The Battle of Belonging: On Nationalism, Patriotism, And What it Means to Be Indian

by Shashi Tharoor

This is key: where patriotism can celebrate the individual as a constituent of the country whose love the patriot expresses, nationalism tends to suppress the individual by exalting the nation above any of its constituents. It rests on the premise that the individual is subordinate to the nation and that his loyalty and devotion to the nation-state must surpass any other interests he has, either as an individual or as a member of a group within the nation. Indeed, terms like ‘national integrity’ and ‘national power’ reflected both the totalizing tendency of nationalism and its irresistible desire to increase its power and strength in perpetuity through the mechanism of the state, as in Mussolini’s statement quoted earlier.