The walk-back on anthem

A fig-leaf in the form of a committee cannot hide the plain truth that the government has had to walk back on its fiat to play compulsorily the national anthem in cinema halls before the screening of films. It threw in the towel on Monday with a request to the Supreme Court to put on hold its 2016 order. In fact, the apex court might have been influenced with the 2016 mood when it chose to tighten the norms relating to the anthem, including a ban on its printing on any object. The BJP had at that time consciously stepped up polarisation and divisiveness in view of the UP elections and was happy to include it in its political armoury. 

Political actors and antagonist seek, invariably, to appropriate the national flag in their political card. The national flag has formed an important element of RSS’ cultural nationalism as it invests greater credibility in their attempt to pose as the defenders of illusory threats from the “Other” and cultural pollution. But the clash between the practice of cultural nationalism and practice of good governance has left the upper and middle class uncomfortable and troubled. Even the spear carriers of neo-liberal economics and value-free foreign policy have been hard placed to stand up in defence of the Modi government because of the desh bhakt’s belligerence in public spaces.

However, the government’s walk-back in the Supreme Court on the national anthem issue is not the end of the story. Since the BJP needs to reserve the calculated use of the national flag’s appeal for a rainy day, the government has informed the court of the setting up of a committee to frame new guidelines. At the same time, there can be no doubts that the BJP’s impulse for pushing ahead with cultural nationalism remains undiminished: UP CM Yogi Adityanath continues unchecked with his signature diatribe in election-bound Karnataka. The government needs to heed the apex court’s wise counsel about this game that has no closure: “Should we wear our patriotism on our sleeves? Where do we stop this moral policing?”