human intercourse as the consequences of the untouchablity practice, which involved not merely the likelihood of discrimination social life. He said that our government would amend the entire social and economic code of life without the abolition of untouchability.

A nation can’t get united and national brotherhood couldn’t be appreciated by the untouchable and even higher castes. The British government would never be ready to play such a risk. For that purpose, it required a government, which is “of the people, for the people, and by the people” that will make this possible. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar remarked, “British government didn’t energetically and enthusiastically work for the restoration of the rights of the depressed classes and it didn’t exercise its power to counterfeit the problems faced by the untouchables.” Unless the citizens of India secured political power and unless that power was concentrated within the hands of the socially suppressed section of Indian society, it might not be possible to completely wipe out all social, legal, and cultural disabilities under which that section suffered. His main objective was the liberty of the people. Without freedom, nationalism becomes a way of internal slavery, forced labour, and arranged tyranny for the poor and servile classes. Dr Babasaheb argued that “it is entirely wrong to concentrate all our attention on the political independence of our country and to forget the foremost significant issue of social and economic independence. It’s disastrous to imagine that political independence necessarily means real all-sided freedom”.

Views on National Integration

The nation-building has been a posh phenomenon as it covers overall development of nation-state i.e. economic development, increases the spread of literacy, development of mass media, social development, and military strength. The approach of nation-building within the late 20th century has necessarily varied to be with the statecraft of Machiavelli and Hobbs. Before the independence, nation-building denoted techno-economic tasks of the sort performed by government agencies just like the railways, structure department, etc. Nation-building may be a continuous process as it’s a search for perfection, which remains an ever-changing phenomenon. Thus, no nation can claim to have been built to a T. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar’s contribution to the state building is his direct participation and role within the formulation of certain development policies and planning.

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was involved in policy making, once as a Law Minister within the central cabinet of independent India during 1947-51, and earlier as a member of the Viceroy’s Council, responsible for the labour, irrigation and power portfolios. Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was an eminent economist. He was the first Indian to write down the comprehensive economic study, including theoretical issues also as concrete economic problems. He was the primary Indian to write down on national dividend for India, a historic and analytical study. His ideas regarding economic policy, and administration, provincial autonomy and problems of Indian people, poverty, unemployment and inequalities, stagnant agriculture, and distorted industrialization were outstanding. His assertions that (i) social exploitation and injustice were prevalent in every country and (ii) political and economic phenomena were hooked into one another are relevant even today.

He approached and examined the issues with such foresight that his analysis and treatment of a number of them are extremely relevant even today. He got his M.Sc. for his thesis on, “The evolution of provincial finance in British India” and he was awarded D.Sc. for his thesis on, “The problem of the rupee”. His evidence before the Hilton-Young commission was his important contribution to the discussion of the currency problem in India. On different occasions, he has addressed the issues of landless labourers, smallholdings, khoti system, collective farming, land revenue, and the abolition of landlordism. He has expressed his thoughts on the nationalization of industries, food position, socialism, and social equality. In his budget speeches, he had also discussed taxation problems.

Other important works and teachings

Dr Ambedkar expressed his views on Caste through his piece titled “ Caste in India: Their Mechanism, Genesis and Development ” before the Anthropological Seminar of Dr A.A. Goldenweiser, the Columbia University, New York, USA, on 9th May 1916 for his Doctoral Degree. He described the class structure of Hindu society from the Anthropological point of view. He observed that the population of India may be a mixture of Aryans, Dravidians, Mongolians, and Scythians. These came into India from various directions bearing various cultures, norms, and traditional systems. They gradually came down as peaceful neighbours. Through communication, mutual contact, and sexual activity they evolved a standard culture. Ethnically, all people are heterogeneous. It’s the unity of culture that’s the idea of homogeneity. He believed in intermarriage. To him, the superimposition of endogamy and exogamy means the creation of caste. He described four causes of disparity between men and women. These are: (a) burning the widow together with her deceased husband; (b) compulsory widowhood by which a lady isn’t allowed to remarry; (c) imposing celibacy on the widower; (d) getting him married to a woman not married.

To sum up, all the thoughts of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar bear implicit and explicit impact on the learned; also as illiterate members of Dalit communities. These thoughts have played an important role when most of the social and political leadership seemed distracted by its social concerns. As has been mentioned earlier, Dr. Ambedkar was convinced about illiterate, ignorant untouchable followers. So, he used the only language to place forth their history, social station and political and non-secular measures to urge obviate the wrath of the class structure. As a result, thousands of Buddhists thoroughly followed him and commenced to practice his message in lifestyle. Those that entered welfare work took it as a lift to review thought processes and people who enrolled in the class in the college assumed power as a weapon of words. Hence, it becomes necessary to review the Dalit autobiographies on the backdrop of enlightened messages of the great humanitarian leader of Dalits. According to Dr Ambedkar, there are several conditions needed for the success of democracy. Firstly, there must be social and economic equality.

The shortage of social and economic equality results in social cleavages and violent revolution. Secondly, democracy should be supported by a multi-party system and will have a robust opposition. Thirdly, there shouldn’t be any scope for the tyranny of the majority over the minority in democracy. The bulk should respect the point of view of the minority. He distinguished between the political majority and therefore, the notion of communal majority. The member of the political majority is liberal to take any political action which he finds suitable, whereas a member of a communal majority takes only those political actions, which are determined by his community. Therefore, he found that the class structure was the major obstacle within the way of democracy. He remarked that if we fail to ensure equality in social life, political democracy wouldn’t survive for an extended time.

As far as methods of democracy are concerned, he argued that only the constitutional methods should be adopted to understand our social and economic objectives. He didn’t appreciate the methods of non-cooperation, direct action, or other sorts of Satyagrah advocated by Gandhi. Further, he was of the opinion that the power of the people to disapprove of the policies by the government was the ultimate failure of democracy in India. It was that our political leaders treated their followers as livestock. The leaders didn’t have any faith in the rule of law and democratic procedure. Finally, political democracy should be broadened to understand the thought of political orientation supporting the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

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Role of Citizens in Nation Building Reading Time : 7 minutes -->

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The progress of a nation greatly depends on its people. Every citizen is obligated to abide by the law & order of the nation, as well as perform their duties as a responsible citizen to maintain harmonious co-existence and take the nation forward.

In India, our constitution allows the citizens with fundamental duties, directive principles and fundamental rights. The purpose of these sections is to make sure that everything is equally divided in creating a better nation and to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic country.

Articles 12 to 35 of Part III of the Indian Constitution outline the Fundamental Rights, an equal opportunity – which apply to all people regardless of gender, colour, ethnicity, national origin, or place of birth, they are subject to limitations and are enforceable by the courts.

The Directive Principles of State Policy serve as guidance for how the government should draft laws. Although the principles upon which these provisions, outlined in Part IV of the Constitution as based are not enforceable by the courts, still the state is required to follow them in formulating any policies and enacting legislation.

Fundamental Duties assert that all citizens have a moral duty to foster a sense of patriotism and to uphold the unity of India. These obligations, which are listed in Part IV-A of the Constitution, affect both people and the country. They are not enforceable by courts until specifically declared so by parliamentary statute, just like the Directive Principles.

How can Citizens take part in nation-building? Citizens can contribute by following socially acceptable behaviour and morally correct actions. These do not need to be included in the constitution, rather it should be followed out of a pure sense of ethically and morally right notions. Following are a few responsibilities that every citizen must take up as a measure to bring about a change in the society:

Focus on Education Despite our limited resources, the Central Government and State Governments continuously work to improve the education sector by investing in infrastructure, offering financial aid (scholarships and stipends), and other programs. Not all students misuse the financial aid they get, but there have been several instances where it misuse of financial aid reserved for underprivileged students were reported. Students must prioritize their education and make adequate use of the benefits provided to them. The officials serving in the education sector (in and out of administration) also need to do their duty honestly and ethically to ensure the youth get a proper education. Because education plays a vital role in shaping an individual and the nation as a whole. Being a just and honest person is essential for being a responsible citizen.

Contributions to curb climate change Climate change has emerged as one of the most important global issues as a result of negligent human activities. As one of the world’s most biodiversity-rich nations, India’s government has developed several strategies to safeguard and conserve the country’s natural resources. The nation is home to a number of indigenous species of both flora and wildlife. Consequently, there is a rise in unlawful activities like poaching, hunting, trade, and wood-chopping, among others. These actions have accelerated climate change and led to a decline in (or extinction of) many species. As responsible citizens, we must step forward to spread awareness about these issues and discourage the continuance activities promoting the same. A responsible citizen would also maintain environmental cleanliness by not littering, spitting, or otherwise polluting their environment because they understand the importance of maintaining national integrity.

Abiding by the law and order Following the rules and regulations formulated by the lawmakers make it easier to maintain safety, security, peace and harmony in the community. These laws are not only to be abided by the common citizens but by everyone included in the administration line as well. From following safety protocols under traffic management to sporting an appropriate dress code when visiting an administrative office, or showing discipline in school/office etc, these principles allow everyone to mitigate conflicts in the public and private sectors. A law-abiding citizen becomes a responsible citizen who contributes to social progress and maintains fairness and peace in society.

In the context of the above mentions, citizens are obligated to contribute towards the betterment of the nation. The obligations mentioned in the 11 fundamental duties in the Indian constitution have an educational purpose and advice for the citizens on how to conduct themselves morally and respectably. These duties were drafted on accords of moral, ethical and cultural codes of conduct to be followed by the people. But it is the prime responsibility of an individual to be self-righteous and act fairly without the need to be educated on moral grounds. As someone once rightly said – “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”.

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Xi Jinping’s Recipe for Total Control: An Army of Eyes and Ears

Reviving a Mao-era surveillance campaign, the authorities are tracking residents, schoolchildren and businesses to forestall any potential unrest.

Two people dressed in black, with red accents like a hat and armband, stand on a sidewalk looking at a city street.

By Vivian Wang

Reporting from Beijing

The wall in the police station was covered in sheets of paper, one for every building in the sprawling Beijing apartment complex. Each sheet was further broken down by unit, with names, phone numbers and other information on the residents.

Perhaps the most important detail, though, was how each unit was color-coded. Green meant trustworthy. Yellow, needing attention. Orange required “strict control.”

A police officer inspected the wall. Then he leaned forward to mark a third-floor apartment in yellow. The residents in that unit changed often, and therefore were “high risk,” his note said. He would follow up on them later.

“I’ve built a system to address hidden dangers in my jurisdiction,” the officer said, in a video by the local government that praised his work as a model of innovative policing.

This is the kind of local governance that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, wants: more visible, more invasive, always on the lookout for real or perceived threats. Officers patrol apartment buildings listening for feuding neighbors . Officials recruit retirees playing chess outdoors as extra eyes and ears. In the workplace, employers are required to appoint “safety consultants” who report regularly to the police.

The Chinese Communist Party has long wielded perhaps the world’s most sweeping surveillance apparatus against activists and others who might possibly voice discontent. Then, during the coronavirus pandemic, the surveillance reached an unprecedented scale, tracking virtually every urban resident in the name of preventing infections.

Now, it is clear that Mr. Xi wants to make that expanded control permanent, and to push it even further.

The goal is no longer just to address specific threats, such as the virus or dissidents. It is to embed the party so deeply in daily life that no trouble, no matter how seemingly minor or apolitical, can even arise.

Mr. Xi has branded this effort the “Fengqiao experience for a new era.” The Beijing suburb in the propaganda video, Zhangjiawan, was recently recognized in state media as a national exemplar of the approach.

“Fengqiao” refers to a town where, during the Mao era, the party encouraged residents to “re-educate” purported political enemies, through so-called struggle sessions where people were publicly insulted and humiliated until they admitted crimes such as writing anti-communist poetry.

Mr. Xi, who invokes Fengqiao regularly in major speeches, has not called for a revival of struggle sessions, in which supposed offenders were sometimes beaten or tortured. But the idea is the same: harnessing ordinary people alongside the police to suppress any challenges to the party and uphold the party’s legitimacy.

The party casts this as a public service. By having “ zero distance ” from the people, it can more quickly gather suggestions about, say, garbage collection or save residents the trouble of going to court over business disputes. Instead, conflicts are hashed out by party mediators.

Mr. Xi frequently points to the Fengqiao experience as proof that the party is responsive to people’s needs and desires, even as he has smothered free expression and dissent.

It is also an effort to assert his political legacy. Top officials have hailed Fengqiao as an example of Mr. Xi’s visionary leadership, while scholars have described it as “a model for showcasing Chinese governance to the world.”

The campaign strengthens Beijing’s repressive abilities at a time of mounting challenges. With China’s economy slowing, protests about unpaid wages and unfinished homes have increased . Tensions with the West have led Beijing to warn of omnipresent foreign spies. The party has also tightened scrutiny of groups like feminists, students and L.G.B.T. rights activists.

In the name of Fengqiao, the police have visited Tibetans, Uyghurs and other minority groups in their homes, promoting party policies. Companies have been required to register their employees in police databases. Government workers have given “anti-cult” lectures at churches. Police officers and judges have been installed in elementary schools as “ deputy principals of law ,” keeping files on students’ perceived risk levels.

But by blocking even mild or apolitical criticism, the party could also erode the very legitimacy it is trying to project.

A Mao Idea, Repurposed

Mr. Xi’s interest in the Fengqiao experience dates back two decades, to when he was still ascending the ranks of power.

The year was 2003, and Mr. Xi had just been named party secretary of Zhejiang Province in China’s east. China’s economic opening had brought great wealth to the province, but also led to rising crime. Mr. Xi was looking for a solution. According to official media reports, he turned to a small Zhejiang town called Fengqiao.

The town had entered party lore in the 1960s, after Mao exhorted the Chinese people to confront “class enemies,” such as landlords or rich farmers. In the official telling, Fengqiao residents at first clamored for the police to make arrests. But local party leaders instead urged the residents themselves to identify and “re-educate” the enemies.

Ultimately, nearly 1,000 people were labeled reactionaries, according to Fengqiao officials. They and their families had trouble finding work, going to school or even getting married. Mao declared the “Fengqiao experience” a model for the country. Not long after, he launched the Cultural Revolution, another mass movement that led to a decade of bloodshed.

After Mao died, the phrase fell out of favor , as his successors distanced themselves from the chaos of his rule.

Mr. Xi, though, embraced the phrase. His first visit to Fengqiao in 2003 was to the local police station, where he inspected an exhibition about the 1960s. Months later, he visited again and praised the idea of nipping problems in the bud. “Though the situation and responsibilities we face have changed, the Fengqiao experience is not outdated,” he said.

Mr. Xi’s call for more social control was part of a broader shift by the party, amid the rapid change of the 2000s, toward “stability maintenance” — a catchall term for containing social problems and silencing dissent.

After Mr. Xi became top leader in 2012, he redoubled that focus. Mentions of Fengqiao in state media became ubiquitous. Then came the coronavirus pandemic — and the government began tracking individuals’ movements down to the minute.

It did so partly through technology, requiring residents to download mobile health apps . But it also leaned on old-fashioned labor. Using a method called “grid management,” the authorities divided cities into blocks of a few hundred households, assigning workers to each. Those workers went door to door to enforce testing requirements and quarantines, sometimes by sealing people into their homes.

State media hailed China’s early success in containing Covid as proof of the Fengqiao experience’s continued utility. Chinese research papers described Fengqiao-style policing during the pandemic as a model for crisis management around the world.

When people began to chafe at the restrictions — culminating in nationwide protests in 2022 — the granular approach proved its utility in another way, as the police used facial recognition cameras and informants to track down participants .

“The architecture is there,” said Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College who recently published a book about China’s surveillance state. “After three years of lockdowns, seeing how the system works probably gave them a lot of insights.”

A Push to Penetrate Daily Life

The Covid controls are gone. The stepped-up surveillance is not.

It is clear now that the government’s heightened intrusiveness during the pandemic was an acceleration of a longer-term project. Mr. Xi’s goal is to deploy the masses to bolster the party, as Mao had done, but without the turmoil. That is where technology and the police come in, to ensure people never slip out of control.

“This is the next iteration” of the party’s obsession with stifling unrest, said Suzanne Scoggins, a professor at Clark University in Massachusetts who has studied Chinese policing.

And Beijing is pushing to expand it rapidly. It has encouraged local governments to hire many more workers to watch assigned grids. Last month, the party also issued its first-ever top-level guidance on the management of such workers, calling for stronger ideological training and formalized rewards and punishments.

Those new grid monitors will supplement the extensive ranks of China’s surveillance workers, which on top of uniformed police and party workers also include as many as 15 million ordinary people recruited as local government informants, according to Professor Pei’s research.

Beijing also deploys vast numbers of “security volunteers ,” mostly retirees, during important political meetings or holidays. They are tasked with ensuring the streets look orderly: steering homeless people into shelters, scolding those who litter and alerting the police if they see suspected protesters.

On a recent Thursday in central Beijing, two residents stood on the sidewalk wearing red vests and name tags. They would be there for two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, guarding their assigned grid unit of three apartment buildings, said one of them, Qi Jinyou, 76. Other duos were stationed regularly down the block.

Mr. Qi had joined about a year ago, after neighborhood officials called residents at home to recruit. In return, he received gifts like tissues or toothpaste. But he also felt a sense of duty: “We have to protect, right? Safety first.”

In Zhangjiawan, the Beijing suburb held up as a model of Fengqiao’s successes, some residents praised the increase in patrols. Near a billboard depicting a smiling Mr. Xi, a meat seller named Wang Li said that neighborhood officials often inspected for fire hazards like loose electrical wires, or reminded residents to go for health checkups.

Seeing police cars on patrol when she got off work late, she said, “I feel more at ease.”

‘To Grind You Down’

Others have seen how the approach can be used to try and compel obedience.

On the outskirts of Zhangjiawan, the government is demolishing and redeveloping several villages into a tourist attraction. By January, 98 percent of the roughly 1,700 households had agreed to relocate, thanks to village representatives who had visited homes more than 1,600 times, according to a social media post by the local government touting how the Fengqiao experience had “taken root.”

They “won trust with their professionalism, and intimacy with their sincerity,” the government said.

A villager named Ms. Mu was one of the holdouts. Standing outside the low-slung house that her family had lived in for more than 20 years, she surveyed the fields where neighboring buildings had already been flattened.

Party officials and representatives of the developer had repeatedly called and visited her family, urging them to move out, but she felt the compensation was too low.

“They don’t have a proper conversation with you. They just send people to grind you down,” said Ms. Mu, who asked that only her surname be used.

One night, as negotiations dragged on, men were stationed outside their home to intimidate them, she said. Their water supply was also cut off during the demolition of nearby buildings, but local officials did not seem to care about that, Ms. Mu said: “Not a single village official has come to ask, how can we help with this water problem?”

She and her siblings now drive into town to fill bottles with tap water.

The risks of empowering low-level officials to fulfill sweeping political mandates became especially clear during the pandemic. Under pressure to prevent infections, neighborhood workers at times prevented residents from buying groceries or seeking medical care.

Even high-profile political activists, for whom surveillance has long been routine, have felt the controls intensify. Wang Quanzhang, a human rights lawyer who was released from more than four years in prison in 2020, said that 30 or 40 people were watching his home in Beijing at any given time. He shared photographs of groups of men in black clothing sitting inside his building and following him on the street.

Several landlords had forced him to move out, under official pressure, he said. The authorities had also pressured schools not to let his 11-year-old son enroll, he added.

“We didn’t think that when they couldn’t chase us away from Beijing, they would start targeting our child,” he said. “After the epidemic, it’s gotten worse.”

The Cost of Control

The success of this labor-intensive approach hinges upon the zeal of its enforcers. That has often worked to the advantage of the party, which uses financial incentives, appeals to patriotism and sometimes threats, such as to their jobs, to mobilize officials and ordinary people alike.

But the reliance on an army of paid workers could also be the surveillance apparatus’s central weakness, as the slowing economy forces local governments to tighten budgets.

Already, some community workers and police officers have complained on social media of being overworked.

Even propaganda about Fengqiao has acknowledged the toll of making officials responsible for ever-smaller issues. One state media article lauded a police officer who, to resolve a dispute between neighbors, helped unclog a blocked pipe. “Suddenly, a large amount of sewage and feces sprayed onto his head and body,” the article said. The residents, the article continued, “felt both pity and gratitude.”

The party’s tightening grip could also stifle the dynamism that it needs to revive the economy. A fried chicken vendor in Zhangjiawan, who gave only her surname, Ma, said she had not made enough money to pay her rent for three months, in part because constantly patrolling officers prohibited her from setting up her cart on the sidewalk.

“If the economy suffers, then there will be security problems,” she said. “People need to eat. If they get anxious, things will get messy.”

Siyi Zhao contributed research from Seoul.

Vivian Wang is a China correspondent based in Beijing, where she writes about how the country’s global rise and ambitions are shaping the daily lives of its people. More about Vivian Wang

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Patriotism in India is a complex, multifaceted sentiment that is deeply woven into the country's social and cultural fabric. It is a force that, when channeled correctly, can drive India towards a more inclusive, equitable, and prosperous future. As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, it's crucial that Indian patriotism evolves ...
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This essay explores the interconnection between patriotism and nation-building in India, examining how a collective sense of love and commitment to the country contributes to its unity, development, and progress. Historical Context: India's struggle for independence, led by iconic figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Subhas ...
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