Protest with National Flag - Some Confusions

Sandeep Banerjee

In the recent protest against NRC-CAA-NPR in many places we have seen protesters carrying the national flag. Even in the Home page of Frontier Weekly website carries a picture of a JNU protest where a protestor was standing on something, he was very much visible (was he with a skullcap, could not see accurately) and he was waving the national flag. Or should I write the National Flag? Anyway.  

This decade started with protests with National Flags – that was 2011. We remember the Anna Hazare movement that started in April 2011. But the first of the big renowned international movements in 2011 was the Algerian movement – and it looked much ‘reddish’, because the Tunisian National Flag and also that of UGTT (the main TU in Tunisia the flag of which was taken up by the rebelling workers) were red. Then it started in Egypt and while masses at Cairo’s Tahrir Square had National Flags or long banners akin to or taking the colour scheme of that flag, the workers masses at Ghazl El Mahallah did not and they were happy with their red union flags or banners. The March-April onwards massive workers or ‘labor’ protest at Madison, Wisconsin, also had their own banners and signs and did not wave national flag or flaunted ‘Guy Fawkes’ masks as those happened in the later Sept-Oct Protest known as Occupy Wall Street. (It also looks strange that why a white male face could become a protest symbol – though it is falsely connected with the celebrated hackers of Anonymous – and then Guy Fawkes was fighting for Catholic re-domination over England, to bring England under Pope’s control!) In May 2011 Madrid Indignados also seemed not very much fond of their national flag (that have a coat of arms). The famous Greek protest also did not have much blue-n-whites.

But at the end of the decade we see many protests with national flags. So many national flags were seen in French protests of the Gilets Jaunes and also in Algerian Hirak, and the popular voices singing Marseilles, was explained somehow by one correspondent – many French households and Algerians too had their national flags ready at home due to the World Cup Football win and the African Cup Football win respectively. Although, in the protest marches of workers red flags were very much visible as was in the French strikes. Football nationalism (or in our sub-continent Cricket Nationalism) is not new – it was implanted and slowly blossomed on and from the 1960s somewhere and somewhere on 1970s or 1980s and it became a decisive tool for media and advertisement industry in this new epoch post-1990. Indians have several other aspects of nationalism also and one of those is anti-Pakistan-ism, then there are also ‘regional nationalisms’ like Bengali, Tamil, Malayali, Assamese etc nationalisms, while nationalism as anti-imperialism is rare in popular discourse. 

On the other hand, due to the defeat of the first campaign international communist movement (1848 –____) and the decay of the so-called communist parties almost the world over, the red flag has lost much of its sheen and attraction. Red flags in India were so much smeared with state (regional governments) forces and capitalists with whom they hobnobbed and all the things the so-called communists did and did not do helped others to infiltrate the masses and the ideological vacuum was filled up by BJP, neoliberalism and etcetera, sometimes simultaneously. Those who can claim to be part of the communist stream are infinitesimal and their followers if totalled can perhaps reach 0.1% of the population of India. Workers’ and peasants’ revolutionary struggle is absent, demands of poor peasants and agricultural labourers are seldom heard and annual strikes have lost the striking power. All these indicate the situation we are in.

Situation is such that a so-called ‘left’-leaning leader notified to those interested in an upcoming rally in protest of NRC-CAA-NPR not to carry any other flag than the national flag. Why? Will only this flag be acceptable to all? If so then the nature of that ‘all’ is problematic.

The real reasons behind this might be many, but one important among those is – to prove that the bearers of that flag and the assembly of such individuals are ‘true nationalist’ and not at all ‘desdrohi’ or ‘anti-national’ as the BJP always portray all protesting against BJP’s line – to prove this to the media, the state machinery and all related one. Moreover, if one wears a skull-cap or a burqa and waves a national flag that will ‘prove’ that those Muslims are true nationalist and not pro-Pakistan. One other reason is also apparent. The leaders are thinking — Our Union of India, our republic, the constitution, are admirable and BJP is trying to distort everything. Our national flag symbolises our worthy republic and we are upholding this. We want to protect our republic and our constitution from BJP. This line of thinking is the motive force of almost all pervasive. BJP’s action on anti-NRC-CAA-NPR protests in BJP ruled states, trying to remove women protestors from Shaheen Bagh, maligning the protest, all these made protestors to adhere to the national flag all the more.

We have travelled a lot. Perhaps we now take our Indian variety of ‘secularism’ same as French ‘laïcité’ and our republic as post-democratic-revolution one. Well. But nonetheless these protests are showing something else too. There is a churning going on in the society. Football fans of both competing big clubs in the derby match took stirring anti-NRC banners in stadium. And what is more or most important sign right now — a lot of women are taking to the streets breaking age-old chains. To what end it would lead?

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Frontier
Jan 21, 2020