What brings about the love one has for his
country? How deep, one could possibly attach himself to a piece of land and
thus equate it with its mother?
The recent uproar in JNU has stirred the
patriot in me. Even a gap of thousands of miles and an ocean couldn’t stop the
flow of emotions that I felt when I heard students chanting “Bharat Murdabad”. It
could be argued that I and my fellow nonresident Indians have lost the right to
feel compassionate about a land that we chose to abandon at the first sight of
greener pastures.
Yes we did leave, but how do we take the
country out of us? As citizens, we were given a lot more than just rights to
wield and a constitution to protect. We were given a home. A place that was a
lot more than just bricks and mortar. A place that we knew; no matter how
adverse the conditions might get, rightfully belonged to us. We were nurtured,
cared for, protected and loved. There was an air of humility and innocence
during those days about our lives which is why they are referred to as golden.
Where did the innocence go? What prompted the
mass migrations and the brain-drain? “Patriotism is the last refuge of a
scoundrel” were the great words of Mark twain. It is important to mention the
context in which Mark wrote those words. It was meant as a slap on the face of
an opportunist British Empire that sought fit to loot and plunder in the name
of nationalism. Political interests should not be veiled in the form of
patriotic ambitions. When people in positions of power forego good governance
for a chance to become megalomaniacs drunk on the unrestricted, unchecked flow
of cash and support of the illiterate, when a country that prides itself on
being a republic has people in even the highest echelons of executive,
legislative, and judicial institutions concerning themselves more with emotions
than good and just governance, where even the intellectuals wield logical
fallacies with complete immunity and shameless pride, where imaginary almighty
entities reign supreme and human life is less sacred than cattle, where the
know it all hand symbolist follower is bent on setting his personal beliefs in
stone for the rest of us to follow like the bovine herd he worships so
fervently, where capital punishment still reigns much to the thunderous
applause of the public, where exercising the right to freedom of speech against
the uncouth, foul unrelenting storm of public opinion and conscience of the nation, citing facts, logic, and reason is
tantamount to sedition and treason, where people follow blindly what the media throws
in their face as gospel, it is not in the least surprising that innocence has disappeared
from the face of this country .
If we are looking for culprit we only need to
look in the mirror. There was something terribly wrong with the system. In
times of corruption, scams, injustice, silence and rising tempers we were
driven desperate. And in that desperation and panic we were robbed of our
common sense and we turned to a man. A man we didn’t fully understand. We voted
and hoped that good days will follow.
We hoped for a man with a voice, who would lift the nation out of its depths
and into the future as his records showed. History will tell us how wrong we
were. On how a vibrant, diverse sundry democracy succumbed beneath an
aristocratic elitist rule, and we get a front row seat.
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