Thanks to the Supreme Court, prompted by the petition of an obscure film society, revisiting its earlier order making the playing of the National Anthem mandatory before the screening of movies in cinemas, we have been subjected to endless monkey chatter on nationalism, patriotism and whether or not people should stand during the rendition of 'Jana Gana Mana'.
Prime time television has been dominated by shouting, screaming, raving and ranting proponents and opponents of left-liberalism with closet champions of Islamism chattering the loudest in studios that came to resemble guava groves with hordes of primates furiously settling a dispute.
India's symbols of sovereign identity and national unity have long ceased to be sacred; what was once sublime has now been reduced to the ridiculous. Reverence for the nation, which is not confined to atrophied geographical boundaries, springs from a deep sense of attachment to the land of one's origin.
Unless deracinated either by choice or circumstances, for which several reasons, not all of them wholesome, can be cited, a person can never be alienated from his or her motherland, just like a fake or acquired accent in a foreign language does not lessen the umbilical bond of mother tongue. Nation and national identity are inseparable and indivisible.
The left-liberal intelligentsia, both fashionable and copycat varieties, was never comfortable with the idea of cosharing the Indian identity with the country's unwashed masses. The former was, and remains, given to belittling all things Indian, including its civilisation, culture and national idioms, chosing self-flagellating shame over robust pride. The masses, on the other hand, were and remain robustly proud of being Indian, their minds uncluttered by borrowed hocus-pocus ideas.
Scoffing at the National Anthem, or for that matter the National Song, or even refusing to salute the National Tricolour, is nothing new, it is an old trope. Patriotism and nationalism were reduced to cuss words even while Jawaharlal Nehru was alive -- some would say under his benign gaze. To be a patriot and a nationalist was to be anti-modern and unprogressive.
That poison seed planted in the Nehru era has since germinated and produced a tree whose roots gnaw at the innards of our national foundation and whose evil fruit seduces young men and women away from Mother India. From Che Guevara T-shirts, resistance has mutated into Bansky T-shirts. It's as laughable as our past-middleage revolutionaries and their dolt admirers.
The left-liberal resistance we see today is indistinguishable from Islamist resistance to India's nationhood. The badge of patriotism and nationalism that they pin on those who refuse to toe their line is akin to the yellow Star of David that was pinned on Jews by their Nazi tormentors. Pinning shame on the defiant is an old trope too; the transmogrification of yesterday's left-liberal into today's left-illiberal, intolerant and bigoted like the Nazis and Fascists they call others were, is not a 'Post-Truth' verity.
That alone explains the left-liberals' raucous denunciation of standing during the rendition of the National Anthem, their spurious arguments against the National Song, and their mocking those who salute the National Tricolour.
let it be said, and said aloud, their voices are echoed by Islamists who are loath to placing the nation above self and indeed loath the very concept of nationhood, in India and abroad. Americans are witnessing the birth of the hateful Antifa; we in India have lived with the Antifa's desi cousins for long.
Some years ago, writing in these columns after the Jamaat had asked Muslims not to sing the National Song, I had argued that wasting anger on that call declaring Vande Mataram as haram for the believers was entirely needless. It was not the first such call.
The slighting of 'Vande Mataram' began long before India's independence with one Congress president demanding that it should not be sung at the party's annual session as it violated the Islamist injunction against music. This was minutes after he reached the venue at the head of a procession which included a band.
After Jamaatis picked up that refrain and said no true Muslim should bow his or her head to Mother India, I had suggested that the naysayers should be ignored. There is no percentage in forcing people to revere their motherland as it would be mere genuflection bereft of both love for and pride in the nation. India can do, and survive, without that.
I would suggest the same approach towards left-liberals, their memes and their Islamist cheerleaders who do not wish to stand during the rendition of the National Anthem. let them stick out like not sore but gangrene-inflicted thumbs in the crowd that willingly stands as a show of respect and to uphold the sanctity of 'Jana Gana Mana'. let them carry the burden of shame for a change -- the shame of being identified as the pariahs they wish to be.
Meanwhile, could we please put an end to the monkey chatter on the idiot boxIJ Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore composed 'Jana Gana Mana' as a five-stanza Brahmo Sangeet and called it 'The Morning Song of India'. let me conclude with the second stanza from Tagore's translation of the song:
"Day and night, thy voice goes out from land to land,
Calling the Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains round thy throne and the Parsees, Mussalmans and Christians.
Offerings are brought to thy shrine by the East and the West
To be woven in a garland of love.
Thou bringest the hearts of all peoples into the harmony of one life, Thou Dispenser of India's destiny,
Victory, Victory, Victory to thee."
It's a pity only the first stanza of 'Jana Gana Mana' was adopted as India's National Anthem.
(The writer is Commissioning Editor and commentator at ABP News.)