Shauqueen Mizaj

India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, urged citizens to display the national flag in their homes ahead of and after the country’s 75th independence anniversary on August 15.

He also urged Indians to use the ‘tiranga’ (tricoloured flag) as their profile picture on their social media platforms from August 2 to August 15.

The ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ (tricolour in every house) campaign was launched on his radio show Mann Ki Baat, which aired on July 31. The initiative saw people, including celebrities, hoisting and displaying the national flag in their homes and sharing the images as well as videos. Earlier, Indian citizens were not allowed to hoist the national flag except on selected occasions.

But now, any citizen, private organisation or educational institution can display the national flag on all days and occasions. The idea behind the campaign was to invoke feelings of patriotism and promote the tricolour.

While the Har Ghar Tiranga movement gained momentum across the country, a section of the population, mainly the working-class population, took to the streets of Delhi, the capital, to protest the demolition drives being undertaken by the government authorities.

Residents of Kasturba Nagar and Gyaspur clusters occupied the Delhi Development Authority office, demanding an end to the demolitions that rendered them homeless.

In a viral video, one of the protestors asks, “Where will we put the tiranga if our homes are razed down… When everyone in the country is celebrating, we will be on the streets with our belongings under the open sky, homeless”, he continues.

There were many women among the protestors, including widows, mostly daily wage workers with children and grandchildren, who are left to fend for themselves. ‘Where will we go with our children?’ another asks.

According to The Wire, a news and opinion website, around 600 residents of Gyaspur were rendered homeless by the ongoing demolition drives. Homes in Kasturba Nagar were scheduled to be bulldozed on August 18.

The residents, who had been living in their homes for generations, had to watch helplessly as their houses were razed down in broad daylight.

The residents were given only a few days’ notice before the demolition drive to leave their homes. Neither can they afford to build another home nor has the government taken any action to provide them with any shelter.

Speaking at the ‘Transforming Urban Landscape’ event in Lucknow in July 2018, the Prime Minister, vowed that by 2022 his government “will ensure that everyone has a house”.

And the housing scheme was not merely to provide houses for the poor but also a means of empowering women as the houses under the scheme were registered in the name of a woman member of the family or jointly.

Similar incidents occurred in Khargone in the state of Madhya Pradesh in April of this year.

There were sectarian clashes on April 10 between the Hindu mob celebrating Ram Navami, a Hindu festival that marks the celebration of the birth of Lord Ram and the Muslim residents in the region, in which Muslim-owned houses, shops and vehicles were selectively targeted and destroyed.

Not only were several Muslims arrested for allegedly pelting stones at the procession and trying to disrupt the celebrations, but the district administration also began a demolition drive on the pretext of demolishing ‘illegal, encroached establishments’, razing down houses and shops owned by the Muslim community, citing their alleged involvement in the clashes.

The country’s law does not allow the demolition of property of anyone accused of a crime. However, this pattern has been observed regularly in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states, as quoted by Scroll, a digital news publication.

Siddaramaiah, a senior Congress leader and former Chief Minister of the state of Karnataka, said that the BJP was “playing a big drama” with the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign and that “no one from the party fought for India’s independence”. He also said that the campaign was intended for political gains.

Karnataka State Dalit Sangharsh Samiti (KSDSS) has also accused the incumbent government of forcing the poor into buying the national flag and denying them government-subsidised food grains if they refused to buy the tricolour.