By Madhu Kishwar
Not many countries in the world allow their national anthem to become a tool for divisive politics. But in India any and every issue is used for partisan political agenda. Our national anthem is no exception. The latest controversy over the national anthem erupted on 29 November, 2015, when five members of a family were asked to leave a cinema hall in Mumbai because they rudely rebuffed fellow cine viewers who asked them to stand up as the national anthem was being played before the start of the movie.
A video clip of the event went viral on social media and consequently provoked heated debates in mainstream media, including prime time television, because the concerned family happened to be Muslim. Had the same incident involved a Hindu family, it is not likely to have excited such passion on either side of the political divide. Even though the collective upset of the audience over deliberate “disrespect” shown towards the national anthem was a spontaneous reaction and not engineered by any political party, the mainstream media at once attributed it to the “rising wave of intolerance” due to BJP’s Hindutva agenda which in the worldview of Stalinist left liberals is synonymous with “fascism.” This twist was given despite the fact that no one from the Modi government stepped-in to take a position on that incident one way or the other. In the ensuing Hindutva bashing by the self-styled liberals, little attention was paid to the fact that originally the ill advised farmaan to make it mandatory for cinema halls to play the national anthem before every movie show was issued by a Congress government in 1960s after the Indo-China war to restore people’s shaken faith in India’s leadership because of the humiliating defeat at the hands of the Chinese.
Even in the relatively innocent 1960s, most people weren’t impressed with the compulsory dose of patriotism being inflicted on them at such an inappropriate venue. Even those who favoured the singing of the national anthem to mark important national events, found it annoying when they had to compulsorily show respect to it in cinema halls. In those days it was played after each movie show. It was a common sight to see people walking out instead of standing in attention as required by protocol. Seeing signs of mass disobedience, good sense prevailed and the practice was slowly discontinued.
However, for inexplicable reasons the Congress-NCP government in Maharashtra reissued in 2003 the failed farmaan of 1960s. It is doubtful that the audience uniformly showed due respect to the national anthem in Mumbai theatres. But mercifully no major confrontation was reported on its account before the November 29, 2015 incident.
However, it was not in Maharashtra but in the avante garde state of Kerala where a major controversy erupted around the national anthem. At that time, Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister.
In July 1985, a member of Kerala Legislative Assembly discovered that some children belonging to a Christian sect had refused to sing the national anthem in the school assembly. He thought this act of defiance was “unpatriotic” and raised the matter in the Assembly following which a Commission was appointed to inquire and report on the alleged offence. The Commission reported that the children – Bijoe, Binu Mol and Bindu Emmanuel, were otherwise well behaved and had always stood respectfully when others sang the national anthem. But as per the tenets of their religious faith, Jehovah’s Witnesses are forbidden from singing the national anthem because they consider it a form of idolatry and, therefore, an act of unfaithfulness to their God Jehovah.
Given the charged atmosphere in the state then under Congress rule and under instructions of the Deputy Inspector of Schools, directed the Head Mistress to expel the children from the school on July 26, 1985.The children’s father appealed to the school authorities and education department to revoke the decision. When they refused to pay heed to his appeal, the hapless man approached the Kerala High Court seeking an order to restrain the authorities from preventing his kids from attending school. First a single judge bench and then a Division Bench of Kerala High Court rejected the prayer of the children.
Thereafter, the case reached the Supreme Court of India under Article 136 of the Constitution. The judgment in this case was delivered on August 11, 1986 by Justice Chinnappa Reddy J. The Apex court reversed the high court decision and ordered the school to readmit the children taking note of the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not sing national anthem of any country, be it England or Canada, as a matter of conscience and commitment to their faith. The court also observed that “the right of free speech and expression also includes the right to remain silent”, and since the children had only refused to sing the anthem in keeping with the demands of their religion while showing due respect to it by standing up with all other children, the High Court order needed to be reversed. (Bijoe Emmanuel Vs State of Kerala)
Having snubbed the Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case, a few months prior to this judgment, Rajiv Gandhi decided to show the judges of the Apex Court that the will of the Gandhi scion like that of his mother stood supreme and was above any court of law. On September 12, 1986 he defiantly declared that his “Government would suitably amend the Constitution to make the singing of the national anthem compulsory if the Supreme Court did not correct its decision.” (The Times of India, 13 September, 1986). In this contempt for court orders Rajiv was following in his mother’s footsteps. The context of this jingoistic statement openly challenging the wisdom of the Supreme Court has to be kept in mind. After having become the darling of Muslim Mullahs over the Shah Bano case, Rajiv had tried to also become the Hindu Hriday Samrat by ordering the reopening of the Ram Lalla Mandir in February 1986. It had been kept under lock by Court’s order following the century-old dispute between claimants of the Babri Masjid and Ram Janmabhoomi. The row over the national anthem gave Rajiv Gandhi an opportunity to prove his “secular and nationalist” credentials because the Shah Bano Case and opening of Ram Lalla Mandir made him vulnerable to the charge of placating both Hindu and Muslim religious extremists.
Rajiv Gandhi’s flunkeys joined in chorus to reverse the Supreme Court verdict. Lifelong Gandhi family loyalist Mohammad Yunus arrogantly declared that those who gave the verdict in the national anthem case were “neither Indian nor judges.” This was not only a brazen insult of the Supreme Court but also amounted to smearing legal luminaries like Justice Chinnappa Reddy as anti-national. A contempt of court case was filed against Yunus by some public spirited citizens but they were soon forced to withdraw it.
Mine was among the few voices to challenge this “liberal” audacity by the Rajiv Gandhi government through an article in The Illustrated Weekly of India (March 1987). But none among the current guardians of “tolerance” and “liberalism” protested the open declaration of contempt for Supreme Court despite repeated assertions by Rajiv Gandhi that his Government would not accept the Apex Court Order.
This cavalier attitude was in line with the trend started by Indira Gandhi of holding the Constitution of India and the Supreme Court judges as virtual hostages and tampering with the basic structure of the Constitution as often as she pleased to camouflage her illegal and unconstitutional actions. Far from being criticized, Rajiv Gandhi was widely applauded for undermining a key pillar of democracy, namely an independent judiciary whose writ ought not to be arbitrarily trampled over by the political establishment or the executive.
The Rajiv Gandhi Government soon got into trouble over the Bofors scam and lost the nerve to enact a new law declaring refusal to sing the national anthem an act of sedition and a cognizable offence. Had he done that, the Muslim family that was made to leave the cinema hall, might well have spent the rest of their life in jail for their anti-national, seditious conduct.
Imagine the left, liberal furore if Narendra Modi had unleashed such jingoistic belligerence towards a Supreme Court order or made the singing of national anthem a key litmus test of a citizen’s’ patriotism, or, if a BJP minister had made a Mohammad Yunus type declaration against Supreme Court judges saying they deserved to be neither judges nor qualified to be Indians!
Likewise, if a BJP government had issued the diktat making it compulsory to play Jana, Gana, Mana before or after every movie show, the self-styled liberals would have raised hell and declared it as proof of “anti minority intent of Hindutva.” We would have then witnessed a well orchestrated smear campaign in national and international media against imposing “majoritarian” norms on religious minorities as they did over introduction of yoga in schools. Modi bashers would have invented 1001 reasons to prove why Jana Gana Mana with its Sanskrit vocabulary militates against the religious beliefs of Christians and Muslims as they did for surya namaskar.
By contrast, there was not even a whimper of protest when the Congress government in Maharashtra mandated the singing of the national anthem in cinema halls.
Fortunately, this time around no one in BJP responded to the spontaneous outrage against the family that refused to stand up as a mark of respect for the Rashtra Geet. Or else we would have been subjected to another round of award wapsi along with another wave of hysteria against “growing intolerance” in India.