The Republic Day Violence Was An Attack On State And An Assault On Memories

On 26 January 2021, there were efforts to dismantle the symbolic importance of the Red Fort and to disturb India from within. The violent 'siege' of the Red Fort was placed on India's 72nd Republic Day.

The violence mounted at the Red Fort, in a catalyst-cocktail of a series of destructive actions, seemed profoundly composed.

Cultural memory created by the Republic Day celebrations and Parade, where the past, present and future meet to construct, reconstruct and repair our collective journeys as citizens, was attacked and marred. Cultural memory, which lives and thrives in our joyous, quaint, vibrant and deep interactions on the Republic Day has been wrenched by muscle.

A memory, negatively constructed, negative in nature, has been thrusted upon memories that make the 'Gantantra Divas' an utsav.

How you remember the Republic Day celebration of 2021 in the months and years to come, was more or less tweaked over the events at the Red Fort and its 'siege'.

The Republic Day parade and related celebrations, are an interplay of several vibrant elements in our social, regional, cultural diversity.

The Republic Day celebrations are when we get introduced and reintroduced to fellow country men and women who serve Bharat Ma in their immense human ingenuity, physical strengths and mental might.

The Parade is a nation-loving 'civilian's' brief connection with those men and women who keep the nation throbbing against all threats -- internal and external.

The Parade on Rajpath is the linear ground where these civilsational and futuristic glimpses and elements bleed into the representation of our military pride and flow together into our collective cultural memory. Efforts are appearing and reappearing to bend it into a pin loop of severely destructive politics.

Nation-loving Indians, those who associate the Republic day celebrations with sovereignty and integrity of India, have been pushed into another phase of remembering and forgetting events from collective public memory. This, owing to what transpired on the roads of New Delhi, and the Red Fort.

Each year, the memory of the Republic Day celebrations makes itself, renews itself, over the annual public event that involves and engages people of at least four living generations.

The contexts for the negative construct installed before India on 26/01/21, have been carefully chosen. Last year, the anti-CAA protests, this year, the violent upsurge at the Red Fort have spoken for some parallel events.

The Republic Day celebration is ridiculed by many people on social media for its form and elements.

There are people who express their disdain for the idea of celebrating the Republic Day celebrations. The disdain is towards "the ceremonies", "the ceremonious", "the machismo", "the show of might", "the military style". This time, the disdain escalated pretty quickly.

This time, the anti-culture 'negative' has taken a bold step forward. Some regular expressions to display the disdain, it seemed, had been carefully shifted from the bunsen burner of narrative to a bigger field of action.

As seen on 26/01/21, the disdain for Republic Day has not only multiplied, it was being emptied out -- in sharp contents. And this could be a template.

The process of creating positive memory has been spiked with a dastardly 'negative'. The positive would have travelled along, for younger generations to absorb and observe.

India's 72nd Republic Day celebrations marked a tribute and commemoration to the heroes and the India-Pakistan war of 1971 and 50 years of the liberation of Bangladesh.

For the first time, the Bangladesh tri-service contingent participated in India's RD Parade. It marched to "Shono Ekti Mujibur-er theke lokkho Mujibur".

The deep symbolic meaning of India's tribute to the historic liberation of Bangladesh and the overlap of milestones, also happened to represent a meeting of the past, present, and future, of India's partnerships -- strategic, friendly and military.

The celebration of India's own positive actions, work and might, amid the Covid scenario, should have pleasantly filled us for the rest of the day. The day, instead, propped up a cruel offensive on the security personnel. Their hands were tied by restraint and patience.

Our own process of memory-making adjusted to the clockwork of events. Memory went back and forth, to store, restore, emit, throw, process, and restore, the wide, wide range of events and the related colours. Between Rajpath and the Red Fort. Between colours.

The Tricolour, the many colours at Rajpath, the blue of the skies, olive, white, steel, blue, the shift to black, khakhi, red... black...

If there was something to create an illusion of sunset which could mask the blackness of that day, bang in the afternoon, it should have appeared. It should have arrived. It did not. This is Kaliyuga and the propellers of every Kurukshetra know it.

Just like any other year, Rajpath was India -- till about noon. This year, the participating school children, the marching contingents, the tableaus, marked their presence with a new prop -- masks -- registering for us a new visual memory of the new world order.

Hours later, visuals of artistes being rushed and taken to safety amid violence and steeping tensions, slammed on us their vulnerability to the threat of violence. This dramatic introduction of tumult was injected into those very celebrations that annually turn New Delhi into a tightly guarded fortress each year.

Over Rajpath in the morning hours, the newly inducted Rafale fighter aircraft devoured the skies in the dizzying debut. It carried out the 'Brahmastra' formation in solo and the 'Eklavya' formation with other fighter jets.

The weapons brandished in the protests made the Rafale disappear from our memory like a fly. In merely a matter of hours.

The upward jet speed soar of the new bird during the hour of celebration was a moment of cheer. A contrast played out elsewhere later. It was the downward spiral of socio-political constructs that seemed to threaten the symbols and protectors of the sovereignty of the Republic itself.

Usually, the discussions on the events and elements of the Republic Day last till about at least the Beating the Retreat ceremony. This year, they didn't last beyond the same noon.

Who would want to cling to the positive memory of the remarkable tableaus from Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh at the sight of bleeding policemen holding ducking weapons?

Who would want to discuss the wide representation of the Indic civilisation, and of the music created and practised by the subaltern, when visuals of policemen helplessly being gnashed, beaten, falling into a moat, creepily trickle out?

In one shot, the positive was defeated by the negative. In a matter of hours, negative meanings were rampaged into the Republic Day.

That's a mission accomplished for a section of Indians who hold a cynical, grim face expression, and are capable of presenting a destructive meltdown, every time India erupts into joy, for any positive milestone. One such milestone is India producing the Covid vaccine, a vaccination drive that brings hope, and the vaccine's journey outward and outbound.

India's work during Covid found representation in an impressive tableau this Republic Day. The projection of the negative ensured that you nudge away the art and craft of this representation in your memory.

The Tricolour fluttering at the Red Fort stood as a tolerant witness to a black chapter in India's history.

"Laal Quile pe gaad ke leheraaye ja, leheraaye ja..." : it's a line from Kadam Kadam Badhaiye Ja, the regimental quick march song synonymous with Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army. Symbolism isn't confined to lyrics.

Three days later.

On 29 January (Friday) the celebration of India's 72nd Republic Day came to a conclusion with the Beating the Retreat ceremony at Vijay Chowk. The ceremony featured new renditions.

The special highlight this year, along with the new compositions was the presentation of the 'Swarnim Vijay' theme to commemorate the 50 years of India's victory over Pakistan in the 1971 war, and a tribute to the war heroes.

Bands representing the Indian armed forces and paramilitary forces, 15 military bands and 15 pipes and drum bands from different regimental centres and battalions, one band each from the Navy, Indian Air Force (IAF) and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) performed on the occasion.

The combined musical repertoire in the form of compositions from the CAPFs and the armed forces performed during the Beating the Retreat ceremony reflects diversity emanating from the soil and ground of the regiments and battalions themselves.

Many proud, vibrant, nation-loving civilians know that the Beating the Retreat ceremony is the only occasion to find and feel these compositions, the engrained musicality and the cultural longevity of the Indian Armed Forces and the CAPFs.

On 29 January, as the Beating the Retreat was still underway, an explosion caused by a low-intensity improvised device took place near the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi. The blast happened on a day when India and Israel countries marked the 29th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations.

The average Indian or Israeli wouldn't have paid attention to the anniversary. An act of terror came as a reminder.

It behoves responsible citizens to observe the Republic Day celebrations in a detached manner if they don't feel engaged, interested, or involved, in the celebration and in the nation. More, if they are allergic to it, owing to emotional deficiency.

Disrespect to the occasion and the Tricolour and a violence-laced escalation is unacceptable and an open threat to the Republic.

There is no doubt that history will judge the designers of the curiously coincidental, de-eventing and discolouring of India's celebrations on the Republic Day. There is no doubt that the collective cultural memory associated with this celebration will fight for itself, to make its history and to protect its contemporary.

There is no doubt that India's Republic Day, the most protected public event, will reclaim the profundity of its message from the enemy within. Positive cultural memory is not a thing of siege, just as negative and painful isn't a thing of display at art galleries.