We don't need flags atop our schools & colleges to feel patriotic

As long as your citizens abide the law, let them be and let them find their India for themselves, writes Arup Roychoudhury

When I think of my Tricolour, many images flash by in my head. From the Independence and Republic Day functions in school (the laddoos!), to the dome of the Rashtrapati Bhawan; from the Tiranga embossed on the fuselage of our space rockets, to the fin flash on the tails of our military jets.

But the proudest moment for me was the one I saw on television, newspapers and magazines when I was 12 years old. The Tiranga held atop Point 4660, or Tiger Hill, by our boys. It was 1999, and our soldiers had taken back our soil inch-by-inch from Pakistan in a brutal battle on an unforgiving terrain. 

At that age, I did not fully understand the concept of nation state, or patriotism. But I felt pride, a lot of pride, maybe more so because I came from a military family.

I love my country, I feel gratitude of having been born in a stable, liberal democracy in a world where several nations have faced instability for prolonged periods. I feel proud of the immense optimism and ambition my compatriots, and especially my generation of millennials, carry in their hearts. I feel proud of our economic, military, technological, cultural and intellectual might.

I lost my father in the service of this nation. Two uniformed portrait photos stand on my mother’s bedside table. One of my father, and the other of my maternal grandfather. You see, I don’t have to prove my patriotism to anyone. Nor does anyone else. My patriotism, just like my religion, is deeply personal. I stand during the National Anthem because I want to. I don’t care if others want to or not. Their choice. And if the law of my land gives them that choice, who am I to object?

I got really offended once the news started coming in of students in JNU allegedly asking for ‘Bharat ki Barbadi’ and ‘Azaadi’ for various Indian states. But I got absolutely infuriated when a rabid mob attacked students and teachers, as well as my fellow reporters who were just doing their jobs. The mob was waving my Tiranga and insulting my motherland when they hollered ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.

I have a problem when the supporters and members of the ruling party and of its larger ideological ‘parivar’ start branding anyone who does not agree with them as "anti-nationals". I get rather pissed off when an entertainer claiming to be a journalist starts deciding who is a patriot and who isn’t. If he is a journalist, then Kim Jong Un is a global statesman.

I get even more angry when some of my fellow Indians start buying into that propaganda. And I am really losing it now, since by announcing that all central universities will hoist huge 207 feet by 125 kg Tirangas, the government has imposed its version of patriotism on the country I live in, pay taxes in, and will die in. I hate patriotism being shoved down my throat by an executive decree. India is a global giant, for God’s sake, and those who think that students shouting ‘anti-India’ slogans will destroy the idea of India really suffer from serious insecurities.

Come to think of it, us Indian millennials did not have huge flags fluttering in the schools and colleges we studied in, and whatever the generations that came before us may say, I feel we are pretty patriotic. We are patriotic because we were allowed to chase our dreams, disrupt, rebel, create and innovate. It is a century which we truly believe will be ours.

If the government wants future generations to be patriotic, it should not plant massive flags in the universities. It should not condition people to be patriotic. That would make patriotism very robotic and will take away all the emotion from what is essentially love. As long as your citizens abide the law, let them be and let them find their India for themselves.
 

Twitter: @aruproy2611