What was feared has come to pass. On Monday, the police arrested 11 persons for not standing up when the national anthem was played before the screening of a film at the ongoing International Film Festival of Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram. The day before that, Chennai police filed cases against seven people for committing the same crime.
This could be just the beginning of nationwide state-sponsored action against anyone who has the temerity to remain seated while the Jana Gana Mana plays.
And why not? On 30 November the Supreme Court made it mandatory for all cinema halls to play the national anthem before screening films. It also laid down that people must stand while the anthem played to show their respect for it. In other words, there is now legitimate grounds to go after those who choose not to stand when the national anthem is played.
This marks an important shift. And it will likely have a cascading effect on personal liberties in this country.
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State Imposing its Diktat
If earlier, vigilantes itched to vent their bloodlust on someone who “slighted” the national anthem by sitting down while it played, now they can simply call the police and have the person hauled away. That is exactly what the Bharatiya Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the BJP did at the IFFK, and thanks to the Supreme Court order, the police acted at once.
What we are witnessing here is the mainstreaming of vigilantism, one where the state becomes the agent of coercion, the brute enforcer of its own cultural diktats. In a way, it is a logical progression from the bitterly divisive “if-you’re-against-us-you’re-anti-national” narrative that has dominated the national discourse throughout this year.
Dissent has been under siege lately. Is it any wonder the dissent regarding our response to a national emblem will be cracked down upon?
The point, however, is that our Constitution is built on the liberal principles of freedom of choice and expression. Plurality — of religion, caste, creed, opinion — is its cornerstone. Ironically, plurality is also the resounding theme of Jana Gana Mana. Yet the Supreme Court order on the national anthem seems to fly in the face of these principles.
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Against Logic
Most of us do stand up when the national anthem is played. Some may not — maybe because they’re lazy, or because they feel such collective exhibitions of patriotism do not amount to much. Since the Constitution does not enforce respect for national emblems, the decision to sit or stand should be a matter of personal choice. Exaggerated notions of nationalism cannot be the excuse to strip us of that choice.
Besides, patriotism means different things to different people. Standing up to pay obeisance to the national anthem while chewing popcorn and getting ready to see a B-grade Bollywood potboiler may not be one of them.
Again, what is the rationale of playing the national anthem before every film show at every movie theatre across the country? A movie hall is not a morning assembly at school where children are instructed in piety, order and respect for authority. It is a place where people, mostly adults, come for a couple of hours’ entertainment. The last
thing they may wish to do there is go through infantilising rituals of nationalism 69 years after India became a nation.
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Right to Dissent
And if a movie hall, why not a workplace? By the same token, every large assembly of people in the country should be used as an occasion to venerate the national anthem — however coercive, perfunctory or synthetic that veneration may be.
The world over it is customary to play the national anthem in the sporting arena, presumably because the nation comes together at such times to cheer their team on. It is a moment when the national anthem can rouse and inspire — both the athletes as well as their fans.
Even so, in August this year, Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, refused to stand when the US national anthem was played before the start of a game. Kaepernick, who was protesting against America’s deteriorating race relations, got a lot of flack for that decision. But he did not face arrest. Even US President Barack
Obama said that he had a right to his opinion and the way he wished to express it. “That’s what freedom means in this country,” Obama said.
Of course, those freedoms might be tested after US President Elect Donald Trump, known for his snarling nationalism, assumes office.
In India, one piece of individual liberty has just been snatched away. We have been presented with a chilling choice -- stand up for patriotism or face arrest. This could well be the start of an incremental effort to chip away at our rights and freedoms in the name of “nation above all” — the inevitable war cry of every authoritarian state.
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi. She can be reached @ShumaRaha. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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