National identity puzzle

Quoting from an Indian Express article by Shombit. 

It’s so refreshing to see bright, trendy saffron-white-green painted faces cheering India at World Cup Cricket matches. That young Indians are proudly patriotic is admirable. During our young days, for those of us underprivileged, leaving India for a better life or job was a requisite drive. Today, using the national flag in varied events to express pride is a growing trend. But isn’t the horizontal display of saffron, white and green creating confusion between India’s flag and Congress party’s flag?

Taking advantage of our pride in being the world’s biggest democracy, let me touch on our flag’s history. Historians must pardon my not being an official historian; my observation is related to authentic symbolic expressions of political parties as branding is among my expertise domains. My comments are not criticism but about democratic code, we need both ruling and opposition parties for democracy’s perfect balance. Can the political party that front-ended India’s political independence bequeath its party flag to become the national flag? Was it done to fuse the idea of Congress with the idea of India to become the idea of the Nation?

Congress volunteers in Nagpur, commemorating Jallianwala Bagh massacre, hoisted the Swaraj flag on 13 April 1923. Pingali Venkayya, an agriculturist from Machilipatnam, designed this when, in 1921, Mahatma Gandhi proposed the Indian National Congress (INC) have a flag. The flag had red for Hindus, green for Muslims, and a manual spinning wheel (charkha) to symbolize Gandhiji’s call for India’s economic self-sufficiency. To include other religious communities, the design was modified with a central white stripe, and later red changed to saffron.

Indian and Irish flag colours are the same, but Ireland’s in reverse vertical green-white-saffron order. Is there any connection? Apparently not, but the fact is that Annie Besant, INC President in 1917-18 was proud of her Irish origin. INC, founded in 1885 notably on AO Hume’s initiative, didn’t initially oppose British rule. When Britain needed its Empire’s support in World War I, Annie echoed the Irish nationalist slogan: "England’s need is India’s opportunity." As editor of New India newspaper, she attacked the colonizers, demanding India’s self-rule.

India’s large majority is unlettered, and generally people only register colours for political parties. When the masses see the Congress tricolor, they can believe they are being patriotic, recall those colours when casting a vote, and consider they’ve voted for their country. This is unfair benefit that one party is lapping up over others. Breaking away from INC in 1967, Congress (Indira) had to perforce change its symbol from the charkha. The national flag colours were retained, but was the change to a palm considered breakthrough?

Let’s not tamper with our national flag, it builds our pride. Our people own those colours and symbol, and are happily flaunting them inside cricket stadiums. Just as India’s Government has enacted laws on flag usage, they should prevent political parties and other brands from appropriating national symbols and colours to encash those accompanying sentiments. An appropriate timeline can be given to make the change-over. With their own different ideologies, other political parties too can find powerful identities that are not dependent on the national tricolor. Then ‘Brand India’ can proudly promote its tricolour while racing to become the world’s No. 1 economy in 2050, as reported by financial services group Citi. India wants to invite the young generation into politics, that’s essential for nation building. This calls for fundamental change in promoting and constraining national symbols and colours in today’s digital technology era that’s driven by globalization.

You can read the complete article here

Kindly share your views.

Chitra