Murphy’s law says ‘Anything or any problem can be made complicated as long as there is enough number of discussions on it’. A corollary to this could be ‘you can create a problem out of nothing if you have a debate on it’.
This is what we are very good at. Hair splitting in Hindi is called ‘Baal ki Khaal Nikalana’. What we do is ‘Baal ke saath khall nikalana’. Which loosely translates into ‘Pull your hair out with part of the skin of the scalp.’
The Prime Minister expressed his wish and suggested that on 15th August 2022 when we are celebrating our 75th Independence Day, ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ every Indian should endeavour to have a flag on top of his home. Fair enough, one would say.
But how can that be? Someone must oppose it. This is a democracy, after all! So, the intellectuals, the think tankers, philosophers and economists, environmentalists, and even some retired army generals et al jumped into the debate. They said it is a good idea but there could be problems. Before one starts something good, one can start imagining problems on a scale which is unimaginable.
“As long as I live, I will never forget that day 21 years ago when I raised my hand and took the oath of citizenship. Do you know how proud I was? I was so proud that I walked around with an American flag around my shoulders all day long”, Arnold Schwarzenegger had said once.
The flag is a symbol. As per one definition, ‘A flag is a piece of cloth, or a similar material attached to one edge of a pole or a rope and used as a symbol or emblem of a country or institution’.
Some of these thinking people are overthinking in fast forward, saying, it is a good idea but… what will be done with the flag once the Independence Day celebration is over and after a while, the flag gets discoloured or damaged or dishevelled? It needs to be handled with honour. It must be said here that the flag belongs to every citizen of this nation, and who better than a citizen, a proud citizen to take care of it? As per the flag code of our country, the damaged flag which is not good enough to be hoisted should be honourably burnt or buried. There is no rocket science required for this.
The next problem they have in mind is that the government is planning to have 20 crore flags across the country and the number is overwhelming. Even if this scale is achieved, we have a 140 crore population which could be just 18% of our population. Another point noted by these noted people is that from a collective it becomes an individual platform. One must be out of one’s mind to even say this. Patriotism is individual emotion and collectively 20 crore Indians make it a collective effort and a collective nationalistic feeling. Numbers and size matter. In this case, it matters a lot.
In the United States of America more than half the homes fly an American flag! Estimate says 51%. And not on 4th of July but round the year!
Oh come on, these guys further argue that the poor cannot afford a flag therefore these rich and mighty will display bigger flags and look down upon the poor with homes without flags. The houses of the rich will become ‘Flag staff houses!’
The delusional discussion doesn’t end here, it further suggests that this will divide the society and will be shameful and further deepen the gap between the haves and have-nots! Pure Bolshevik thinking!
Do you think that 49% homes in US who do not fly a flag are feeling that they have been marginalized?
The next worry of these ‘thinkers’, who think for nothing, is that if the polyester flags become popular, then this industry will flourish, and it will hit the environment adversely. According to one of the thinkers, a polyester T-shirt emits more than twice as much carbon as a cotton T-shirt (height of imagination bro). It would make us look silly in front of the world as we will not be able to keep our commitment to climate change, bravo.
His last punch line is that the white strip in our flag gets dirty very quickly because of the high level of pollution in most of our cities and people have to have sufficient money to replace it ASAP. Thank God he did not suggest changing the colour of the flag replacing the white strip with chocolate brown or steel grey to handle the vagaries of the weather.
The problem with these budheejivees or so called intellectuals is that these handful guys perceive the 1.4 billion Indians as idiots.
