Hence, the gimmick of “proudly” flying the national flag in the hope that it will remind the passers-by of their country – and the foreign students about where they are – and evoke, albeit momentarily, a stirring sense of patriotism, Mercifully, the minister and the vice-chancellors (some of whom had reportedly dozed off) did not think of playing strains of the national anthem as well to bolster the feeling of love for the country.

Had they been genuinely concerned about the tragic suicide of a brilliant student in Hyderabad, which led to the summoning of the conference in the first place, and the more recent events smacking of anti-nationalism in the eyes of the saffron camp in the JNU, they would have thought hard about improving the quality of teaching so that the students would be able to acquire a wider social, economic and political perspective against the background of the country’s constitutional development.

Only such an outlook, along with an assessment of the failures of the system and their remedies, would be able to cure the impressionable youngsters of their naivety and warped idealism. That does not mean that there wouldn’t be any sloganeering including provocative chants which question the norms of governance and specify a utopian goal. But the university authorities and the teaching community will be aware of the transient nature of such “youthful error”, as the police has conceded even in the JNU affair and not succumb to the ruling party’s orchestrated jingoism.

However, the minister and the vice-chancellors evidently assumed that their responsibility for guiding the students along the straight and narrow path will be fulfilled by the hoisting the national flag at a central point in the institutions. What is surprising is that they do not seem to have learnt the lesson provided by such attempts at a show of patriotism in the days after the 1962 border conflict with China.

It was decided by the government of the time that the national anthem would be played in the cinema halls at the end of every show with the screen showing the national flag fluttering in the breeze. The intention was to instill a sense of patriotism. In the first few weeks after the practice was introduced, the audience did stand at attention. But, then, as the weeks passed, it was noticed that the cinema-goers did not stay till the end of the anthem but began leaving in ones and twos even before the music had faded away.

There is unlikely to have been a feeling of disrespect. Instead, it was a natural reaction to an overdose of an attempt to evoke a feeling which was there anyway in everyone’s heart. But the official ploy apparently began to seem contrived and uncalled-for. Love for the nation is not something which can be forced, let alone be a part of an official diktat. Ham-handed endeavours of this kind can be counter-productive, not least because the political class and the bureaucracy behind such moves are not generally held in high esteem. Their ploys will be seen, therefore, as a political stunt undertaken for a partisan purpose under the cloak of nationalism.

That this is the explanation in the present case is obvious. Having been caught on the back foot by Rohith Vemula’s suicide in Hyderabad and the lawlessness of the pro-BJP lawyers in Delhi, who made a mockery of their nationalistic claims by their hooliganism, the ruling party at the centre is seemingly at it wit’s end because of the unfolding events.

The BJP’s hope that its nationalistic card will enable it to climb the high moral ground has been blighted, first, by the thuggery of its supporters and, secondly, the almost certain possibility that the JNU student leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, will not be indicted on the charges of sedition after all. In that event, Union minister Giriraj Singh’s call for shutting down the JNU and BJP M.P. Sakshi Maharaj’s demand for booking Rahul Gandhi, Sitaram Yechury and others cannot be carried out.

The paucity of ministerial talent in the BJP’s ranks is believed to be the reason why it is unable to push forward at the governmental level with the various promises of the prime minister such as bringing back black money from abroad and introducing bullet trains, which is considered unfeasible by E. Sreedharan of the Delhi metro fame.

But the worst side of the party’s intellectual vacuity is revealed by its reactions to matters of social and educational concern, which have been compared with Talibani diktats by those members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the BJP’s student wing, who resigned in the wake of the JNU affair. (IPA Service)