The campaign of Har Ghar Tiranga is well conceived but marred as usual by implementation goof-ups that has characterised the Narendra Modi Government since 2014. The National Flag mandate is that it should be made of khadi and as reported was being made by just one khadi village manufacturing unit in Karnataka. With the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign it was anticipated that the small unit would not be able to cater to the expected massive demand for the National Flag. But this realisation dawned late on the Modi government. This is normal for them. If the expectation of high demand of flags was realised earlier then could not the manufacture of khadi cloth been scaled up and the production of the National Flag dispersed across the country among the many khadi village manufacturing units which apart from giving them increased activity would have also resolved logistics problems for delivery of the flags to citizens. The Modi government did not do that. They cleared the production of the flag in polyester. This not only went against the National Flag mandate that it should be made of khadi but also against the avowed Green policy of the government of promoting bio-degradable material. Was this done deliberately to favour polyester manufacturers among which there is a most favoured industrial group of the present government involved in this activity? It is an insult to fly the National Flag made of polyester and should not be done since then we are supporting a wrong practice being promoted by our government.
Not only that for such a sacred duty of flying the National Flag the government is charging Rs 20 even to students and to the poor who come to get their free rations. These people living below the poverty line have been refused rations if they do not buy the flags at Rs 20, despite their pleading that they do not have the cash. For promoting a noble cause, why is the Modi government bent upon creating discord and misery? If the government seriously believed in the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign, then it should have given the flag free to people. Why is it that the Modi government likes to ride on the backs of the common people to charge money for the National Flag even from the poor? This is one ‘freebie’ that Modi could have given on the 75th year of Independence to the people for a just and noble cause.
I have no objection in raising the National Flag by every Indian. For that we could have a National Flag Day or on January 26th we could raise the National Flag in commemoration of the Indian Republic but not on August 15th as a celebration of ‘freedom’.
Concluding, this is yet another mess-up that will be credited to the Modi government to add to the snafus related to Demonetisation, GST implementation, the Covid vaccine availability delays by not supporting the manufacturers in time.
