"Tirange Ka Apmaan" or insult to tricolor, Amir Khan in tricolor controversies, Sachin Tendulkar criticized for insulting tri color. Sania Mirza sued for insulting tri color, Dhoni in controversies after wrapping tricolor incorrectly - almost every month, we get to hear this kind of news which generally ends up getting an undue but unavoidable apology from the so called “offender” or the person or so called “plaintiff” raising the issue gets his or her due publicity which seems to be a big general motive behind bringing celebrities to the court. At end of day, electronic media gets to fill their prime time news hour with some sensational news, print media gets something to fill their front page and courts get hundred more cases like this in addition to millions more deserving in the queue but waiting for a “date” from the court to get justice

 

This makes me concerned-Is our tricolor so vulnerable? Have the people created the laws around tricolor made the laws so week or complex that they are intentionally or intentionally broken so easily? Are people really and rightly using their time, their skills or their efforts by suing celebrities? Are the courts spending their precious time with the right cases? Are we really interested in preserving the dignity of the tricolor or we just use it for our own benefits such as getting some instant publicity? And the more serious concern I have is-are we catching the right people for insulting tricolor unintentionally and leaving those who knowingly insult tricolor every moment of their life? Should the tricolor be close to my heart which is irrational or my mind which always thinks twice before using the tricolor? Let me try elaborating some of my concerns followed by my own views about the tricolor.

 

To be very frank, if I become a celebrity right now and get to use tricolor at a public place such as a stage or in a stadium, I am very positive that next day, I am going to get a court notice. Is it because I insulted tricolor? No-it is because I am not aware of the complex laws around it which I would certainly forget while I use the tricolor as the only way to show the belongingness to and affection for my mother country. Do I really follow a law when I hug or kiss or touch feet of my mother? Certainly not! So why the tricolor? If you ask me or if I ask you today about the exact laws-I am sure, we will be able to list just a percent of the whole complex lot. Why so many laws? Why can’t we just say -“you are not supposed to burn or crush it and it should not be used for vulgarity”? Why are we so concerned if somebody sits in front of it or the tricolor is below the waist or above the nose or right of the left ear or left of the right ear and so on and so forth? Let us make it nice and simple and see, everybody would be happy about it.

 

Now about the time and money spent suing celebrities. There are many dimensions to that. Do you need an apology from them? Why? Why can’t you just forgive them? Probably that would be the best respect to the tricolor as one of the values of our country is the forgiveness and we can practice it very easily at home? Let us just forget and forgive and not go to the court. Secondly, we are blocking courts from working on right and more deserving cases by filing and making them work on celebrity cases. I still have to figure out why celebrity cases gets always a priority. The third dimension is-have you seen any celebrity getting punished? No! Remember some cases recently and see what happened! Sanjay Datt is out on bail after being convicted in a terrorism case, Salman khan is walking tall and free despite being involved in two cases-one of which is of homicide. Can somebody tell me if anybody got booked and convicted for insult of tri color? No! So let us just stop wasting our time, effort and money and divert them to things which have better and more useful outputs-after all, we can do only limited things in our life span so why not do something which serves the humanity and not a wastage of time. Courts too have many cases which deserve a hearing RIGHT NOW but they wait for decades due to court’s resources getting involved in useless stuff.

 

Let us now talk about whether we are finding right people for suing. There are thousands of politicians in country who take oath under tricolor and by their dirty and corrupt actions, insult it every moment of their life. What about the bureaucrats or BABUs who get their appointment letter on a letter head with tricolor printed on it. Do they really keep the dignity of the tricolor? Very first, we should go and check the whole political system and the bureaucracy and these Amirs and Sachins and Sanias and Dhonis will look very small and poor if you go compare their actions which seem to have insulted the tricolor.

 

What tricolor means to me? It’s a physical symbol for my mother country which I can see, I can touch, I can feel and can be nostalgic about. It’s like my mother’s “Aanchal” (fringe or veil being the closest meaning as far as I could get from my google search) which I can nostalgically use it any way I want as far as I am not burning or destroying it or being vulgar to that-how can one be vulgar to his or her mother? Tricolor is like a picture of GOD to me who is supreme and nobody is above that. This reminds me of Guru Nanak’s story which is narrated that while at Mecca, Nanak was found sleeping with his feet towards the Kaaba, that when angrily asked how dare he dishonor the house of the lord, he replied that could he turn his feet where the house of the lord was not? The same applies to our beloved tricolor. There is no way it can be insulted as it is beyond the scope of all insults or disrespect. My advise to my countrymen is-Please use your heart, not your brain or the knowledge you received in your civics class and stop worrying about the tricolor-the real respect to tricolor is to preserve the values and culture of our country and perform our duties honestly and sincerely not by suing people who unknowingly don’t behave the way an old stale book has written hundred pages about.

 

Mera Tiranga Mahaan! Mera Bharat Mahaan!