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Journalism of Courage
Weeks after the Congress said that Rahul Gandhi would hoist the Tricolour at its state headquarters in Srinagar on January 30 and not the Lal Chowk as unfurling it at the square was part of “the RSS agenda”, the Congress leader on Sunday unfurled the national flag at the square.
“@RahulGandhi was supposed to unfurl national flag on Jan 30th in PCC office since permission to do so elsewhere wasn’t given. Last evening, state administration allowed him to do so in Lal Chowk, but under condition that it should be done today on 29th at end of #BharatJodoYatra,” Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh tweeted after Gandhi, accompanied by other party leaders, including his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, hoisted the Tricolour at Lal Chowk.
Posting photos from the event, Ramesh added, “75 years ago, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the national flag for the first time at Lal Chowk. Today noon after the completion of the #BharatJodoYatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir @RahulGandhi unfurled the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar.”
Earlier this month, All India Congress Committee (AICC) leader in charge of Jammu and Kashmir and party MP Rajni Patil told reporters in Jammu, “We do not believe in the agenda of the RSS to hoist the Tricolour at Lal Chowk, where it has already flown high.”
Lal Chowk or Red Square, Srinagar city’s business nerve centre, has been a witness to Kashmir’s chequered history. The main square of Srinagar city was named Lal Chowk by left-wing activists who were inspired by the Russian revolution. Over the decades this key city centre, which houses a clock tower built in 1980, has been a battleground of the Valley’s competing political ideologies.
Nehru first unfurled the Tricolour at Lal Chowk in 1948 when the National Conference’s founder Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah declared his alliance with him. It was then at a rally at Lal Chowk that Nehru promised the “right of self-determination” to the people of Kashmir.
When militancy erupted in 1990, the square turned into a battleground between them and paramilitary forces. To make headlines, militants often targeted the police and paramilitary force personnel stationed there. Two years later, then BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi announced his plan to hoist the Tricolour at Lal Chowk on Republic Day. On January 26, 1992, Joshi along with party colleagues, including Narendra Modi, was in Srinagar where a curfew was clamped. In the midst of massive security deployment, he hoisted the national flag at Lal Chowk as militants rained rockets at the city centre.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra march has come to an end but the journey of more than four months will culminate with a public meeting on Monday that will be attended by several Opposition leaders.
