On Nationalism, “Hinduism,” and the Path Beyond Isms

Vira Chandra: There is something tragic in how sincere yearning for wholeness so often becomes distorted—how love for a land, its rivers and chants, its matted sages and barefoot grandmothers, gets twisted into hardened shape and weaponized as ideology. Nationalism, like all “-isms,” becomes a prison the moment it forgets the soul behind the form.

And yet—to condemn all expressions of identity, whether cultural, spiritual, or national, is just another kind of violence. The sword of viveka (discrimination), if not bathed in the river of yoga (the integrative vision of unity), does not liberate—it severs. It creates more “I” and “not-I,” more enemies in the name of truth.

Ramana Maharshi, the embodiment of stillness, never raised his voice for any cause. He did not speak of independence or foreign rule. He did not speak of “Hindus” and “others.” And yet, when the tricolor flag of India was brought to the Ashram in 1947, he allowed it to be raised. Why? Not because he believed in nationhood, but because the hearts around him were filled with emotion—and he did not wish to suppress them.

He did not interfere with bhāva. That was his greatness. He let the world act, without letting it touch the silence within. No slogans. No ideology. Only compassionate presence.

As the Bhagavad Gītā (6.29) teaches:

sarva-bhūta-stham ātmānaṁ sarva-bhūtāni cātmani
īkṣate yoga-yuktātmā sarvatra sama-darśanaḥ

The yogin whose self is harmonized by yoga sees the Self abiding in all beings and all beings in the Self. Such a one sees equally, everywhere.

This is not mere tolerance—it is non-dual vision. Not the flattening of diversity, but the unshakable clarity that all appearances rest in the same luminous essence.

To dismiss the term “Hinduism” as entirely artificial is to risk erasing the lived experience of those who never studied the Vedas but still cried the name of Kṛṣṇa with trembling lips. The tradition is deeper than its labels. The pot may be colonial—but the water is ancient.

Yes, the term “Hinduism” was shaped by outside hands, and yes, it has often been hijacked by narrow political forces. But Sanātana Dharma—the living current of truth, devotion, and liberation—has flowed through temples, forests, hearts, and home altars long before any “-ism” arose.

So let us not become so pure that we are untouchable, so refined that we mock those still walking the path through ritual or identity. The boy lighting a lamp before the flag, the grandmother whispering a name into a mango leaf, the devotee at a noisy temple in Kāśī—all are held by Her.

This is not a call to apathy, but to clarity—to act without becoming what we fight.

Let us not sharpen discrimination into a weapon. Let us soften it into a gaze. Let it become not a scalpel but a lamp.

And finally: let us remember Ramana’s silent gesture. He neither endorsed nor rejected. He simply remained as That in which all flags, identities, bodies, religions, and dissolutions appear.