From Opposition to Ultra Nationalism: The Politics of The Anthem and Tricolour

From Opposition to Ultra Nationalism:

The Politics of The Anthem and Tricolour

Jawhar Sircar

Ananda Bazar Patrika, 26th January 2018

English Translation

          The recent press conference of four senior judges of the Supreme Court brought into the open, rather uncomfortably, certain defined positions within the highest court of the land: that were hitherto discussed only in whispers. The pronouncement made by Justice Dipak Misra’s bench on the 30^th of November 2016directing “all cinema halls in India (to) play the National Anthem before the feature film starts” appears, therefore, to represent one point of view. The honourable judge, who later became the became Chief Justice of India, declared then that “all present in the hall are obliged to stand up to show respect to the National Anthem” as it was an opportunity for citizens to express their “love for the motherland.” The other point of view was voiced by Justice Chandrachud of the Supreme Court eleven moths later when he declared it was unnecessary for a citizen to “wear his patriotism on his sleeves”. This order of 27^thOctober 2016 remarked that “the next thing will be that people should not wear t-shirts and shorts to movies because it will amount to disrespect to the National Anthem... where do we stop this moral policing?”He had, incidentally, shared Justice Mishra's Bench in November 2016 and this subsequent categorical judgement is, therefore, an interesting example of the dynamics of India’s judicial system and the evolving concept of ‘justice’.

           Anti socials masquerading as ultra nationalists soon utilised the mandatory order to play the national anthem to rough up those they suspected as not being sufficiently ‘patriotic’. To be frank, staring at a rather unaesthetic digital display of a fluttering synthetic flag not did generate sufficient voltage either. The behaviour pattern of the current dispensation also contrasts rather sharply with the sensitivity that government had displayed earlier in 1963, when cinema halls were first advised to play the national anthem. This was just after the shocking attack by China when a strong national sentiment had gripped India spontaneously, without the need for patriotic injections. From the archived files of the period, m it appears that the Public Relations Committee set up by the National Defence Council to improve the mood of a demoralised nation recommended that a standard recorded version of the national anthem be played in film auditoria, with the national flag if possible. But the 1963 order of the Home Ministry issued on 29^th June was only an advisory ratherthan a diktat. Its wordings were “State governments are requested to persuade the cinema houses” with the expectation that it would work. Besides, the anthem was only to be played at  the end of two shows, the matinee and evening, when audiences got up anyway, to leave: with no element of compulsion or vigilantism.

      As no standard short film of the moving national flag was readily available, the Films Division was directed to produce two versions, a colour film for the “main halls in the big cities” and a black and white one for all other halls in these cities. Cinema halls in the rest of India could play only an authorised gramaphone record. The profuse notes kept on files and the numerous letters exchanged between officials of the Home ministry, the Information & Broadcasting ministry, the All India Radio and the Gramaphone Company of Kolkata during these eight months of 1963 presents us with insights into the bureaucratic obsession for being correct, detailed and, of course, free from controversy. The files also preserve for posterity nuggets of history like how babus sitting in distant Delhi knew which 26 film theatres of Kolkata qualified as “main halls”. These included Metro, Elite, Globe, New Empire, Lighthouse, Minerva, Hind, Paradise, Priya, Basusree, Bijoli, Bharati, Indira, Purna, Sri and a few others. The second category of 71 ‘other halls’ of Kolkata included Aleya, Ajanta, Bharati, Chitra, Regent, Prachi, Uttara, Tiger, etc, but most names of both categories are just memories, except rare exceptions like Priya. People may soon forget the origins of Ujjalar Chanachur and Bijoli Grill. In 1963, the  Films Division promptly produced the desired films that were sold to the halls, at 50 rupees for the colour and 32 for the black and white. The gramaphone record that was marketed for cinema halls outside the metropolitan towns carried three sound tracks of 52 seconds each of the choral version of the national anthem where 60 artistes participated. As the reverse side of this record carried the same national anthem played by the military band, records tell us how bureaucrats spent sleepless nights wondering what calamity would befall if the cinema halls played that side by mistake.

              As we all know, during wars patriotism rises to a peak but the fact that the wave recedes when national crises are over does not mean that citizens become unpatriotic. Playing the national anthem in cinema halls followed such patterns and since India has fortunately been free of wars since 1971, the practice was discontinued. But as a sudden akal bodhan of patriotism is now sought, it may be appropriate to look up a bit of our history. It is matter of record that the  Rashtriya Swayamsevak Dal or the RSS that gave birth to the Jana Sangh and its successor, the Bharatiya Janata Party, did not participate in the nation’s freedom struggle quite deliberately. We cannot, therefore, be certain whether the current overdrive of pumped up patriotism is an act of atonement or an attempt to superimpose on historical memory with retrospective effect. In fact, in August 1947, the RSS's mouthpiece, Organiserdeclaredthat the Indian national tricolour will "never be respected and owned by the Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad psychological effect and is injurious to a country."

           The logic is flawed as several holy Hindu symbols have three and even the post Vedic trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwar are integral to Hindu belief and worship. Even the earlier issues of Organiserdated17^th and 22^ndJuly had also stated the RSS's opposition to many such national issues. In fact, the second Sarsangh-chalak or head of the RSS, MS Golwalkar bemoaned in his book, Bunch of Thoughts, that "our leaders have set up a new flag for the country. Why did they do so?... Ours is an ancient and great nation with a glorious past. Then, had we no flag of our own? Had we no national emblem at all these thousands of years? Undoubtedly we had. Then why this utter void, this utter vacuum in our minds?"Golwalkar did not, however, tell us what ancient flag or national emblem of India we had lost. The RSS has all along favoured the Bhagwa Dhwaj, thesaffron 'split flag'over the national tricolour, as it represents only Hinduism without any doubt.

              When exactly did the RSS remove its opposition to the national flag and why? History tells us that Sardar Patel, whose statue the ruling party now plans to set up as the tallest in the world, had slammed down on the RSS and banned it immediately after Mahatma Gandhi’s assignation on 30^th January 1948. He did not budge in the next one and a half years despite pleas from Golwakar. It was only on July 11, 1949 that he lifted the ban  after the RSS pledged to stay away from politics; not be secretive and abjured violence. More important, it had to profess "loyalty to the Constitution of India and the National Flag". It is strange, therefore, for the RSS and its political creation called the BJP to be dictating after 70 years to all Indians how and when they need to display their patriotism.

Festivity, Populism and Power

Festivity, Populism and Power

Jawhar Sircar

The Telegraph, 17th January 2018

(Unabridged version)

               Those who fret that community pujas in Calcutta are “getting highly politicised” must remember that they had been started in 1910 to support  a political ideology.The first community Durga puja at Balaram Basu Ghat Road in the Baghbazar area coincided with the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress. Bal Gangadhar Tilak had led the way much earlier by organising large scale Ganapati pujas in Maharashtra: to attract the masses to the new creed of nationalism. Calcutta adopted this model of utilising community festivities for political purposes. 

   The whole exercise has undergone a paradigm shift. The phenomenon of organising public celebrations has been extended to many more deities. Ganesh and even Hanuman have come in from outside to jostle with  subaltern deities like Sitala, Shasthi, Manasa and even Dharmaraj and Boro Thakur for attention. These pujas are more than just occasions for re-affirming piety or for indulging in carnivals. An academic examination reveals that such a puja phenomenon actually represent pulsating expressions of political power, which is strengthened by interlinked cultural participation. Religion offers legitimacy to the ruling parties in Kolkata as in Delhi but Bengal’s social festivals known as Pujas facilitate the penetration and domination of all the ‘spaces’ —  physical, visual, aural and celebratory — that communities cherish. 

        Community pujas are thus essential for the sustenance of the new political party that seized power from an apparently invincible apparatus which ruled Bengal for 34 years. This became possible because the ruling party has come up with an answer to the ‘cadre’ base that was patronised by the Left. The communist parties had left a big gap by staying away from Bengal's emotional Durga pujas, the current ruling party filled that void. This has helped it create an army of supporters, with local clubs serving as the hubs of such support. My study of a slum in south Kolkata shows that many more gods and goddesses have been inducted into the annual schedule of para pujas. The newer additions were essential to maintain the fluid balance of power within the structure: the much sought-after tasks of collecting revenue and deciding on how to spend it has been apportioned among rival groups within the ‘republic of the locality’. They, in turn, bonded with voters by providing them much desired entertainment. The class war that Marxists had thrived on had actually been inverted by the Trinamool Congress, by providing the vast lower middle strata with better or similar fare that the upper classes pay to enjoy, totally free of cost. 

     Several evenings of many pujas are thus dedicated to public performances by notable singers or actors. In fact, entertainment is spread over days in such a manner that people from other localities can attend them and partake of the glitz. The riding decibel levels during evenings or even during the rest of the day need to be accepted as the vigorous assertion of subaltern power over the less-numerous gentry residing in the same area or in adjacent localities. The fact that every municipal ward has its own slums ensures the success of this political model, though it would be an oversimplification to equate political bases totally with income-based ‘urban spaces’. The greater frequency of festivals is also essential to ensure the regular nourishment of the cadre as well as the operations that are carried out by the local councillors or other elected representatives and their cohorts. The presence of senior political leaders seals the bond and some VIPs are known to ‘inaugurate’ innumerable puja venues over several days: to reinforce the power nodes within the structure. Tapati Guha Thakurta’s In the Name of the Goddess: Durga Pujas of Contemporary Kolkata has done a commendable study of the chief festival. She also discusses its political takeover, but as explained, pujas have to be viewed as integral to the power apparatus that ousted the Left Front through this mass-based more subaltern model of politics. 

          But care is also taken by the powers in Bengal  to ensure that this is not viewed as the celebration of one religion only. The festivals of other communities are given considerable encouragement: to balance secular credentials. This is indeed refreshing to the minorities, because even though the previous regime had sworn by the same secularism it had stayed away from religious festivals, Hindu or Muslim. Incidentally, this regular participation in all Muslim celebrations has led tothe present regime being criticised by an opposing party for ‘pandering to particular vote banks’. 

         A vital component of the larger exercise of the present regime is the ‘joy factor’: emphasising continuously on celebration, colour, games, carnival and merriment. For instance, the bright strings of tiny coloured lights that brought cheer during the Pujas only, have been given permanent residence, so that the city bears the stamp of never ending festivities. This is then substantiated by public-oriented events, from the Indian Premier League and U-17World Cup football to musical jamborees and film festivals. All stops are pulled out to ensure that there is some extravaganza on, round the year. The frequent pujas we discussed are critical constituents of this overarching master-plan of happiness, especially for the more populous bottom half of the pyramid. This also provides perfectly valid reasons for the vast machinery of governmental publicity to splurge on the leader to such a point that none else is visible, even remotely. 

             But then, who pays for the festivities that are not part of the government’s events? Models differ, from self-financing through a daily toll collected from street markets, shopkeepers and hawkers to undisguised extortions. The rehearsals for the latter began long ago during the previous regime when trucks and cars were stopped on highways for ‘contributions’ to local pujas. The police looked the other way and this trait is now stronger as pujas and power are so intertwined. ‘Syndicates’ determine how much money is to be paid by each builder or enterprise.

             The mass appeal of large congregations during Durga pujas, of course, attract companies and advertisers as well, but our focus is on politics not economics. An interesting form of redistributive justice is worthy of note as the regular community feasts organised by the clubs,  which incidentally are among the greatest attractions of many of these pujas, is that several leaders or syndicates have to share a part of what they acquired with their core groups or communities. The phenomenon brooks further detailed study as the links have been institutionalised by the government through a scheme under whichlocal clubsare cash benefits of several lakhsof rupees each: to encourage sports and games. The last estimate is that more than 600 crore rupees have already been doledout to 12,000 clubs, and more keeps flowing while officials tear their hair. After all, audit objections are mounting each yearas most of these clubs hardly submit proper ‘utilisation certificates’. But then, it is high time that we realised the character of populism and post democracies in India: especially the construction and the dynamics of their power structures. Mass leaders, from unapproachable goddesses like Ammas and the lady with the big handbag to 56 inch demagogues and the lady in hawaii slippers, it is a virtual free for all of ingenious innovation of techniques to hold their flocks together. Nothing stands in the way: whether it be intimidation in the name of a historically tolerant religion or it is cash grants to loyalists who convert socio-religious pujas to strengthen their grassroots support. 

After all, politics is as much the art of seizing power as the craft of retaining it.

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