ADIL HUSSAIN, 55
Actor
“I understand patriotism as the inner calling, or ‘swadharma’, of an individual born to or living in a specific geographical area governed by a political boundary. My understanding of swadharma has come from the Gita and the writings of Sri Aurobindo. This inner calling is something a person intently feels will fulfill his or her higher and creative aspiration. This aspiration could be farming or protecting the nation on the frontier. However, it must not be driven by selfish or economic interest. What you do in life has to be your spiritual need. Not everyone in this world is fortunate enough to follow their inner calling, but even if those engaged in an activity which is not their inner calling do it with sincerity and commitment, it will be, I believe, a great service to the nation.
I wanted to become an actor perhaps because I loved attention or wished to be popular, but now that I have realised that aspiration, I must understand and reflect on why I’m doing what I’m doing. I try to understand the significance of my playing a role in the context of a greater good. In that sense, my degree of patriotism has increased. If my essaying a role can make a person feel empathy for someone who is socially, politically or economically different, I think I’m being a dedicated patriot. In this sense, patriotism and nationalism are no different.
These words of Sri Aurobindo, taken from the article, ‘The Awakening of Gujarat’, published in Bande Mataram magazine on December 22, 1907, have become more contextual after a century: ‘Nationalism depends for its success on the awakening and organising of the whole strength of the nation, it is therefore vitally important for nationalism that the politically backward classes should be awakened and brought into the current of political life; the great mass of orthodox Hinduism which was hardly ever touched by the old Congress movement, the great slumbering mass of Islam which has remained politically inert throughout the last century, the shopkeepers, the artisan class, the immense body of illiterate and ignorant peasantry, the submerged classes, even the wild tribes and races still outside the pale of Hindu civilisation, nationalism can afford to neglect and omit none’.”