PIL seeking policy for promotion of national anthem, song and flag filed in SC

A fresh PIL seeking direction to the Central government to frame a national policy to promote and propagate the national anthem, national song and national flag has been filed in the Supreme Court. The petitioner of the PIL is Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, a practicing advocate in Supreme Court. He said that India is a Union of States and not an association or confederation of States. Further he stated in the petition that there is only one nationality i.e., Indian, one national anthem i.e., Jana Gana Mana, one national song i.e., Vande Mataram and one national flag i.e., Tiranga, and it is duty of every Indian to respect these symbols. The PIL is likely to be listed for hearing next week. It said fundamental rights, directive principles are supplementary and complimentary, and the great golden goals, as set out in the Preamble of the Constitution, cannot be achieved without implementing them in letter and spirit. The petition has been made with an intention to sought directions for framing a national policy to promote and propagate the national anthem, national song and national flag in spirit of the Article 51A of the Constitution in order to achieve the golden goals. The government must take steps to promote fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the nation in spirit of the Preamble. The policy will help to ascertain the feasibility of singing/ playing the national anthem and national song in the Parliament/Assembly, public offices, courts and schools on every working day. On November 30, a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra, in a separate plea, made a popular judgment wherein it was ordered that all cinema halls must play the national anthem before the screening of a movie.

After the popular judgment on nation anthem and its screening in the cinema hall before a movie, a PIL like this was quite predictable. No doubt we do need policies for our national anthem, song and flag that is applicable nationwide to maintain patriotism amongst the public.