This essay is in refrence to India. u can change that for your respective country.

Introduction : (duty of indians)

Almost half a century has passed since In­dia gained its independence, but it has yet to join the ranks of the developed countries. That is a dream still to be realised. And this is in spite of India being a large country with all kinds of potential resources of men and material.

ESSAY

One of the reasons for this tragic failure is the Indian people’s lack of national character. The majority of ‘he

What is national character ? It is, to put it simply, the capacity and the will to hold the interests of the nation supreme m every sphered Whenever there is a clash between individual and national interests, it means individual con­cerns being subordinated to the greater good of the nation. Whenever a nation has made any progress, it has been due to this spirit of nationalism. Without such a spirit of national­ism no nation can advance either internally or externally.

Now the question arises as to why, during the priod of just under 50 years, many countries have succeeded in fostering a strong national spirit in their people, and now stand alongside developed countries like Singapore, Korea, Malayasia and Japan, etc, while India still lags far behind. There is one basic reason for this. Attempting to achieve the possible by means which are impossible. It is just that we have set off on the wrong track, and once on it, it is difficult to retrace our steps and get on to the right track.

After independence, an ‘Indian Nation’ had come into existence in the political and geographical sense. But, at the psychological level, the level of feelings and emotions, our position was still that of a nation in the making. For the desired national reconstruction to take place, our leaders proposed a recipe based on the concept of a common heritage with three main parts : Religious unity, historical unity and cultural unity.

Religious unity implied that all religions were essentially one. It was believed that if this concept could take root in people’s minds, it would produce a sense of unity all over the country. Historically, of course, this assumption was wrong: there is a long, sorry record of co-religionists fighting fiercely among themselves. For instance, in the war of Mahabharat, the warriors on both sides were of the Hindu religion. In the first and Second World Wars, the combatants on both sides were of the Christian faith. Babar had armed confrontations with his own co-religionists, finally inflicting decisive defeats on them, and so on.

The attempt to bring about religious unity in India has had active support right from the time of Akbar, who bol­stered it politically, to present times, when intellectuals such as Dr. Bhagwan Das (a contemporary of Jawaharlal Nehru) attempted to solve the problem with their encyclopaedic knowledge of the subject.

It is an undeniable fact that there are differences be­tween various religions. Given these differences, it is diffi­cult, if not impossible, for the adherents of one religion to accept that the tenets and practices of another religion have an equal value. However, if the adherents of different reli­gions see each other, first and foremost, as human beings as members of the same human race, they can certainly accord each other equal respect. Through mutual respect many social benefits can accrue, which would be rendered impossible in the wake of futile attempts at mutual recogni­tion of religious beliefs.

How history comes into the picture ? It is assumed that even where there are people of different persuasions, a common sense of history will produce a common sense of nationhood. And where this is seen to be lacking, it is advocated that such a sense be inculcated. But this would again be an attempt to achieve the possible by means which are impossible. All countries, be they as small as Singapore, or as large as the USA, are inhabited by varied races and ethnic groups. In this respect there are several different strands to their historical heritage. But in none of these countries has there been any attempt to bulldoz people into sharing a common sense of history. Instead, there has been an acknowledgement of each citizens’ individuality. That is why, albeit imbued with different historical feelings, the various groups lead harmonious lives and are engaged in the common cause of nation-building.

The third point concerns the acceptance of a common culture. This is wholly impracticable. Culture inevitably evolves a long historical process. It can never be imposed upon a group through any external agency.

After the Second World War, a movement was launched in the USA to produce a common culture throughout the country by a process of Americanization. A similar move­ment was launched in Canada, but in both countries, these initiatives were a failure. Ultimately both had to abandon the idea of uniculture and came to terms with multi-culture. In India, as elsewhere, this is the only possible solution.

The truth is that only practicable basis of nationhood is patriotism. That is, the feeling on the part of the individual or group that their future is linked with one country and one country alone; that individual success is inextricably linked with the progress of the country, that the interests of the country must be held supreme, and that if sacrifices are required for the safety or advancement of the country, they must be willingly made. Without such feelings of patriotism as here defined, no country can be successfully run.

If the tasks of constructing the nation is to be success­fully accomplished, we must rid ourselves of obessions with such impracticable concepts as unity of religion, history and culture, and should forge ahead on the same lines as Singapore, Malayasia, Japan, Britain, France and America.

It is desirable to launch a movement for economic unity, based on economic justice for every individual or at least the bulk of the individuals and groups.

Our prime target should be the generation of patriotism in our country. And it should be a patriotism which is based not on the past, but on the present and the future. The only way to do this is to instil in each and every individual a deep-rooted love for his country. Instead of wasting time on the impossible, we should concentrate on building the kind of national character to be found in developed countries. If we set ourselves sedulously to such tasks as these, we should, within the span of one generation, be able to create for ourselves the ideal nation.