The costs of narrow-minded nationalism

topic:	Democracy
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

In principle, there is nothing wrong in love for one’s nation and cherishing that as long it does not infringe on the rights and liberties of others and even one’s own country mates.

August is the month when many South Asian countries and many other countries worldwide celebrate their national or independence days – mostly from various colonial powers – with zeal. There are often elements that have to do with display of the newly found military, economic and political might at these events with tendencies of provoking and threatening regional foes as well as the local voices of decent citizens during these celebrations.

And that is where the democratic principle and the basic right of expression are manipulated by groups of individuals or in some cases state institutions to peddle forward certain hybrid agendas or just for a simple show of chauvinism.

Such occasions are often seen by the opportunist forces in these parts of the world – with military juntas, hardline nationalists or religious fanatics in control of power – best suited to suppress opponents.

Simply by orchestrating this so-called ‘patriotism’ on such days in a rather flamboyant way and declaring the vocal voices of descent as ‘traitors’, all sorts of dark and evil nexuses between key power brokers get covered, and exploitation of the masses on massive scale continue in these newfound geographies with a new flag and map. The basic laws and rules of governance are either molded, disregarded or simply muscled out by the perceived ‘patriots’.

And, this remains the case in many South Asian countries for more than half a century of their liberation from colonial rule. Most of these countries have a very large portion of their population experience grim anxiety when it comes to income, health and education amid a strong sense of cultural loss as well as identity crises.

In such a narrow-minded nationalism, minorities of all sorts continue to feel alienated and persecuted. History is a testimony to this if all these countries wish to survive as flourishing democracies at ease, there needs to be a fundamental change in definition of nationalism, patriotism and indeed the way these so-called independence days are celebrated.

Image by Jai Bhutani

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