The concept of a nation, being abstract and complex, can’t be defined only by its geographical boundaries and political system. It is reflected in its national and cultural symbols as well. It’s not without reason that all countries, from ancient civilisations like India, China, Egypt and Greece to relatively newer countries like the US, have specific national and cultural symbols. Every country is sensitive to these icons because not only are they symbols of the nation’s self-respect and identity, but are also rallying points for national unity. Therefore, there is a special need to respect and protect these symbols.
The role of intellectuals is important in this regard because, as torchbearers, they provide a direction to both the country and society. Unfortunately, the vision of the Indian intellectual class, beset by the Western mindset, has been largely negative when it comes to our national and cultural symbols. Some recent events—whether the issue surrounding the celebration of the Republic Day, the controversy around the renaming of Aurangabad, or an editorial on cows written a couple of days ago for a leading English newspaper (also assumed to be the mouthpiece of these misdirected or ‘maha’ intellectuals) —clearly delineate this picture. The strategy of these so-called intellectuals towards Indian national and cultural symbols is three pronged: neglect them, ridicule them, and oppose them. One often finds a permutation or combination of these three operating on the ground.
To begin with, announcing to take out a tractor protest parade on 26 January on the instigation of the so-called liberal-leftist intellectuals, which has amalgamated in the ongoing peasant movement, is an insult to the Republic Day and the Indian Constitution. The right to protest can never include a right to maligning national symbols and, by extension, the nation before the world. The Republic Day is not an ordinary day. Not only did our Constitution come into force on this day in 1950, but it also holds immense historical significance because the Independence Day was celebrated for the first time on 26 January, 1930. Keeping in mind this significance, the Constitution was enacted on this date in 1950.
However, Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor, considered to be an intellectual, citing the cancellation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit as the chief guest on Republic Day, called for the Republic Day celebrations to be simply cancelled. It is to be noted that the British PM cancelled his scheduled visit to India on account of the second wave of Covid-19 in England. After Tharoor, well-known lawyer and NCP leader Majid Memon along with Shiv Sena spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi jumped into the fray in support of the statement. While people like Tharoor and Memon are notorious for making ludicrous statements, the demand to cancel the Republic Day celebrations was unprecedented.
In fact, it can be argued that there was a greater need to celebrate this national event today. It needed to be done in order to, on one hand, boost the morale of the countrymen in the current Covid crisis, and, on the other hand, send out a message to hostile countries like China and Pakistan that India stands as strong as ever even in this critical time. The ceremony is also a message for the financially well-endowed global club willing to invest in India, telling them that the situation in India is coming under control. Of course, this Republic Day needed to be celebrated at a relatively smaller scale, unlike the previous Republic Days, and it was a welcome decision by the Narendra Modi government to celebrate it in a toned-down manner, while maintaining all the protocols required for the pandemic. It should be noted that when the Covid crisis was at its peak in June and July last year, even the most afflicted countries like Italy, America and Russia didn’t cancel their National Day celebrations. National days and their symbolic significance have immense importance and it is difficult for patriotic people to ignore them.
Another major incident showing disregard to another national symbol – the Indian flag – took place in October last year, when PDP President Mehbooba Mufti said that she wouldn’t hold the Indian tricolour till the status of the former Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir was restored. However, interestingly, the country’s pseudo-liberals and intellectuals maintained stoic silence on this questionable attitude towards the national symbol of the tricolour. It must be mentioned here that had these above mentioned statements come from a BJP or RSS functionary, Lutyens’ Delhi and its media would have ripped them apart, and the Modi government would have been accused of violating constitutional norms and decorum and simultaneously murdering the Constitution.
Apart from national symbols, a country has various cultural symbols too, such as great people, historical monuments, icons and places, etc. At the individual level, these cultural icons are such great men and women, with whom the society feels proud to identify itself. They are ideal figures, embodying the highest human virtues. Currently, a controversy has erupted in Maharashtra with regard to changing the name of the city of Aurangabad to Sambhaji Nagar. The so-called intellectuals, besides politicians, are opposed to it. Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, son of the legendary Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was mercilessly killed in this area by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The city was renamed Aurangabad after Aurangzeb. Manu Pillai, an author and historian, in his book The Ivory Throne, iterates that Aurangzeb had not built the city originally. Another argument by some people, that changing the name will not change the fate of the city, is also absurd. It must be asked then why the same reasoning was not advanced when the Congress government renamed Pondicherry (the colonial nomenclature) to Puducherry in 2006 or the Communist Party government renamed Trivandrum (also a colonial nomenclature) to Thiruvananthapuram in 1991. No self-respecting society can accept with pride the name given by the tormenter, tyrant or colonial ruler. But then, double standards are the norm followed by some of our “intellectuals”.
Apart from the politics of neglect and opposition, there is a covert tendency, distressfully, to ridicule the cultural and religious icons of the nation. However, the fact that our “intellectuals” and “illiberals” have a partisan approach and a negative predisposition towards only Hindu symbols adds to the situation. The latest instance is an editorial write-up from a couple of days ago, a disgusting and derogatory one, on cows, in a leading English newspaper. Although it’s true that in the past a few anti-social elements and miscreants created a furore in the name of the cow, it doesn’t give license to write disrespectfully about the religious-cultural symbol of 100 crore Hindus, which is just as integral to other communities of India and the nation as a whole. Had someone written something similar about the symbols of some other religions, all the so-called “secularists” would have created a ruckus. Slogans as “Religions of the minorities are in danger in ‘Modi-Shah-Bhagwat Raj” would have reverberated all around.
A look at the past confirms dozens of such incidents. Whether it is the Ram Janmabhoomi dispute in Ayodhya or Amartya Sen’s attitude towards the slogan of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ in Bengal, whether it’s regarding Sanskrit prayers in the Kendriya Vidyalayas or the issue of the inclusion of the Bhagavad Gita in Indian and Western Philosophy courses, the same pattern operates in all these instances. The sordid games of these reprobates don’t stop here and extend to accusing constitutional symbols, institutions like the Supreme Court, the Election Commission and the CAG and more, as well. Unfortunately, even on the life-saving Covid vaccine, a symbol of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’, developed and ‘Made in India’, politics has started.
It is time to take cognisance of the fact by these “intellectuals” and self-nominated “keepers of conscience”, with a vituperative predisposition towards the national and cultural symbols of India, are fast losing their credibility, and that such an attitude is neither in their interest nor the nation’s.
The writer is a Professor in the Department of Hindi, University of Delhi. He has also taught in various universities in the US. The views expressed are personal.