Loyalty & Patriotism: Edges of Knife

d.rajakumar@yahoo.com

Of late, the two words “Loyalty” and “Patriotism” keep drifting over my mind for quiet sometime. While re-reading The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James now (I read it earlier in 1987-88 while I was in the final year of my graduation), the same words repeated in Chapter 11. To me, both words had some chauvinistic influence and they are not words of unity as they are apparently believed to be, in fact they words inducing division or partitioning or separation.

In the era of globalization, loyalty has lost its significance in industries and commercial establishments among their employees and they seem to exist only in the political system. Loyalty, once a character has now reduced to survival strategy. Sometimes, for bringing continuous business some supermarkets offer loyalty points for making repeat purchase at one outlet or its branch networks. So now, loyalty can stay, if it can contribute to profit.

If made a furtive look into the valet of any person of modern dignity, one could see several loyalty cards of several brands and commercial enterprises. How can several loyalties assemble into one person’s pocket? Though it makes integration of so many brands inside the wallet, the loyalty always stand divided.

Loyalty when blended with nationalism gives patriotism. We will introduce national schemes for Make in India or invite global capitalists for a FDI in India, our fellow Indians will have pride in consuming several multinational brands, we have pride when relatives have NRI status or when they work for a multinational corporate, we also have pride when an Indian company was bought investing huge capital by a foreign company by making a global news, but within India we fight within ourselves calling a neighbor as anti-Indian and then we feel we are patriotic.

Patriotism divides humanity by drawing imaginary borders of nation. Nationality draws borders within a nation calling states of ethnic distinction. The division continues until one finds an individual and the individual is perplexed if it is reasonable to be patriotic or to express loyalty; the individual belongs to a class, a community, an ethnic group, a language, a culture, a food habit, a cast, a faith, a family, and as human belonging to a sex. Where could the individual express loyalty?

Somewhere, long back I had read, “Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel”. Today’s nation makers are collaborations among scoundrels and carpetbaggers. Loyalty and patriotism are bones for street dogs. While we watch the dogs fight, the collaborators draw more invisible lines of divisions and insert more loyalty cards into our wallet.

I rest on my wallet holding the knife of nationalism having two edges.