India Today – August 19, 2019

66 INDIA TODAY AUGUST 19, 2019

“I understand patriotism as the inner

calling, or ‘swadharma’, of an indi-

vidual born to or living in a specific geographical

area governed by a political boundary. My understand-

ing of swadharma has come from the Gita and the writ-

ings of Sri Aurobindo. This inner calling is something

a person intently feels will fulfill his or her higher and

creative aspiration. This aspiration could be farming or

protecting the nation on the frontier. However, it must

not be driven by selfish or economic interest. What you

do in life has to be your spiritual need. Not everyone in

this world is fortunate enough to follow their inner call-

ing, but even if those engaged in an activity which is not

their inner calling do it with sincerity and commitment,

it will be, I believe, a great service to the nation.

I wanted to become an actor perhaps because I

loved attention or wished to be popular, but now that

I have realised that aspiration, I must understand

and reflect on why I’m doing what I’m doing. I try to

understand the significance of my playing a role in

the context of a greater good. In that sense, my degree

of patriotism has increased. If my essaying a role can

make a person feel empathy for someone who is so-

cially, politically or economically different, I think I’m

being a dedicated patriot. In this sense, patriotism and

nationalism are no different.

These words of Sri Aurobindo, taken from the

article, ‘The Awakening of Gujarat’, published in Bande

Mataram magazine on December 22, 1907, have

become more contextual after a century: ‘Nationalism

depends for its success on the awakening and organis-

ing of the whole strength of the nation, it is therefore

vitally important for nationalism that the politically

backward classes should be awakened and brought into

the current of political life; the great mass of orthodox

Hinduism which was hardly ever touched by the old

Congress movement, the great slumbering mass of

Islam which has remained politically inert throughout

the last century, the shopkeepers, the artisan class, the

immense body of illiterate and ignorant peasantry, the

submerged classes, even the wild tribes and races still

outside the pale of Hindu civilisation, nationalism can

afford to neglect and omit none’.”

ADIL HUSSAIN, 55

Actor

BANDEEP SINGH