The pro and anti CAA-NRC campaign has become that biggest and rare peace-time event when many people feel the urge or necessity to declare their patriotism to the world at large, waving of national flags in rallies and during protests being a forceful way of doing it. This phenomenon has resulted in an increase in demand for the national tricolour everywhere in the country including the most backward places like old undivided Adilabad district.
“We sold 230 flags of 2 x 3 ft size to the pro CAA-NRC BJP rallyists on a single day, January 4, alone. This is quite uncommon as we sell only 60 or 70 of those, that too at the time of Republic Day or Independence Day,” disclosed Bharochiya Manoj Patel of the Manoj Patel general stores in Devichand chowk in town, as he tried to assess the quantum of increase in demand for the tricolours in his outlet alone.
“We can supply any number of flags on an order given at least one day in advance. We get our supplies from wholesellers of Osmangunj in Hyderabad who have the capacity to despatch them in required numbers,” Mr. Patel pointed out as he shed light on the gamut of handling such demand and the preparedness of wholesalers in the State’s capital to supply the order.
There are two other shops in the town which sell the national flags which are also assumed to have done business in equal measure. “There were at least 1,000 flags being held aloft by our people during the rally,” claimed Sona Sudhakar, a participant in the BJP rally two days back who purchased a flag for himself for ₹ 100.
The sale of the tricolour actually started on December 26 last year when an anti CAA-NRC rally was taken out in town by a Joint Action Committee. A few thousand protesters had participated in it and many of them were waving national flags.
That event also brought to light some of the dynamics involved which usually get hidden from public view. For example, the display of a giant 700-foot-long and 8-foot wide ‘flag’ in that protest march.
The flag was got made over two years back by the president of the local Chamber of Commerce, Jagdish Agarwal, who, being a former district general secretary of BJP, is a sworn right winger. This fact, nevertheless, has not come in the way of protesters belonging to the left wing and other anti-BJP stream outfits when it came to borrowing the flag from him.
“It was carried by the anti CAA-NRC protesters in Adilabad on December 26 and in Khanapur mandal headquarter on January 3,” the former BJP leader revealed. “I do not mind giving it to those opposed to the CAA-NRC-NPR because they are displaying their patriotism,” he observed.
