Follow Us
Sandeep Sinha
When we first heard the songs being played on the radio, “Sabarmati ke sant tu ne kar diya kamal…” or “Aao bachchon tumhe dikhayein jhanki Hindustan ki…” and “Ab tumhara hawale watan saathiyon…” we were just kids in schools with no syllabus in patriotism being part of our curriculum. India-Pakistan cricket matches were infrequent or at best limited to radio commentary with no visuals to awaken our sense of dormant nationalism. The only thing having to do with patriotism in the school was the morning pledge, ‘India is my country”, yet we had fought the wars in 1962, 1965 and 1971. The country had suffered and the pain was palpable. Not for nothing was Jawaharlal Nehru moved to tears when Lata Mangeshkar sang ‘Aye mere watan ke logon…” The memory of the freedom struggle was still fresh in a nascent nation and infused idealism in the decades that followed.
Very surprising then that a decision has been taken to introduce a syllabus in patriotism in government schools of Delhi.
“Ordinarily, we are reminded of our love for the country when there is an India-Pakistan match or when there are tensions on the border. In our day to day lives, we forget about our country,” CM Arvind Kejriwal said.
Kejriwal also invoked Bharat Mata. “When our children grow older and start working, and at any point if they accept a bribe, then they must feel from within that they are betraying Bharat Mata. When they jump a traffic light, they must feel they’ve wronged their country.”
“We are poor, our farmers commit suicide. But who will solve these problems? It is us who will have to find solutions. Our children have to realise that the problems our country is facing will have to be solved by all of us.”
We may agree or disagree about such moves. Schools have NCC and NSS activities, Scouts and Guides, and enough activities to make us conscientious citizens. It is about rights and duties, performing our tasks that contribute to nation building, by doing right whatever we are supposed to do. It does not take a war to make us patriots. The nation can be made proud of through our achievements. A chapter on Subedar Joginder Singh evoked more feeling without Deshbhakti being part of our syllabus. Perhaps it is a sign of things that in the age of surgical strikes, we have to think of making patriotism a part of school syllabus, that too in a country where there is no conscription.
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