Happy Independence Day to all!
Today in India,we celebrate Independence Day with great fanafare!I was just talking to a German friend of mine who asked me what do you people do on Independence Day?I realised one thing that my country's Independence Day is special to me ,but not to him...
If we look at a country ,it is a geographical space ,may not be always a territory ,it can be the lived space...you can call it a place....or the image of India in one's mind..the image of Bharatmata..what we call the imagined or the perceived space.This space or place(i would like to call it a place) gives everybody a sense of belonging ...a identity and this identity gives you the power.Thus we derive power from the territory that is the tangible space that we live in ,which gives us a sense of identity .This power that comes from the sense of belonging to a particular place distinguishes us from the rest of the foreigners.In my space, I can exercise my power,show off my strength and celebrate the day as I wish to...marginalising the others....here the struggle comes in between the self and the others ...the identity crisis leads to war..and power relationships change with the change in space.
I am a bit confused about one thing.. do we celebrate the freedom of our country or the freedom of our nation?? The thin line of difference still prevails between the two.. And one more thing I would like to ask.. who should be called an indian.. a person born in India?? a person born out of indian origin?? Or anyone who have legal citizenship of India??
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a story by O.Henry.. "Cospolite in a Cafe".. did you read that?
well...sometimes the two words are intercanged,if u ask my opinion, I would lie to say that the word country focusses a bit more on land and nation focusses a bit more on people..so basicaly we celebrate the freedom of the nation,and when you say nation,that is not the tangible territoriality..that is the people who derive their identity by belonging to a defined territory and government.When you talk about who is an indian,to me a person who is related to India or belong to India is an Indian.I know its confusing for you as in this age of postmodernism views differ and there are multiple realities and geographies.
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