Save Symbols of Nationalism from Becoming Victims of Divisive Agenda of Neo-liberals
Police stop demonstrating students during a protest at JNU
Nations whose nationalism is destroyed are subject to ruin— Mahatma Gandhi.
The
poignant irony of ideology is that the Father of the Nation would have
never imagined that India would be debating the concept of nationalism
seven decades after his martyrdom. And that too over the arrest of a
student leader from one of India’s 500-odd universities. The paradox of
patriotism is that the noble notion of nationalism is under threat from
those individuals who swear by Gandhi’s nationalistic legacy. Last week,
the entire Indian society was dangerously divided over the definition
and desirability of swearing by one’s nation and her integrity. For a
class of liberal opportunists, nationalism is just another adjective to
be used or misused to propagate the idea of a country without borders
and exercise the freedom to damage and insult the avowed symbols of
India’s pride. There are many counterfeit liberals, who bask in the
illusion that nationalism is just another marketable product, which can
be peddled on the auction block to the highest bidder from India or
abroad. They don’t seem to understand that for a mammoth number of
people, nationalism is an article of faith. India’s National Anthem, its
Tricolour and borders are the three undisputed and non-negotiable
pillars of nationalism.
Hence it is tragic that in India exists a
cabal of conspirators, who, bound by their idea of education and
political predilections, has made these three symbols a matter of
dispute. The questionable activities that happened at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University were aimed at demolishing the idea of India. The
involvement of JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar may be a
matter of dispute and judicial scrutiny. In a free country like India,
anyone can legitimately question the invoking of a dubious sedition
charge against Kanhaiya. But there is not even a shred of doubt that the
motives of the organisers and participants at a gathering on campus
were to glorify Afzal Guru, the Indian Guy Fawkes who was hanged for
conspiring the 2001 Parliament attack. Yet, ever since Guru went to the
scaffold and an unmarked grave, a section of the intelligentsia and
illiberals has been mocking the Indian state and its highest judiciary
for sending him to the gallows. Such is the fate of all traitors
worldwide, ever since the history of nation-states began. None of the
propagandists of “freedom of speech” are questioning an undisputable
anti-national event where slogans like ‘Bharat Ki Barbadi (destruction
of India)’ were raised. Even the pro-Guru event organised by a former
Delhi University teacher SAR Geelani at the Press Club of India was
ignored by them. They have been able to convert it into an episode
celebrating freedom of opinion and academic autonomy. Many of them have
been educated in the US or UK. Have any of these professional pundits of
pseudo-patriotism ever heard of any American or British institution
lauding and eulogising the killers of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther
King or John Kennedy? Have they ever attended any seminar held by the
American establishment to discuss water boarding at GITMO? American,
Russian and European forces are killing hundreds of terrorists in Syria,
Iraq and elsewhere on a daily basis. Why have none of our modern
freedom fighters ever raised a finger against them? The current US
Presidential election is dominated by the issue of saving the nation
from the terror threat and debating the morality of banning a certain
community from entering the US. Never before has an American derided the
‘Star Spangled Banner’ or mutilated their national flag. Instead, they
display it with pride even in their front yards to signalise the power
of democratic beliefs.
But in India, invent-a-cause and
hire-a-crowd has become remunerative for political parties, which have
been dining out on secularism ever since the word became an apology for
cynicism. The protest against Kanhaiya’s arrest wasn’t confined to New
Delhi. A bigger protest march was organised in Jadavpur University,
where students raised anti-India slogans and supported the ‘Azadi’
rhetoric raised by Guru. Even media organisations and journalists took
sides in the fight between supporters of nationalism and its opponents.
Many of them pleaded to understand the psyche of the student, which is
rebellious by nature. But the modern Indian student is more interested
in MBA than Marx.
Undoubtedly, it was the loony faction of the
BJP, which provided a handle to the illiberals to pillory the government
by attacking journalists, while the issue of the deification of
terrorists and their tool-wielders was pushed under the secular carpet.
Since the JNU event was organised by some extremists from J&K, it
was clearly an attempt to jeopardise India’s unity. These are the same
elements that refuse to sing the National Anthem or hoist Tricolour in
the Valley.
The current confrontation between the Left and Liberal
Lampoonists on one side and the Saffron forces on the other is an
attempt to weaken the symbols of nationalism by converting the JNU issue
into a cry against suppression of dissent. If intelligence agencies are
to be believed, the country will face more attacks on the idea of an
inclusive India, its flag and its National Anthem. Some parties even
questioned the timing of the HRD ministry’s decision to direct Central
universities to hoist the Tricolour in campuses. Both the Jana Gana Mana
and National Flag were conceived by genuinely nationalist and secular
leaders like Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel and Maulana Azad. But in India,
the duplicity of dissenters is being passed off as virtues. Many of
them call themselves Hindus, yet they oppose integral Hindu traditions.
They support the ban on cow slaughter but relish a Kobe beefsteak, well
done. The bathos of their crocodile tears is that even as they mourn the
killing of our jawans, they toil to prove their secular credentials to
Pak diplomats. They take out candle light processions and lobby for the
continuation of the Indo-Pak dialogue over the graves of our soldiers.
They turn a blind eye to the Obama administration’s duplicitous decision
to provide F-16s to Pakistan, which will be eventually used not for
peacekeeping but against India.
The blame for the revival of
ersatz-liberalism lies at the door of a section of the ruling
establishment. The trigger to shrink PM Modi’s gigantic stature was
provided to his detractors from within. Modi has to evolve a mechanism
to prevent India, the Tricolour and Tagore’s immortal ode to nationalism
from becoming victims of the divisive agenda of the neo-liberalists.
After all, nationalism threatens their luxurious existence.
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com; Follow me on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
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