Skip to main content

Flag-waving nationalism, false patriotism result of 'different types of orthodoxies'

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak* 

Orthodoxies are ideas, beliefs, traditions, knowledge, institutions, policies, processes and practices that domesticate people and the planet. The cultural, religious, political and ideological orthodoxies are driving the world towards a dangerous situation, where reactionary forces dominate politics, society and economy. 
They also create and facilitate oligarchical monopolistic environment. The oligarchical political and economic systems destroy democratic and secular values to realise individual liberty. The resurgence of flag-waving bourgeoisies’ nationalisms and false patriotisms are inadvertent but natural outcomes of dominance of different varieties of orthodoxies. 
The immersive culture of orthodoxies and its knowledge traditions domesticates individuals, communities and environment to normalise slavery, inequalities and exploitations human beings and nature.
The economic orthodoxies and its unnatural narratives have not only established capitalism but also normalised it as if there is no alternative to capitalism as a system. Similarly, political orthodoxies domesticate citizenship rights and dismantle democratic traditions in the name of nationalism and patriotism. 
The cultural and religious orthodoxies facilitate the political and economic orthodoxies to strengthen ruling and non-ruling elites’ control over natural and human resources. All orthodoxies colonise the humanity to sustain and expand subservient knowledge traditions supported by institutions and processes designed by people in power for profit. 
Orthodoxies are not natural but a product of socialisation with social, cultural, religious and political belief systems are created and disseminated to different generations to practice and normalise it.
Class, gender, caste, race and all other forms of inequality, discriminatory and divisive practices are products of orthodoxies. The culture of orthodoxies normalise consciousness by creating and socialising with the idea of puritanism and otherness at the same time. 
It facilitates knowledge traditions concomitant with hierarchy based on inferior and superior knowledge, culture, society, religion, people and state. Puritan knowledge and hierarchy ensures reproduction of power, patriarchy and dominance. Orthodoxies are against human happiness as it instils different forms of fear.
The culture of surrender and adherence to a defined set of ideas or a single doctrine diminishes human creative abilities and domesticates human consciousness in a monolithic direction that destroys dynamism of human potentials. Dogmas and narrow silos are natural outcomes of all orthodox traditions and practices. 
Class, gender, caste, race and all other forms of inequality, discriminatory and divisive practices are products of orthodoxies
All orthodoxies are assaults on science, reason, innovation, equality, liberty and human sensibilities. It justifies war, terror, conflicts and all forms of authoritarianisms in the name of peace and order. In reality, all orthodoxies create and establish different forms of institutions, processes and systems embedded with structural and other forms of violence. They destroy the emancipatory power of people by creating divisive cultures based on religion and nationalism, the twin opium of the masses. 
Orthodoxies promote various forms of convenient dogmas that sustain hierarchy and power over people. Therefore, orthodoxies are obstacles in the path of progressive social, political and economic transformations and deepening of democracy.
Resistance against all forms of orthodoxies are crucial for the emancipation of human beings and natural world. Individuals and communities must come together to challenge and overcome all orthodoxies for their own freedom to realise themselves as individuals, citizens, as members of communities and as social, political, cultural and spiritual beings. 
The peace, progress, prosperity, harmony, equality, justice and individual liberties can be realised only by defeating all forms of orthodoxies in our society, culture, politics, state and economy. The working-class masses are the worst victims of all orthodoxies. Different forms of class divided societies are products of orthodox ideological practices that destroy all conditions of human emancipation. 
Therefore, it is imperative for the working class struggles to ensure and defeat all forms of orthodoxies. End of all orthodoxies are the immediate necessities of our time for human emancipation, creativity and happiness.
---
*University of Glasgow, UK

Comments

TRENDING

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan  In a groundbreaking  study  spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

From protest to proof: Why civil society must rethink environmental resistance

By Shankar Sharma*  As concerned environmentalists and informed citizens, many of us share deep unease about the way environmental governance in our country is being managed—or mismanaged. Our complaints range across sectors and regions, and most of them are legitimate. Yet a hard question confronts us: are complaints, by themselves, effective? Experience suggests they are not.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram  India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Kolkata event marks 100 years since first Communist conference in India

By Harsh Thakor*   A public assembly was held in Kolkata on December 24, 2025, to mark the centenary of the First Communist Conference in India , originally convened in Kanpur from December 26 to 28, 1925. The programme was organised by CPI (ML) New Democracy at Subodh Mallik Square on Lenin Sarani. According to the organisers, around 2,000 people attended the assembly.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah  Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu.  He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra  Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today. 

Transgender Bill testimony of Govt of India's ‘contempt’ for marginalized community

Counterview Desk India’s civil society network, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)* has said that the controversial transgender Bill, passed in the Rajya Sabha on November 26, which happened to be the 70th anniversary of the Indian Constitution, is a reflection on the way the Government of India looks at the marginalized community with utter contempt.