A Piece of Cloth!!!

        On the 26th of January, 2011 ordinary citizens of this nation will mark the Indian Constitution's coming into force by hoisting the tricolor across the country. But it is one such planned hoisting, in the heart of the northern most state of the country, which promises to become a flashpoint as the BJP’s Youth Wing(BJYM) marches towards Lal Chowk and the establishment puts all its might behind preventing it. While the CM of the State has gone on record calling the flag hoisting as ‘divisive’ and has sealed the state’s border with adjoining Punjab, thus restricting movement of citizens within their own country, the PM has also echoed the same sentiments. Some prominent journalists, meanwhile, choose to question the need to ‘stir the pot’ at this point in time when Kashmir was ‘limping back to normalcy’ even asking why no such ‘Ekta Yatra’ was held in the last 20 years and some even comparing it with the patriotism of soldiers in Siachen in order to prove its lack of importance. What they chose to completely sidestep was the determination of the government to deny the citizens of the country their constitutionally guaranteed right to hoist the tricolor.

        The simple answer to the people questioning the motives behind the choice of venue and timing of the event is that there need not be a reason to hoist the national flag. Any citizen can do it, anywhere he wishes to do it, anytime he wishes to do it. However, if they really need a reason then they should just go back in time to September, 2010 when this incident occurred. As is the case with any ‘sensitive’ issue, this event received minimal coverage in the media as Separatists in the valley unfurled the Pakistani flag at the same Lal Chowk while the state government, lacking the power or rather the will to stop them from doing so, became silent bystanders. Surely, the soldier standing guard in Siachen does not do so to witness this sight. The politics of appeasement which has led the valley into a spiral of unrest, ensured that the same government would take no action against these separatists but it would employ all the machinery at the disposal to prevent the hoisting of the tricolor to avoid antagonizing these very separatists.

        Some journalists have called this event as a return to ‘nationalistic yatra politics’ for the BJP. They claim that the BJP is not the standard for patriotism and that a person does not become any less nationalistic by hoisting a flag. They are right on both counts. But doesn’t a person/organization become less nationalistic if it tries to prevent the flag being hoisted on Indian soil? The issue here is about fundamental right of the people. What is different about this yatra than all the BJP’s previous adventures, is the absence of Hindutva as a rallying point. It has no reference to any temple or any community. The only intention is to restore national pride at the same place where, not very long ago, a separatist mob openly mocked the law of the land. If somebody’s sentiments are hurt by the hoisting of the tricolor, does that individual even deserve to live in this country?

        As the establishment and the media grapples with its inability to paint this event with a communal hue, it has tried to create an impression that the law and order of the state will be disturbed if the hoisting does indeed take place. As mentioned earlier, the flag hoisting is being dubbed as ‘stirring the pot’ in a state ‘limping back to NORMALCY’. This is the same state which has forced thousands of its own people to become refugees for the last 20 years only because of their religion. This is the same state where the flag of a hostile neighbor was unfurled in an act of open defiance not too long ago. This is the same state where citizens are not allowed to hoist their own national flag. And this situation is normal? Is the absence of violence the only indicator of normalcy? Doesn’t the denial of basic human rights strike these ‘intellectuals’ as being abnormal? Is this state of apparent normalcy a good enough reason for the government to behave in such a spineless appeasing manner? Reminds me again of the famous Joker dialogue, “When everything goes according to plan, nobody panics, even if the plan is horrifying.” In this case, the plan being that the people of Kashmir let the stones remain on the ground, even if it requires subverting the constitution to suit their whims and fancies.