PATRIOTISM - IMPORTANCE IN DEVELOPING THE COUNTRY Patriotism means having love and respect for our country. Patriotism is the feeling to serve the country selflessly . A true patriot can sacrifice anything for his/her own country. India has given birth to many patriots in the past. Some of them are Mahatma Gandhi, Rani laxmi bai, Chandra shekhar azad, Lala lajpat rai, Jawaharlal Nehru, vallabhbhai patel, Bal gangadhar tilak, Shaheed Bhagat singh, Lal bahadur shashtri, Satguru ram singh ji and many more. They have sacrificed a lot for the independence of our country. They did not even bother giving their lives. They gave us the real meaning of Patriotism. But it doesn’t mean that to show your love for the nation you need to be a freedom fighter or to serve in the army, navy and air force. I think one can show Patriotism in many ways. A person who participate in the electoral system, donate money to relief fund during disasters, who knows his responsibility towards his nation, who is well aware of his rights is also the best example of a true patriot. I think Patriotism is something that unites the whole nation and this kind of Patriotism can only be seen in India. A true patriot treats his fellow citizens equally irrespective of their religions, caste and gender. Patriotism cannot be taught, it is the purest feeling that a person develops on his own. Usually, we refer to our country as motherland. It means we love our country in the same way we love our mother and the way we respect all other mothers , we should also respect all the other nations. In short I would say people should have love and affection for their nation but there should not be ill feelings for other countries .other countries should not look down. Actually this is main difference between Patriotism and nationalism. Now question arises that what is Nationalism. Nationalism is A feeling of love for your own country and a feeling that your country is better than other countries. Yes a nationalist assumes that his country is perfectly perfect and they consider other countries down. They don’t accept any criticism. A nationalist takes criticism as an insult of his own country. On the other side a patriot takes criticism positively. They don’t consider other nation to be inferior but they ask them to tell us what our shortcomings are. They find ways to make their own nation perfect. And I totally agree with these lines of movie ‘rang de basanti’ “no country is perfect You’ve got to make it perfect” In today’s india there are some people who commit riots in the name of religion and they call themselves patriots. This is not Patriotism at all. So we should know the difference between Patriotism and false Patriotism. Unity is the main purpose of Patriotism. We all should come together. We can help our country to improve the education system, economic development, and eradicate social evils, every day our soldiers stand bravely at the borders and ensures our safety. We should also come forward and contribute to the development of the nation. It is so easy to say that nothing can make changes in this country, government is not good and something something.it is so easier to be a critic. But if you can see that things are really so wrong then why don’t you take initiative to change the things . go ahead and make changes to make this nation perfect. It is your country too. Don’t expect other to make changes. Join politics, the police force or the government and clean up the mess. This would be true Patriotism.

BY:- SONAM JHA PB/19/SW/A/196115 20 PB BATTALIAN NCC BATHINDA GIANI ZAIL SINGH CAMPUS COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, BATHINDA