If the entire history of humankind was to be compressed into the timespan of a year, nation states wouldn't come into existence until new year's eve. The love for one's nation is not inherent to a human being. It is an emotion that is inculcated through years of social conditioning.

We are taught to love our nation much before we understand what it even is. The first time we pledged allegiance to the country or attempted to sing the national anthem was before we could even dress ourselves up for school.

From lessons in textbooks to the stories we hear to the movies we watch, influence the way we think about our country. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the lack of exposure to these opinion moulding materials would leave a person without emotions like patriotism and nationalism.

Saadia, a Pakistani woman temporarily moved to India to learn a dance form and stayed in Delhi for the same. Her maid once asked her where she was from. She replied that she was from Pakistan. The maid didn't know what Pakistan was and asked if she had meant that she was from a place outside of Delhi. Saadia then clarified that she wasn't from "Hindustan". Her maid had no idea what Hindustan meant either. The idea of "our nation" and an "enemy nation" on the other side of the border was totally absent from her mind.

"Our nation" is an idea that exists in the minds of people who can afford it. The maid in this case couldn't. But her, Saadia, me and the one reading this, all have one place that we believe to be ours. This is usually our home. The place where we grew up, where we played and made friends. A place where a lot of our memories are attached to.

Home is where patriotism stems from. We expand that feeling to the boundaries of the district, state and then the whole country and claim to love it. We reduce it back to the levels of state or district when it suits us. We don't even know of all the people, cultures, traditions and beliefs that exist here. When we clearly don't love a lot of the part that we're familiar with, claiming to love the whole is dishonest.

Our past and our experience of the citizen-state relationship do play a role in moulding how we feel about the nation.

A punjabi in his/her 80s would have memories of places that are no longer part of India. The ancestral homes of many people from North-Western border states are presently across the border. Their love for India probably doesn't include hatred for Pakistan.

People from Kashmir and the North Eastern states who have sufferred under AFSPA feel quite the opposite of what most Indians feel about the country.

People who try to survive without getting kicked around, lynched, raped or set ablaze because of who they were born as, have an idea of India that we never bothered to enquire. It is unrealistic to expect everyone to feel the same way about a country when their lived experiences are nothing alike.

"The Idea of India" that we grew up listening to, the one that we are a secular nation, we cherish our diversity and that we ensure justice, liberty & equality to all our citizens was propagated by the privilaged class. The poor and the disenfranchised could never afford it.