Watching the Republic Day parade live on YouTube, I could read viewer comments on the right side that were also played out live. Well into 45 minutes of the parade, there were funny ones like, “Is Rashtrapati soing [sleeping]”. While the hits, at approximately 55,000, peaked when the jhaankis (floats) came on and dipped immediately after, the 2016 parade was shorter, and had better semi-aerial camerawork to show the feet of the marching folk as well as top-angle.

It was by and large greener, more aesthetic, and the state floats had a less plaster-of-Parissy feel to them than previous years. My favourite comment on YouTube came towards the end at the time of the fly past. It was a foggy day and the formation Indian Air Force flights went from 100 per cent visibility to zero in like five seconds. At which point, there came a hopeful wisecrack, “Wait, wait — the sky is buffering.”

Indians were clicking in from many corners of the world to celebrate their Republic Day at this online adda! We saw pretty high engagement on YouTube, and yet what did one see on traditional news websites — no live chats, just pictures. Old world was yawning and ignoring the young who were interested. Talk about real and virtual disconnect.

While NDTV did put this 35 minute video, on the making of the grand parade, the entirely separate world of Twitter and Facebook was busy making fun of Anupam who Khers, on the Padma awards. This entire e-episode made me think that for some the parade is a boring pain on repeat mode. But for some it is not. Therein hangs an e-opportunity missed.

Does Rajpath interact with Janpath at all?

It is absolutely true that barring a few tweaks, the parade has just not reinvented itself. Especially at a time when around the world, state power is being challenged in different ways and people are struggling for primacy, this remains a babu-led event of nation-state power show-offiness and military strength only. And my problem is with the only. There is no sense of how different states are growing or that we have much to learn from each other. Having witnessed a range of parades around the world in person and seen what joy, bonhomie and a sense of togetherness as a community and nation it can bring, the questions I ask are two — Why don’t we celebrate our people’s achievements also? Show sports, folk, social entrepreneurs and amazing social workers who astound us with their achievements. Inspire us and come out of Independence Day times, when very few countries around the world even gave India a chance. (Recall the first page of Guha’s book, India after Gandhi, where he quotes those who thought we would break up as a country.)

Second question –- Since Republic Day is not Independence Day, how exactly are we celebrating the Constitution?

As a reporter filing a series on Republic Day, many years ago, I was struck by Nandalal Bose’s long years of art work for the Constitution’s chapters, as one was by Raizada’s calligraphy (See a useful series of Tweets on this subject.)

And also on watching the 10-part series Samvidhaan on DD (available on YouTube) where the debates of the Constituent Assembly are in a selective televised reproduction. Doing a “History of South Asia” course in London some years ago, I was struck by how, our founding fathers (and one mother), kept trying to make the Constitution through partition, transfer of power, world wars, winds of change sweeping through many nations gaining independence, through egos, walkouts, shouts and valid debates. Something which our neighbour Pakistan, couldn’t do for many reasons of its own, for the first decade at all. The debates may seem dated to some, very alive and real to others, but see them for yourself to know how hard-fought your freedom and Constitution is.

That is why I wish, the Republic Day parade carry replicas of the chapter covers of the Constitution with some live animation creativity, as floats or projection screens maybe, instead of only showing military strength. Like the smartly turned-out defence march past-ers, the Constitution is a great unifier of the land too. And why not reinvent, reconnect and use e-mode to reach out to the already curious young through teasers, online quizzes, all integrated into one whole Republic Day SHOW.
Filhaal, we have a Rajpath which barely intersects meaningfully with Janpath.

Re-the-public Day

Open the doors and minds on The Padma Awards please — this member of the public demands an INDIA HONORS Public Ceremony. Do you really want to see Padma awardees only in the morning akhbaar as faceless/often misspelt newsprint ink? Don’t you want their lives, their struggles, their contributions (contentious as they may well be) to be summarised in a televised ceremony that is witty, fun, generous and meaningful. With real storytelling of ordinary lives. After all, those who have found creative ways forward, to be a mirror of the nation’s possibilities, should they be relegated to still photos between ads, on January 26/27 telly? Not because you or I necessarily know them. But because we often don’t, beyond our own interest areas. For instance, how many of you know Kanhailal from Manipur who got the Padma Bhushan for theatre in 2016? This is one way possibly also to build a culture of appreciation and disrupting a dirty national habit — the very insecure pride in always bringing people down, even when not required.

A nation that celebrates her best in cold formality, doesn’t seem to go beyond functions reminiscent of school assemblies. We currently get either the mindless hoax on TV called popular film awards where even the claps are canned on repeat mode or the Presidential distance where us ordinary folk, can savour nothing, between all those guards with trays and photo-ops.

Take a cue from the US Kennedy Centre Honors if need be. Or elsewhere, but make it our own. Crowd source the best tributes and do that committee thing we do all the time to filter. Using the best talents that India has in presentation and programmes which evoke something. Anything.

But please take away the boredom of a lifetime’s works presented as a dreary listicle. I want my appetite for a fullness of celebration whetted with an inspiring ceremony. A possibly full-on family watch, with takeaway assessments that make Indians think. Made accessible to as many as possible, through a variety of e-media. The winner takes the medal/certificate and the cash, but tell me why and tell me more with both a light personal touch and depth. Begone — lack of imagination, patronising public relations and unnecessary formality, which far from resembling a nation trying to come into its own, reeks of an unexamined dullness. Indians are far livelier one-on-one than anything that celebrates them so far.

Move me basically, in understanding India’s own. Choosing the dead or the living is a political choice I’m not getting into. I would privilege the living/recently-deceased, of course, but milord, when we live in the times of oversharing, how can our Padma awards and Republic Day ceremony be such an underwhelming under share. Start somewhere. And go Digital in leading up to it. Your audience is captive and all you media and state oldies are ignoring them.

Ek citizen ke mann ki yeh bhi baat.