NEW AGE PATRIOTS
It is shocking that most of the new age patriots do not believe in what Ralph Waldo Emerson , the American essayist
and poet (1803-1882) , said in his poem “A Nation’s Strength” some lines of
which read as follows:
Not
gold but only men can make
A
people great and strong;
Men
who for truth and honour’s sake
Stand
fast and suffer long
Brave
men who work while others sleep,
Who
dare while others fly…
They
build a nation’s pillars deep
And
lift them to the sky.
Admirably
enough, old age patriots like Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Subhash Chandra Bose and
thousands of writers, journalists, teachers, lawyers, doctors, students, businessmen and ordinary people in towns and
villages practically believed in selfless service and sacrifice for the freedom
of India from the British rule. They underwent sufferings of prison life and
quite a large number of them kissed the gallows with patriotic slogans on their
lips.
Most of these patriots were
party loyalists. No material temptation
made them turncoats. They remained wedded to their ideologies which centred
round the common aim of liberating the motherland from the shackles of a long
period of slavery.
It is unfortunate that a number of new age patriots have started
considering patriotism a sort of lucrative profession or a most profitable
commercial venture. They are now hungry
for power and pelf and have no love for selfless service to the nation. Money rather than morality is the major part
of their political faith. A good number
of them are like commodities on sale.
They don’t even hesitate to abandon their political affiliation and offer
their support to the highest bidder of other ideologies. This is a shocking
phenomenon and reminds one of the golden age of old patriots who voluntarily left
their hearth and home just for the sake of the freedom of their beloved
motherland.
Finally, here are a few quotations
for the enlightenment of the new age patriots with the hope that they will not
only read them but also imbibe their true spirit In their patriotism which
needs a revolutionary change.
Roman poet, Virgil
(70-19 B.C): The noblest motive is the public good.
English dramatist William Shakespeare
(1564-616): Be just and fear not; let all the ends thou aimest at, be thy
country’s, thy God’ss and truth’s.
American orator and statesman Daniel
Webster(1782-1852) : Let our object be our country, our whole country, and
nothing but our country. And, by the
blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument,
not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon
which the world may gaze with admiration forever.
--------G. R. KANWAL
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