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Why enforced patriotism doesn’t sit well with some in India
Amrit Dhillon says the Supreme Court ruling to make people stand for the national anthem in cinemas is absurd and won’t achieve its aims of fostering greater national pride
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I am not good with authority. Some perverse streak in me bristles instinctively on being faced with edicts. People like me are now in serious trouble as, every time we go to the cinema in India, we will have to stand when the national anthem is played before the movie, as decreed last month by the country’s Supreme Court.
“The citizens of the country must realise that they live in a nation and are duty bound to show respect to the national anthem, which is the symbol of constitutional patriotism“, the judges intoned in their ruling.
My first reaction to the news was that it is absurd to enforce patriotism. Now that feeling has been reinforced, on learning that about 20 people were arrested for not standing for the anthem, during a film festival in Kerala and elsewhere. Even more alarming was an incident in Chennai, where eight young men were beaten up at a cinema for not standing.
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India’s Supreme Court orders cinemas to play national anthem before each screening
It’s a pity the judges didn’t realise that, the moment you rule on something as personal and individual as patriotism, you encourage vigilantes. Apart from being a licence for thuggery, the order is flawed on many counts. What about the disabled? Those in wheelchairs or the elderly? What about someone whose personal ideology – communism, anarchism, Maoism – dictates that they remain seated? What about instances such as the recent one where an exhausted labourer flopped into his seat and instantly fell asleep? Would he be manhandled and ordered to stand?
The moment you rule on something as personal and individual as patriotism, you encourage vigilantes
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