Question: How important is politics to you? How much do I respect politics? How important do you think politics is for the people?

Politics is one of those words, which is scorned, very few words in the english dictionary have such a rep.

Where am I goin with this?
how do u define a country? Why do I say that I am an Indian?
Dico says: n. Land, terrain, region, area...
2. Nation state kingdom, realm.
3. Nation, population, inhabitants, citizens.

In the end what defines a country is its political boundary.

Worldywise says: Country is defined as a collection of people with a similar history, ideas, culture (thats one of the vaguest word!), and above all a sense of belonging to the land, its people.

Government usually tries to drum up the feelings of "Patriotism and Nationalism" so that it can sustain its budget for defence, which being inherently the most opaque( for security reasons!!) has great scope for bungling.

Wars/threats of war are tools used to drum up patriotic feelings, Indians hardly felt the feeling of "Indianness" till the wars with Pakistan. I donno how much the entertainment industry are a party to the whole patriotism thing
coz after the politicians and the Armament makers, these are the guys who make most money making movies and shows, trying to get the hair on my neck rise in a surge of Desh-bhakthi and end up do a "bloody " good job of it!

Coming back to the question what is a country/ nation?
Tell me a villager living on the border of India and Pakistan, his history and culture belong to that region and not to india or pakistan.
Poltically he is an indian(we still havent defined what that is) but he is patriotic neither abt India or pakistan?

I will never fight a war and die for my country. (The best cliche award goes to...: To me people are more important), fighting for a cause is logical but killling for a peice of land, is more like ...... treason