A country’s flag is a hallowed symbol of its people, and no Indian is formally taught to love and respect the tricolour. This comes from within, and has done so always. It is an instinctive component of a deep-felt nationalism. This nationalism derives from a long struggle against colonialism in which all sections of the people participated, and not from the coming together of the people of any particular creed, colour, language or race, as was the case elsewhere.
Given this background, it is not the province of a political party or government to issue a diktat to the people to show the flag reverence — and this has not happened any time since Independence. Indeed, it is insulting to take lessons in patriotism from anyone, a party or a government. It is therefore extraordinary to find the Union government issuing formal instructions to Central universities — which subsist on funding from it — on Thursday to ensure that they must fly the national flag “prominently and proudly” to signify a “strong India”.
This is to be done on a permanent basis. HRD minister Smriti Irani thinks this is necessary to “instil nationalism”. This is gauche at best. But the instructions also lend themselves to a negative political meaning in the present-day context, especially coming from a government of the BJP whose foundational ideology resides in the RSS, which was a conscious non-participant in the freedom struggle, and which for decades insisted on flying its own saffron flag — its symbol of Hindu nationhood alone — and looked askance at the tricolour, which symbolises the nationhood of all Indians. It has been suggested that the ruling party and its government are making a big song and dance about nation-love and nationalism as a diversionary tactic on account of its many failures, and the recent JNU incident has been manipulated to give it space to ride the high horse of nationalism and to pretend that patriotism is its monopoly as several state elections are round the corner.
There is another dimension to it which can prove dangerous to national unity. If the tricolour is flown atop the Central University of Kashmir without the Kashmir flag for company, it will be a violation of the terms of Kashmir’s accession to India and great political turmoil may ensue, endangering the country’s security and internal cohesion. The government is being utterly thoughtless.
