Respecting the National Anthem

With the meaning of the word “respect” having been defined for us by the Honorable Supreme Court of India, it is pertinent to also look at the ‘’lawfulness’’ of the said judgment. The only reason I feel this is pertinent is because we are talking about a “Court of Law” here. In commonsensical understanding, a Court of Law would be expected to issue judgments that seek to uphold the implementation of a particular Law. The purported Law in question, in the extant case, is The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971. I am quoting below, verbatim, the exact provisions of this Act, with respect to the National Anthem:

Section 3 of the Act states, “Whoever intentionally prevents the singing of the Indian National Anthem or causes disturbances to any assembly engaged in such singing shall be punished with imprisonment for a term, which may be extended to three years, or with fine, or with both.”

Section 3A of the Act (Inserted vide The Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Act, 2003), states that, “Whoever having already being convicted of an offence under Section 2 or section 3 is again convicted of any such offence shall be punishable for the second and for every subsequent offence, with imprisonment for a term, which shall not be less than one year.”

As is amply clear from the above, the provision in Law that the Honourable Court is seeking to uphold is itself non-existent.

An invocation to “Fundamental Duties” as specified in Article 51A of the Constitution has also been made in the said judgment. Incidentally, these Fundamental Duties were a subsequent addition to the Constitution. This Article was added to the Constitution vide the 42^nd Amendment Act in the year 1976 (during the prevalence of Emergency in the nation). Co-incidentally, this Amendment Act has been the most controversial one in the history of the independent nation, primarily because it sought to strengthen the Executive and weaken the Judiciary, thereby tinkering with the delicate “balance of powers” of the three organs of the State. The only intent of highlighting this piece of information here is to underline the fact that the Fundamental Duties were not a part of the Original Constitutional document and secondly, these were included in the Constitution by the Act which was the definition of Executive over-reach. Interestingly, one of the provisions included in the Constitution by an act of Executive over-reach against the judiciary, is now being invoked by the Judiciary in a judgment that ranks among the top in the ones defining Judicial over-reach. The only difference between then and now is that the Judiciary had opposed the 42^nd Amendment Act tooth and nail then, but the Executive today is delighted and is promoting this act of Judicial over-reach, to the best of its abilities.

I am in no way trying to mean that the very act of amending the Constitution itself is questionable and should not be resorted to. On the contrary, it is a necessity. No document, be it the Constitution of the nation, can be fossilized in time and space. It has to be a living document, changing with the needs of the time. 42^nd Amendment has been questioned only because of the manner in which it was forced upon the nation. The addition of Fundamental Duties was only a small portion of the sweeping changes that were sought to be brought about through this undemocratic Act.

Yet again, nothing in the above is to suggest that Fundamental Duties should not be a part of the Constitution. The question here is the interpretation we want to attach to these and the manner in which these shall be implemented and invoked. Let me first refer to Clause (a) of Article 51(A) of Part IVA of the Constitution, which states the Fundamental Duty in question here:

“It shall be the duty of every citizen of India – (a) to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem”.

The Honorable Supreme Court has, in its judgment, interpreted the abovementioned Duty as follows:

“From the aforesaid, it is clear as crystal that it is the sacred obligation of every citizen to abide by the ideals engrafted in the Constitution. And one such ideal is to show respect for the National Anthem and the National Flag. Be it stated, a time has come, the citizens of the country must realize that they live in a nation and are duty bound to show respect to National Anthem which is the symbol of the Constitutional Patriotism and inherent national quality…..”

The judgment does not take the pains to decipher any of the following to us ignorant beings:

• How does mandatory playing of the National Anthem in cinema halls amount to showing respect to the National Anthem?
• How is showing of respect related to standing up or sitting down?
• What is the meaning of the term “Constitutional Patriotism”?
• What does one mean by the term “inherent national quality”?

Also, if the ‘’non justiciable’’ fundamental duties deserve a mention in a Supreme Court judgment that all the citizens need to abide by, then I would like to mention below only a couple of other Fundamental Duties which deserve the same level of abiding by:

• To promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women
• To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform

My humble plea to the Honorable Supreme Court is to kindly consider passing some landmark judgments forcing the citizens of India (including those in power), to abide by the abovementioned Fundamental Duties in letter and in spirit. Abiding by only these two duties will amount to nothing less than a revolution (to say the least).

In the end, I would also like to make a mention of certain Orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs. I extracted these from their website. These are titled “Orders relating to the National Anthem of India”. In the first Para, this document talks about the full and short versions of the anthem. It envisages the playing time of the full version to be of about 52 seconds and the short version to be of about 20 seconds. I would request the Ministry of Home Affairs to depute its personnel to all the cinema halls of the nation and see for themselves the various “creative” versions of the National Anthem being played in each one of them (which actually are not complying with these Orders). Paragraphs II and III talk about “Playing of the Anthem” and “Mass singing of the Anthem” respectively. Nowhere in these is a mention of cinema halls as appropriate or necessary places for playing of the Anthem. Paragraph V (1) states, “Whenever the Anthem is played, the audience shall stand to attention….”. This is the only place where ‘standing in attention position’ is mentioned with respect to the National Anthem. However, two observations need to be strictly noted in this context. Firstly, these are Executive Orders, not calling for invocation of penal provisions in case these are not followed. Secondly, I would like to mention verbatim the next very clause mentioned in the same Paragraph, which states, “As in the case of flying of the National Flag, it has been left to the good sense of the people not to indulge in indiscriminate singing or playing of the Anthem.” I leave it to the Readers’ good sense to themselves judge whether or not playing of National Anthem compulsorily in all the cinema halls of the nation before each and every show of each and every movie released, amounts to “indiscriminate singing or playing of the Anthem.”

Demonetization and Gandhi

The entire demonetization story has been parsed, discussed, analyzed and commented upon in detail, by its supporters and non-supporters alike. There is not pretty much left that can be contributed to the debate, however, I wish to attempt a Gandhian analysis of the move in the following paragraphs.

Why did I feel the need to take up such an analysis? Probably because, close to seventy years into our independence, India, as a nation has still not been able to detach itself from the Gandhian legacy, even when it has made an attempt. Gandhi has been furiously debated, loved and hated, but his impact on the Indian psyche has not diminished. The most visible proof of this is his consistent and continuing presence on the Indian currency (be it the demonetized 1000 rupee note or the newly minted 2000 rupee note, though he has this time chosen to look in the opposite direction).

The present political dispensation has made a valiant, but I would say a hollow, attempt to redefine Gandhi solely as a ‘crusader for cleanliness’. His preference for keeping one’s surroundings clean was the only thing that they could (rather wanted to) pick up as worthy of emulation. Gandhi, today, has been reduced to a poster boy for the “Swachch Bharat Abhiyan”. The reason for this might not be very difficult to gauge. The current political dispensation, visibly averse to Gandhian thought and legacy, would of course not want to have anything to do with that legacy, but Gandhi being so entrenched in the heart and soul of the nation, they also cannot be seen to be openly anti-Gandhi. Hence, this whole farce of Gandhi and the Swachch Bharat Abhiyan.

Howsoever may the political dispensation of the day like to believe that Gandhi is synonymous to cleanliness, we all know that Gandhi was and still remains such a cult figure that very few can legitimately claim to even understand and talk about him with authority. Although, each and every one of us might claim an expertise on him, yet more often than not we only succeed in misunderstanding and misinterpreting the man.

What I am going to attempt further, is thus, based on my limited understanding of the man and his thoughts and I do not claim that understanding to be infallible. However, I do want to make an effort to present my analysis, all the same. The most sacrosanct principle for the Mahatma, in my view, was the principle of non-violence. One clear example of the value that this principle had for him was the stand that he chose to take by calling off the Non-Cooperation Movement, when it was at its peak, in the face of one single non-violent incident. He stood through all the dissent that he faced at the time, and continues to face even to this day, but refused to budge from his stand. Violence, for him, did-not only mean physical violence but included all kinds of violence. I would like to quote some of his views on the relationship of democracy and violence:

“Democracy and violence can ill go together. The States that are today nominally democratic have either to become frankly totalitarian or, if they are to become truly democratic, they must become courageously nonviolent. It is a blasphemy to say that nonviolence can only be practiced by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals” (Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan, 12-11-38).

India, prides itself on being called the biggest democracy in the world. This word ‘democracy’ is used mostly out of habit I believe, without understanding the true meaning or import of this term. The term ‘democracy’ has a Greek origin. It is a combination of two words – Demos, meaning people and kratia meaning power. In effect, it means ‘power to the people’. Talking about democracy in sheer political terms, it has existed, in all practicality, as representative democracy, which means political power being exercised by a set of elected representatives (elected based on universal adult franchise in India). The majority party or a coalition of parties forms the Executive, helmed by the Prime Minister of the nation. The Executive, however, is constitutionally responsible to the Legislature. This is how the functioning of democracy has been envisaged in India theoretically, however, the interesting thing will be to understand how it is working practically, on the ground, especially in the recent times, in context to Demonetization.

The announcement of this completely disruptive move of demonitization was made by the Prime Minister of the nation on a particular day. The effect of this move was to suck out 85% of currency out of the system with effect from the midnight of that day. As India is an avowed democratic nation, the announcement was in the name of the masses, with a huge fanfare, convincing the masses that after a very short period of inconvenience of a few days (which was essential to face if anyone was to pass the litmus test of ‘patriotism’), they would be the utmost beneficiaries of this move. I don’t want to get here into an analysis of the legitimacy of those promised benefits and to what extent they have materialized or could materialize in the future, because many more talented and experienced people have already analyzed it threadbare. My focus here is on the practice of democracy in this case. This decision, as it soon unfolded, was taken in the most autocratic of manners with the immediate stakeholders and the institution responsible for monetary policy also mostly being taken by surprise (except for the very top echelons, who were co-opted into the decision, totally destroying the autonomy that is essential for the functioning of this autonomous institution). There was absolutely no need felt to be answerable to the Legislature, to which the Executive is constitutionally responsible. The move led to the disruption in the life of millions (most of them from the poorer sections of society), and hundreds lost their lives. But the interesting thing in all this is that this move is being hailed and projected as the most democratic move ever made, because it is being proclaimed to have been carried out in the name of the masses and for the whole and sole benefit of the masses. How further from the truth could one really get?

Coming back to the question of democracy and violence, is this not the practice of the worst kind of violence possible? If not, then what else can be termed as violence? But I don’t think we should be surprised by this act of naked violence. When acts like standing in a queue for withdrawing some pittance from your own account and standing up for national anthem at cinema halls becomes a proof of patriotism, then of course this form of democracy can be the only form that can be possibly practiced.

Mahatama Gandhi’s response to the practice of this form of democracy could be imagined to be something on the below lines:

“True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the centre. It has to be worked from below by the people of every village” (Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan, 18-1-48)

But then, who cares about democracy, or for that matter, for the Mahatma anymore?