Why do I love my country?

Lately, all this talk about increased reservations in jobs, educational institutes and every other walk of life has forced me to question the very idea of love for the country. Why do I love my country? And why is it necessary to love one’s country? Is it not being narrow-minded? Why shouldn’t I claim my love for the whole of mankind, for the mother-nature, for the earth? Won’t that be more noble and worthy?
Why do I need to claim that I love my country despite all that is wrong with it? Is it because we had a great past? Is it because we were a great, rich and cultured society? Is it because we were solving complex mathematical equations when the rest of the world was grappling with the absence of zero?
Undoubtedly, this and many more is all true. But does that mean I need to pledge my love for a piece of land, whose boundaries are defined by wars? What if Pakistan wasn’t created? Then I was supposed to love Lahore as well as Delhi? We didn’t draw the boundary. We were never given a choice to be born in a certain country.
There is only so much the rhetoric of “I love my country” will provide. Someday one has to answer “Why should one love one’s country?” Isn’t that more fatal? Isn’t that because wars are fought and people are needlessly killed.
What would have become of us had British stayed? They would have eventually become part of the Indian society like muslims did. Would the life then be so different from what it is today?
Why should then I pledge my love for a piece of land called India where all I can see is deceit. Our political system is rotten and in the name of democracy, we have a system which is still governed by dynastic mindset. It’s all very well to put the blame squarely on the public, on me and on you to say that WE should change the system. But does that exonerate those who are responsible for this mess.
I don’t think we really love our country as we claim to. I think it’s the fear of unknown that forces me (and many others) to stay back. To plod through the mediocrity of life. To fear the police and silently resent the law breakers.
Why do I love India?
I think I love my country not because I love it but because I have no place else to go. I think what I claim as love is nothing but dependence.
I think I claim to love my country because then I don’t have to answer the uncomfortable questions.
I think I claim to love my country because then I can claim I see nothing wrong with the way things are, and continue to exist.
I think I love my country because that’s the easiest way out.