Gratitude is a good thing. We're taught it in school, and at home, if we had a decent upbringing. We've been taught that a lot of people don't have a lot of things, and we should be happy and thankful that we do. A lot of times, it's just a courtesy that we express. But, there is a case, too, when gratitude can be sorely misplaced: when it is "expected" for your country.
Let's analyze that for a bit through a few initial statements and mention exceptions/where they could be untrue.
Statement 1: Gratefulness is expressed for something that's given to us that is not ours.
Would be untrue when: Expressed and felt just out of courtesy (therefore rhetorical) or as a general thankfulness towards the privilege of something we are fortunate enough to have or own.
Statement 2: A country is not something that is given to us.
Would be untrue when: A refugee has settled in, or someone from one country who resides in another country has legally become a citizen.
Everyone else was born in India (or in another country) to Indian parents, getting the immediate power geographically, socially and culturally of being Indian to claim and be given from birth. Geographically by establishment of the modern State of India, socially by virtue of being human in their setting and being influenced by it, and culturally through the immediate culture they were brought into.
They don't just walk in and have it handed to them. They do not owe and are not "indebted" to the country. On the contrary, they are that very country as it is evolving and becoming itself, while they progress from playing a role of being influenced by it to influencing it, in ways they don't usually recognise. Within the myriad of India's sub cultures, our choices to assert our own identity constantly defines what the country eventually becomes, for better and worse.
What they do walk into is a literal snowballing snowball and they almost immediately become it. And who, in their natural self-conscious personalities, is grateful to themselves?
The entire logical reverse of this idea is what drives some senseless nationalism. They view a country as a certain great God that "allows" them to be Indian and "gives them" certain opportunities without which they wouldn't have anything at all to their credit, like it saved them from the pits of statelessness when they born into it. Hail the Motherland! Rather, hail the Mother!
If a country was indeed a god, those gods would be these nationalists in denial of their deityhood. It would add up to one with an identity crisis and, hence, one that can't be trusted. If one would still insist on the country being a god, the very gods themselves, the people, should decide if the way they have been influenced is how they'd like to influence it themselves going forward, and direct the glory of their home.
Statement 3: We were magically saved by India which gave the amazing, rich opportunity to be a part of Her, instead of leaving us countryless on the planet.
Would be untrue when: We choose not to apply our minds and sell it to the irrational nationalistic fervour that demands we think so for it to survive and thrive like a parasite.
Now that that's cleared up.
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