The Sangh Parivar’s brand of patriotism connotes a perverted concept of nationalism (A.G. Noorani)

Essay

Nationalism in peril

The Sangh Parivar’s brand of patriotism connotes a perverted concept of nationalism and intolerance of dissent. Its aim is to erase the national consensus that sustained the freedom movement and prevailed in India for decades after Independence. By A.G. NOORANI

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Nehru foresaw it. He warned Foreign Service trainees in 1959: “The danger to India, mark you, is not communism. It is Hindu right-wing communalism.” On May 11, 1948, he told a meeting of the All India Congress Committee that the “communalism of the majority is far more dangerous than the communalism of the minority”. He was certainly not condoning the latter. But, as he explained later: “When the minority communities are communal, you can see that and understand it. But the communalism of a majority community is apt to be taken for nationalism.”

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