NEW DELHI: Nationalism in India at present has become too inward looking verging on chauvinism. It would be wonderful to see patriotism that is compatible with cosmopolitanism, says historian and Professor at Havard Sugata Bose”I would like to see a patriotism that is compatible with cosmopolitanism that is in tune with our history. The cultural exchanges between India and its neighbouring regions across the Indian Ocean or over land,” Bose, who is the grand-nephew of Subhash Chandra Bose, told TNIE.Bose, is a frequent visitor to India, and despite working in the US manages to come back to his home base a few times a year.”Interestingly, during the freedom movement parallelly there was an upswing in art – performing arts like music and poetry and even fine arts like paintings. These works of art would travel through the country and struck a cord with Indians living in different directions,” he added.Prof Bose pointed out that if one was to look at Indian art and music associated with our freedom struggle, the country’s greatest intellectuals and artists were not inward-looking, they were prepared to engage with diverse sources of inspiration from other parts of Asia and the world.Bose also spoke about promoting majoritarian nationalism. “We need to present ourselves to the world as a country that knows how to celebrate its differences on the basis of the overarching unity laying its foundation on history,” he said.There is also an urgent need for students in India to recognise the importance of history, he added.”The focus is a lot on applied science and electronic and computers, artificial intelligence which is good as we need to be up with the times but in order to have well-rounded citizens we must have subjects like History even in technical institutes. For instance in Institutes of Technology in Poland there is a strong Humanities section and in MIT they have a strong department of history and philosophy,” said Bose.Students should not have a one-dimensional approach as should be aware of our historical past.Bose also says that culture, art, music is a form of diplomacy that facilitates people-to-people ties.”In 1953 an Indian cultural delegation went to China. They began with recitation of Vande Mataram and Surinder Kaur of Punjab sang Hindi-Chini bhai bhai. This was attended by top leaders of the Chinese government including Mao Tse Tung,” he added.
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