Thursday, March 28, 2024

Patriotism by court order doesn’t really work

Friday, January 12, 2018, 18:00
This news item was posted in Business category and has 0 Comments so far.

By Reshmi DasguptaCourt judgments are not always easy for a lay person to understand, given the extensive use of legalese both by judges and lawyers, and the reams of evidence that all such verdicts are bound to carry. We just want to know the gist of the order and act accordingly if it needs mass acquiescence. So it was in the case of playing and standing for the National Anthem.First the Supreme Court decreed it should be played in cinema halls and every one should stand at attention during that time; then people with disabilities were exempted. Now the Supreme Court has left it to the cinema halls to decide if the anthem is to be played; but if it is played, people have to stand at attention. We could be forgiven for concluding, “Much ado about nothing.”Now that it is done and dusted – in effect back to what it was before the order – people at all levels should wonder whether courts are the right place to resolve such matters. The government had initially felt that the practice was needed to bind India together and foster patriotism. It’s a worthwhile goal but imposing patriotism by court order is simply not a very feasible idea.Now that cinema halls are no longer bound to play the National Anthem, will they? And now that Indians are not bound by the court to stand, will they? And if neither do, will that be deemed as evidence that we lack patriotism? Some will undoubtedly draw such conclusions. But it all boils down to whether we feel that the National Anthem and National Flag deserves respect.If we do think they deserve our respect, how do we demonstrate that, if not by standing, singing, saluting or some similar form of personal acknowledgement of reverence? How much of what we do now—by court order or spontaneously—is a matter of protocol and habit and now much is out of genuine love for what they symbolise? Can there be respect without obvious display?I would draw a parallel to changing norms of respect and reverence in families. Time was when children and parents had a more formal relationship, both in India and abroad. In the west, addressing fathers as “Sir” was not merely a feature of the Dickensian era but stretched right up to the 1960s. Mothers at that time also had a far more formal relationship with their kids than today.Here, I remember a classmate always doing a “shastang pranam” – full prostration – to her grandparents and parents before exams, in Delhi in the mid-1980s. These days, most pranams (especially in north India) stop at the knee. I still touch elders’ feet, but my son does so far more rarely—and that too, not to me! But can that be construed as a deterioration of respect for parents? No.At the end of the day, respect flows from regard, not merely from status or office. And it evolves and manifests differently as time goes by. Protocol, rules and habit are at best partial guarantors of respect. The rest has to be earned. Living creatures can earn respect by their personal actions, but the question arises of how inanimate objects – such as anthems and flags-do so.By the values they symbolise, of course, which in turn have to be disseminated by us. And that does not happen in a day or even a generation. Americans famously love their flag so much that they not only have nicknames for it – Old Glory, Stars & Stripes etc -but unlike their ancestors, they now wear it too. And if they are angry, they also burn it on occasion.Americans also sing their national anthem in all sorts of places, with celebrity singers giving their own interpretation of the basic tune without any questions. When last year some sportspeople “took the knee” (refused to stand) for the Star-Spangled Banner, there as a debate, not prosecution or jail terms though President Donald Trump had some strong words on the matter.In India, both acts towards flag and anthem would be seemed blasphemous and illegal. No other way of respecting our flag and our anthem is allowed to us Indians than what was decreed decades ago. Just as respect in social and familial matters have evolved, we need to have the (official) willingness to let our relationship and respect for the anthem and flag evolve too.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply