Plastic patriotism

A campaign to ban plastic flags could be a starting point of a debate on modernity, nationalism and development, says C.K. MEENA.

SEVEN-THIRTY on a Sunday morning is not the best time to reflect on patriotism. I was left with no choice, though, when artist C.F. John woke me up for a debate, since I had literally asked for it. It was at my behest that John had set up a tripartite meeting to discuss the tri-colour, and it was not his fault that the appointed hour clashed seriously with my hour of awakening. There was no way out: I had to make the supreme sacrifice.

"Be ready in half an hour. I'll pick you up," John said with ghastly enthusiasm. "The others will be there at 8.30." The 'others' were theatre personality Prasanna, and the Registrar of National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and Professor Babu Mathew; "there" was Hotel Airlines (an old landmark of Bangalore) which offered the tempting prospect of an open-air breakfast under the trees.

The catalyst for the discussion was a series of art works created by John for a recent week-long exhibition in the city. They were constructions, many of which featured the tri-colour. One construction had a sheaf of mass-manufactured little plastic flags stamped with company logos in the centre of the Ashoka Chakra, and the words "I love" - the kind that sells like hotcakes on Republic and Independence Days, and on days of cricket matches. Another work contained a five-rupee packet of those saffron, white and green thermocol balls that are showered like confetti in place of the traditional rice or flowers.

"The flag produced in plastic is an anti-thesis of the values that it stands for," said John. When he announced: "We must reclaim the flag," what he meant was that like-minded persons should reclaim what the flag represents, and redefine concepts such as "patriotism" and "development", which have come to acquire grossly distorted meanings.

The other participants in the debate added unique dimensions to it. Prasanna has helped handloom weavers to form a co-operative, "Charkha"; its products are being sold in Bangalore through an outlet called "Desi". Prof. Mathew, former vice-president of Trade Union International, spoke from the perspective of one who has long been involved in the labour movement.

What emerged from this discussion (and from a couple of shorter conversations that followed) was that a campaign to ban plastic national flags could be a richly symbolic starting point of a wider debate on related issues - of modernity, nationalism, and development. Excerpts from the interview:

C. K. MEENA (C.K.M.):

WHAT made you think about the flag, John, and plan a campaign to ban its plastic avatar?

C.F. JOHN (C.F.J.): I found it ironic that in Kargil we were trying to throw out intruders from our border, and in the Narmada valley we were trying to throw our own people out from their land. We have not paid attention to a lot of terrible things that are taking place in the country, but we all talk about patriotism and love for the country.

Our national flag is a symbol of the nation's philosophy: self- reliance, freedom, resistance against imperialism, purity, non- violence, inter-connectedness. The natural fibres woven together represent the merging of cultures, identities, skills and perceptions.

The flag in plastic is a perfect symbol of the inauthenticity of our times. The harmful material, the mass manufacture, the marketing of "love for the country", all of it is like a confession of the nation's guilt.

PRASANNA (P): Let us not forget that it is people who are pushing towards modernity. When I show this picture (of John's work featuring plastic flags) to an ordinary man, to him it is a flag, not plastic. Plastic is a natural material, for him. It is a small fraction of the city dwellers who have realised what plastic is and moved away from it. Industrial production, the effects of which can be rotten and disgusting, was, however, the only thing that broke the shackles of social oppression in this country. The villager will come to the city whatever you do to prevent him. He wants to come to the plastic.

BABU MATHEW (B.M.): Modernity might have freed people from shackles, but I am beginning to feel it is now going to reinforce captialism. You can release bonded labourers but they are going to be reintegrated into a worse form of bondage. Modernity is travelling so fast it is going to tear societies apart. We have an opportunity to develop a new critique of modernity.

I was in Siddlaghatta recently, and there were a number of powerlooms. In one family, a young girl was rapidly and continuously turning the loom because the motor had burnt out. It was a pathetic situation. This is modernity: the motor has burnt, you cannot go to the local mechanic to repair it, and perhaps in the days to come you will have to get spare parts from Japan.

(P): There is a peculiar dual movement in this country. Ordinary rural people are moving towards the city and to an extent towards certain modern values. If you do not understand that and if you try to fight modernity you will not be critiquing it.

(C.K.M.): How then does one critique modernity?

(B.M.): By critiquing the contradiction between the Gandhian and the Nehruvian models of development. This conflict, which has existed from the time of Independence is now accentuated by globalisation and liberalisation. Whether it is the textile policy, the industrial policy, or the agricultural policy, the same thing is happening. We are losing our self-sufficiency.

Even the best among our industrialists find they cannot survive since the MNCs are taking over. If industrialists were really patriotic they would shift their positions and build new allies who would include the trade unions they dread so much. Trade unions have, after all, been the traditional enemies of globalisation. This argument is particularly valid in the context of the small scale industry. The trade unions realise that since their jobs depend on the small scale industry they would have to defend it. But the small scale industry does not have the political maturity to articulate its own interests.

(C.F.J.): One needs to break old patterns of historical relationships and weave new ones.

(B.M.): If you look at agriculture it is exactly the same situation. For food, we depend on what is produced abroad - they dump their excess on us. Soon our food production will decline so much that we will not be able to buy our own food. Genuine patriotism means you are concerned about the quality of life of the majority of the people; you are concerned about their survival.

(C.K.M.): Unfortunately, nobody defines patriotism to mean caring about people's basic needs.

(C.F.J.): The notion of patriotism being bandied about today has been engineered. The flag is equated with the gun. It is frightening. Your love for the country should not mean hate for Pakistan. Loving India means taking a whole range of people into account - farmers, tribals, the poor.

We talk of patriotism, and yet in order to repair our roads we need a loan from the World Bank. The urban dweller does not realise at what cost he gets his comforts, and at whose expense. What he consumes he is not aware where it comes from, and what he throws away, he is not aware of where it goes. That's the state of our life today.

(P): "Desi" is almost like a Noah's Ark. It might preserve certain traditions but I do not think it will radically change the economic base of this country. I am doing it to at least save those few weavers and provide them a decent Rs. 60 or 70 a day.

At least in some privileged areas, like the flag, we should have only handwoven cloth. We should ban plastic at least from the national flag and also the flags political parties use. At least the major parties should print their posters on waste paper. Why not? Let them print their symbols on old newspapers, with natural dyes. Removing plastic from the other areas will take time, but in at least some of these sacred areas, there should be a movement towards it. From now on when parties tie bunting they must not use plastic, and they can print their symbols on waste paper.

Plastic is a material which was created by the industrial revolution and by the capitalists. People were getting non- plastic things cheaper earlier, and now non-plastic things are made to be expensive, while plastic is made cheaper.

Nehru had a grandiose plan, a big dream, of bringing these two worlds together: the old and the new. But it never worked because the new was coming forward like a bull. There was no way that this sort of a compromise could eventually hold.

B.M.: How do you resolve the conflict between tradition and modernity in a genuine way? If it has been resolved, then perhaps the flag would have still remained khadi - I mean that symbolically, in order to say, development would have been more genuine.

P: To some extent the responsibility is on the Left.

B.M.: Oh yes.

P: The Left is a very interesting thing. In terms of lifestyle it held on to the old world for a long time, but it subscribed to ideas of big industry and power and planning.

B.M.: That is because the only Marxism it knew was dogmatic Marxism.

P: And Marxism cannot be dogmatic.

B.M.: The way to save khadi is not by saying the Government should step in. We should take another look at the textile policy.

P: The handlooom industry in this country is dying just for one reason - because of the Government, and because of the co- operatives.

B.M.: The wrong type of cooperative. If you do not define the word in legal terms there are successful co-operatives - only a few, unfortunately.

P: So much lies in the hands of corrupt bureaucrats. They do not let co-operatives operate from nationalised banks, but from district central co-operative banks, which are the last vestige of feudal terror. I want to go public on them. The DCC bank election is ridden with casteist upper class elements controlling and trying to hold back the rural poor. For the little money you get you have to go to the bureaucracy, which does not let co- operatives market their products or do independent thinking. At "Charkha" we were thinking of putting a board in front of it, asking government officials not to enter, to keep off.

B.M.: Prasanna, I suppose you are aware of this movement to break the Co-operative Societies Act. It is based on the realisation that you cannot build a genuine co-operative based on the act. The movement has succeeded in a couple of States, and it is now being discussed in eight or nine other States.

P: The co-operative audit department is a big racket. It should be abolished. People should be allowed to build their co- operatives and the Government should intervene only in terms of infrastructure.

C.F.J.: We could save thousands of handloom weavers if we insisted that the national flag be made according to specifications. If you want to mass product it, the alternatives could be wood-free or recycled paper. Or perhaps cloth could be woven in thin tri-coloured strips which could then be cut to smaller sizes. We must find viable alternatives.

B.M.: Plastic represents the alienation of the worker, in the Marxian sense. There is a break in the link between man and his work; the worker does not conceptualise the product, he does not determine what he produces, he has no choice over the materials he uses. He is separate from the production process.

C.F.J.: Work, in the Gandhian sense, is not drudgery. It is part of your spiritual entity.

B.M.: Work is creative. You create yourself through the creation of your product. Now there are studies being done in the West which say that in the next 10 to 15 years, life will become so automated that only 15 per cent of the people will need to do work.

C.F.J.: What do we do with the 85 per cent? They can become very destructive. Ways have to be devised to pacify them, to keep them in a good mood.

B.M.: Take away work and you take away the core of human existence. Take away work from the human race and you are destroying it. We might as well all return to the animal world.

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