The Irony of Celebrating Republic Day With a Military Parade

Why celebrate a Constitution won after a non-violent struggle with a display of force, asks Akshat Tyagi.

Indian soldiers march during a full dress rehearsal for the Republic Day parade in New Delhi.

(Photo: Reuters)

“Why do you want to drive away the English? Supposing we get a self-government, similar to what the Canadians and the South-Africans have, will it be good enough?” asked Gandhi.

Quite ordinarily, the reader, in Hind Swaraj, responded, “The question (also) is useless. We get it when we have the same powers; we shall then hoist our own flag. We must own our navy, our army, and we must have our own splendour, and then will India’s voice ring through the world”

Gandhi’s response is both fascinating and awakening:

You have drawn the picture well. In effect, it means this: We want English rule without the Englishman. You want the tiger’s nature, but not the tiger; that is to say, you would make India English. This is not the Swaraj I want.

“We want English rule without the Englishman,” said Mahatma Gandhi. (Photo: iStockphoto)

India’s national chest-thumping on Rajpath is one of that sanctum sanctorum of the republic that is both antithetical to its fundamental values and above scrutiny of any kind.

It is a moment of utter irony – we celebrate the inauguration of a constitution won after an incredibly resilient non-violent struggle by imposing a blatant display of weapons and force.

Army ‘Dare Devils’ perform during the 67th Republic Day parade at Rajpath in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI)

The tiger’s nature, as Gandhi points out, has been inherited. Britain and other powers of the era were over-dependent on their militaries to sustain control over colonies. And those times necessitated the glorification of military capabilities to compensate the ‘moral corruption’ by communicating the imperial missions as more products of superiority and strength.

Also, the subsequent world wars during the hullabaloo of nationalist movements in colonies made the military muscle all the more valuable to the empire.

Though independent India couldn’t be a jumbo Costa Rica and required a respectable army, but the treatise of violence and coercion were not its basis. Yes, army and modern weapon system are a ‘necessary evil’ of the global order, and a recognition of the dangerous neighbourhood we received at birth.

Yet, it is a fatal accident of thought that a nation as serene and strong as India needs to indulge in parading its stockpiles of deadly tools, which by no dispute, are designed to kill and destroy, whoever be the enemy.

They are not the marvels of technology and yardsticks of developments, they are missiles that were built to erupt a bloodbath, guns that were designed to make every bullet intrude a mother’s chest. How can we rejoice their exhibition, even if we acknowledge their existence?

A military’s characteristic vileness can be camouflaged by public relation exercises and disaster management roles, but let us not forget that it is the most violent legal institution of any country.

“We have been conditioned to regard military exciting and glamorous,” writes Dalai Lama, “a War is like a fire in the human community, one whose fuel is living beings.” And who knows it better than the Buddhist saint himself, having escaped the wrath of the Chinese military in 1959 in Tibet, and seeking refuge in India – the shrine of peace.

And the military has no moral compass of its own. Why otherwise would the country be at war with half of its own people? Why would an Irom Sharmila not eat one breadcrumb for 16 years, protesting against her nation’s saviours? Why would ‘the heaven on earth’ lay dead for more than six months?

Of course, these are not the best times to make such an argument. India is steadily moving towards a militaristic society. The NDA government has designated army into a ‘holy cow,’ whose milk is well guarded by its private troll vigilante army. The Prime Minister wants the citizens to “stand-up and clap on seeing soldiers at the airports and railway stations” but keeps quiet when the army blinds hundreds in her own territory.

Rashtrapati Bhawan on the eve of the 68th Republic Day. (Photo Courtesy: ANI Screengrab)

The Army can be important in your opinion. But remember, so is the one who enters a manhole to clear your septic pit every other week, and so is a teacher who fights her way into a classroom every day. There are risks of different kinds involved in every profession, battles of unique styles, and whoever participates in them well agrees to accept the attached conditions.

Also Read: Why Celebrate Republic Day With A Fancy Display of Military Might?

Baba Saheb and other members of the assembly might feel more honoured if the republic used the day to make more peace with itself.

If instead of a Rs 300 crore parade (2014), the republic talked to its people in Bastar, Kashmir and Manipur. If instead of hugging monarchical princes, it hugged some of its own. If it educated and fed its most oppressed, it would impart some justice in the real sense.

(Akshat Tyagi is the author of "Naked Emperor of Education" India's first young critical commentary of the schooling model. He regularly writes on education, society, and politics. He can be traced at akshattyagi.com. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)

(This article is from The Quint’s archives and has been republished.)