PATRIOTS AND NATIONALISTS  !

The reflex invocation of the outdated law of sedition in spite of the Supreme Court’s clear pronouncement that it has application only if a person ‘incites people to violence against the government established by law, or with the intention of creating public disorder’ is now plain ludicrous. If Kannada actor Divya Spandana, aka Ramya, can be accused of sedition for saying that Pakistan is not hell, then Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who must have made a record of sorts for the number of times he has embraced Nawaz Sharif, should have been placed in the dock long ago.

Secondly, nationalism cannot become a reason to cynically deflect attention from matters of concern to citizens. To run with the tricolour away from legitimate issues relating to failures in governance, in the hope that this act of ultra-nationalism will silence critics, is an expedient attempt to overarch ineptitude, inequity and mal-governance.

You cannot push Dalit protests aside by saying ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’. Nor can you cover up the fact that farmers are in deep distress by shouting ‘Vande Mataram’. If your handling of students and universities is ham-handed, you cannot take the law in your own hands to beat up protesters in the name of the ‘motherland’. It is ironical, indeed, that this new ritualism around the tricolour is being pushed by BJP which draws its inspiration from RSS, which did not believe in the tiranga and preferred the bhagua dhwaj instead.