• Last year after stopping short of declaring that Kashmir was no longer part of India —  “autonomy,” “self-determination” and all the other good things — our Prime Minister curiously stopped pursuing the line. And now Lal Chowk has happened. Expectedly, our leader in the blue turban has mouthed the usual platitudes: “hoisting the Indian flag in Lal Chowk will arouse divisive tendencies,” “people should not get worked up,” “this is a deep-rooted conspiracy hatched by the Opposition,” etc. In effect, peace at any cost. 

But let’s look at what a national flag is. A piece of cloth, paper, and canvas upon which is painted some nice colours, which makes it look attractive. And so it should make perfect sense to say that the truckload of BJP supporters and other nationalist-minded people are creating a fuss over nothing, really. But the law of the land provides for a Flag Code of India which defines what the Indian flag is. “The Indian National Flag represents the hopes and aspirations of the people of India. It is the symbol of our national pride.” In other words, the Indian Flag is synonymous with India.

It isn’t for superstitious reasons that coffins of soldiers killed in combat are draped in the national  tricolour. We live in times where even the most obvious things need to be said and said loudly: a flag is a symbol. Every nation needs its symbols. An extreme case is the USA where although the usage of the national flag goes to ridiculous extremes — bikinis and suchlike — the patriotic undertone is unmistakable.
   But it takes perhaps only India, despite having such an elaborate Flag Code, to make a vulgar mockery of it.

Actually correct that. It is only in India that we kill national pride bit by bit, debauches democratic institutions, and thinks nothing of bartering the Indian national interest for the sake of remaining in power indefinitely. In the latest Kashmir episode, the UPA government has demonstrated yet again that it is willing to trade Indian territory if it means even appeasing separatists, an epithet for Pakistan-backed terrorists.

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