tirangaProf PMohan Rao on FB

What kind of pseudo-patriotism is this? This is tawdry, cheap, and stinks of failure of imagination. Orders came from the JNU Administration, citing UGC letters, that we do a “Tiranga March” today. Orders have come to have a Mass Singing of National Anthem tomorrow at 11.00. All Chairpersons of Centres in all Schools in JNU have been asked to send a Compliance Report.

The gates of JNU are strung up with Chinese fairy lights around a big board that enjoins us, in one sentence to “glory in the Independence”. They cannot get one sentence right.

And this, from a regime not particularly well known for its participation in the freedom movement.

What is this whipping up of faux patriotism, of jingoism about? Are we heading towards a war with Pakistan and no elections in 2019?

This is frightening. An Emergency without it being declared. Don’t they know that there is a Supreme Court judgment in the Jehovah’s Witnesses case that no one can be mandated to sing the national anthem or stand when it is being sung?

Mohan Rao
22nd August 2016