When Nationalism Drowns Out Patriotism

It happens slowly, like the wearing away of a stone under a steady drip of water. You don’t notice it at first. The rock is sturdy, immovable. But as the decades pass, one day you see it—the edges smoothed, the surface hollowed. So it is with patriotism. Not gone in a flash, not ripped away in a single moment, but eroded over time. 

Perhaps the fault lies in the confusion between two things that are not the same. Patriotism—an old love, like a farmer’s love for his land—is too often conflated with nationalism, which is a louder, often cruder sentiment. A man who is a patriot does not need to tell you that he is one. He carries it in his bones, in the way he speaks of home, in the way he worries over its troubles. But nationalism has a way of puffing itself up, of making a man feel big by making the rest of the world seem small. And in this confusion—a confusion that is deliberate at times, careless at others-— something of the tenderness of patriotism is lost.

History is full of examples. When nationalism first took hold, it promised freedom, unity, a way for people to see themselves as something larger. It sought to empower the masses, providing them with a sense of collective identity that transcended feudal allegiances. And for a time, it worked. But power is a hungry thing, and soon nationalism became an instrument of conquest, a tool for consolidating empires, and a justification for ethnic cleansing. Turning to India, a country whose history I know more intimately and in which I feel a deeper sense of investment, patriotism evolved slightly differently. It was shaped less by territorial ambitions and more by security in cultural richness and moral resistance. Indian patriotism was born of a sense of civilisational continuity rather than the borders of modern nation-states. But even in India, in this land of a hundred histories, the lines blur. Nationalism creeps in, hardens, turns against its own. The ones who question or seek to reform the state of affairs are called traitors, individuals whose very efforts stem from a deep devotion to their country, for why else would they bother?

Yet, there are moments—small, shining moments—when patriotism breathes once more. Not always in speeches or in declarations, but in art, in music. Few contemporary figures have done this with as much power as A.R. Rahman, a contemporary music composer. Rahman’s compositions do not shout; they stir. They do not demand allegiance; they evoke memory. And perhaps that is why it moves people so. Because in a time when love for a country is too often tied to its strength, Rahman’s music speaks of something more fragile but more real—the love of a people for the land that shaped them. His music paints an India that is not a monolithic idea imposed from above but a living, breathing organism of hopes, struggles, and triumphs. And the younger generation, whose connection to their country is often mediated by the cynicism of contemporary politics, hear it. 

A true patriot does not love his country because it is better than others. He loves it because it is his. He loves it the way a man loves a flawed father, seeing him not as perfect but as worthy. He does not demand that others bow before it, only that it be better tomorrow than it was today. It springs from an attachment to the shared values, traditions, and collective memory of a people. It is a sentiment deeply tied to a sense of place, not as a geopolitical construct, but as the soil from which one’s identity and culture grow. But nationalism, carried to its extremes, twists that love into something smaller, something meaner. This modern exaltation of the state, which nationalism so often espouses, is a poor substitute for the spiritual connection that true patriotism evokes. The confusion between the two is no accident. In an age of identity politics and global discontent, nationalism offers a seductive appeal to many (especially on the right) who are disoriented by the rapid dissolution of cultural boundaries.

Of course, there is a great deal of merit in the argument that the homogenising forces of globalisation have not only erased local traditions but also diluted the sense of belonging that patriotism once provided. A citizen of the whole world, of everywhere, soon becomes a citizen of nowhere, as Theresa May once said. And this detachment comes at a cost—an erosion of identity and meaning. In India, where globalisation has brought not only a familiarity with Hollywood fashion trends and avocados in the local vegetable market, but also deep cultural anxieties, the loss of rootedness is felt acutely. The old ways slip, the ground beneath shifts. But patriotism does not have to mean shutting the doors, turning inward. Rahman’s music proves that. It is rooted in India, yet it reaches beyond. It does not see tradition and progress as enemies but as partners. It reminds us that to love one’s land is not to reject the world, but to carry one’s home within it.

And so, we find ourselves in a time where patriotism is a thing to be defended, not against foreigners, but against those who claim it most loudly. The world moves fast, and the places men once called home become unrecognisable in their lifetimes. A man looks up and finds that his small town is a city, that the songs of his childhood are drowned out by a noise that is neither familiar nor welcome. And when that happens, he reaches for something that will make him feel steady again. Some turn to nationalism because it is easy, because it is there, waiting, with its simple answers and its loud voices. But some—perhaps fewer, but no less important—turn to something else. They turn to a song, to a story, to the smell of something cooking on a stove that has always been there. They turn to the feeling of earth beneath their feet, and they remember.

What Rahman achieves, consciously or otherwise, is the elevation of patriotism to the realm of the spiritual. His music does not worship the state; it celebrates the cultural and national identity of the people. In his most famous rendition, Maa Tujhe Salaam, the repeated invocation of the motherland is less an act of submission and more an expression of filial devotion. The song reminds us that love for one’s country is akin to love for a parent: unshakable but not uncritical, profound but not possessive. It is this distinction that modern society must recover if patriotism is to survive the corrosive effects of extremism. Nationalism, in its most militant forms, stifles dissent and breeds an aggressive us-versus-them mentality, while extreme cosmopolitanism often dismisses genuine love for one’s homeland as antiquated and exclusionary. To love one’s country is to love its people, its land, its history, and its culture—not merely the apparatus of its governance. 

I reflect on the value of patriotism in the modern world, and I wonder what will become of it. It is a sentiment too often derided by the cosmopolitan elite as parochial and too easily co-opted by the demagogues of nationalism. Yet, it remains essential to the human experience, anchoring us in a sense of belonging that is both humbling and ennobling. It is a connection that must be nurtured, protected, and, above all, understood, lest it be lost to the distortions of nationalism or the apathy of indifference. Without it, we are just people standing on land, and a country is nothing more than a name on a map.

Image source: Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David.