What we need is more flags

The BMC distributed 5 lakh flags in wards across the city to celebrate our 75th Independence Day

Friends of mine were handed national flags by their watchmen in the first week of August. Some had to sign pamphlets distributed by their building secretaries, requesting them all to fly the flags outside their windows for Independence Day. It is only when the BMC made a few announcements related to this that I heard about the fabulous ‘Har Ghar Tiranga' campaign though.

Apparently, the BMC distributed 5 lakh flags in wards across the city to celebrate our 75th Independence Day. There were also press releases announcing the presence of 600 hoardings in Marathi, Hindi and English, along with banners near bus stops, gardens, cinema halls, malls, and hospitals. Audio clips were also played in gardens, on radio and local cable channels. This is apart from similar initiatives by other state governments, and I found a slew of websites that helped explain what this campaign was meant to do. I was sure it would finally prove, without a doubt, that we really were an independent nation, despite what some people have been saying for the past eight years or so.

I was compelled to look for a flag in every corner of my home, because I started to feel a little left out from the celebrations. I usually had paper flags in August each year, because they used to be handed out to us at school, but I couldn't find one made of cloth or polyester. This upset me because I realised I would have no way of showing how patriotic I was. Without a flag outside my window, how would my neighbours know I was Indian, or that I loved India as much as they did? I had no way of proving it because I no longer had social media accounts where status messages could be used to prove my patriotism. The government's target was 20 crore flags fluttering from homes across the country, apparently, and I had no way of adding to that number without a flag of my own. It devastated me.

What this predicament ultimately managed to do, however, is highlight how little we have invested in being genuinely patriotic until this point in our country's history. We have wasted decades and a lot of money on infrastructure and healthcare, instead of putting up more hoardings and building websites in the years after the Internet was born. If it weren't for the crores diverted from our taxes towards this PR campaign, almost none of us would have remembered to celebrate this anniversary in such a bold manner. It made me happy that, for at least 24 hours in 365 days, so many of my fellow citizens would cherish the fact that millions sacrificed everything they had 75 years ago just so we could celebrate this bank holiday in the right spirit.

My joy was curtailed drastically when I checked out what some Indians were saying online though. There were short videos circulating on WhatsApp, featuring poor people talking about how they had been forced to purchase a flag before being allowed to take home supplies from their local ration stores. Others were tweeting about government employees being forced to donate a small amount from their salaries for the purchase of these flags, and I dismissed them all as propaganda. Only a cruel, disgusting government obsessed with publicity would do something like this. Our government was anything but. I was sure not a single rupee of my taxes had ever been spent to publicise its work, or to promote any minister, so I knew these videos were obviously created by enemies of our country to discredit our government.

I think we should spend more in the coming years to highlight how important Independence Day really is. We should initiate a committee to start celebrations for our 80th anniversary, so things aren't rushed as we approach that milestone. Maybe we can find a way of tying the act of flag hoisting with our Aadhaar cards too, because we have managed to incorporate that ID into everything else. It sounds like a stretch but, where there's a will…

My last suggestion to the government is to introduce GST on the national flag before forcing all Indian citizens to fly it outside their homes. It's a great way of boosting our coffers so the money collected can then be spent on more impressive Tiranga campaigns. As for those who argue that a few companies benefited massively from the manufacturing of these flags, I am sure these critics come from Pakistan.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira
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