My great grandparents were born in Bihar, India. Another great man (likely around the same time) was born there by the name of Eric Arthur Blair. You likely know him by George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm and 1984.

I just read an essay written by him 64 years ago. Here’s an excerpt that I just had to share:

INDIFFERENCE TO REALITY. All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage–torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians–which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.

Full text is here: http://www.george-orwell.org/Notes_on_Nationalism/0.html. It’s definitely worth reading.