By Atiq Raja
Patriotism is so often presented as a simple emotion — love for one’s country, expressed through flags, anthems and familiar calls to unity. It is easy to romanticize: the promise of sacrifice, a sense of belonging, a shared fate. However, the idea becomes far more complicated in societies where justice is scarce, democracy feels performative, and national wealth drains steadily into the pockets of an untouchable elite. What does it mean to love your country when the state appears unwilling to love its own people back? When the poor grow poorer, the rich entrench their privilege, and ordinary citizens must wrestle daily with the consequences of misgovernance?
In brutal environments such as these, patriotism does not die; it retreats inward, becoming quieter and more stubborn. It transforms from celebration into endurance. If hollow rhetoric and ceremonial nationalism represent the public face of patriotism, the real thing survives in private — in those who continue to care when it would be easier to give up. True patriotism does not demand blind loyalty. It does not require applause for empty speeches or admiration for institutions that no longer command moral authority. In societies scarred by inequality and corruption, patriotism becomes less about grand gestures and more about responsibility. It is the willingness to stay invested in the country’s future even when the present offers little incentive.
In such a landscape, patriotism looks like stubborn care. Hope becomes an act of resistance rather than comfort. Contribution becomes a choice, not an obligation. When democracy delivers no meaningful representation and justice bends instinctively toward the powerful, continuing to believe in the nation becomes a form of defiance — a refusal to surrender the idea of a fairer country to those who benefit from its dysfunction. Citizens lose faith for predictable reasons. When courts shield the privileged rather than the vulnerable, trust erodes. When elections resemble rituals rather than opportunities for change, participation turns mechanical. When the nation’s wealth migrates into the bank accounts of a connected few, resentment takes root.
Moreover, when the divide between rich and poor yawns ever wider, patriotism becomes not only challenging but painful. Loving a country mismanaged and looted requires emotional labor that cannot be easily sustained. Yet even amid this disillusionment, the answer to who keeps the nation upright is surprisingly clear. It is not the elite, insulated from consequences. Nor is it the poorest citizens, crushed by daily survival. It is the middle class — the quiet, often overlooked backbone of the state. Teachers, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, clerks, journalists, shopkeepers: their patriotism is not theatrical. It does not require a stage. They hold systems together through competence rather than connection. They pay taxes that keep the state breathing.
They send their children to school with the hope that the next generation might inhabit a country more just than their own. They are the ones who still argue for reform, still vote, still dream. The middle class knows hardship intimately, yet resists the temptation to surrender to cynicism. Their patriotism is practical rather than ornamental. They express it through work, decency, and an insistence — sometimes quiet, sometimes loud — that the country can do better. When institutions falter and corruption becomes mundane, their commitment becomes a moral choice. It is seen in the refusal to take shortcuts even when corruption seems to grease every wheel. It appears in the everyday decision to teach, heal or build despite systemic neglect. It is present in the resolve to raise children who value fairness and dignity in a climate where neither is guaranteed.
History rarely looks to the wealthy to deliver change; they have too much to lose. The very poor, battling for survival, often lack a platform. Reform and awakening almost always emerge from the middle — the citizens with enough awareness to recognize national decay and enough desperation to push back against it. They demand accountability because they pay the price when it disappears. They generate ideas because they must imagine a future beyond the stagnation they see. They build institutions because they rely on them, unlike the elite who bypass them with ease. In addition, through example, they shape the national conscience. When the middle class retains its sense of patriotic duty — not blind, but critical and principled — the nation retains its chance of renewal.
(The writer is a rights activist and CEO of AR Trainings and Consultancy, with degrees in Political Science and English Literature, can be reached at news@metro-morning.com)
