‘Tiranga Yatra' after Operation Sindoor to ‘Har Ghar Tiranga': A look at BJP's tricolour campaigns
The BJP is set to launch its 11-day 'Tiranga Yatra' on Tuesday to reach out to people across the country to highlight the success of Operation Sindoor under which the Indian armed forces struck at the terror bases in Pakistan as a response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
Notably, this is the first 'Tiranga Yatra' that the BJP is undertaking after a military operation following a terror attack. However, it is not the first time that the ruling party is using Tiranga as a part of its campaign.
The 'Har Ghar Tiranga' campaign has been an annual feature in the Narendra Modi government's calendar since 2022, which marked the 75th anniversary of India's Independence.
According to the Ministry of Culture, 'Har Ghar Tiranga' is a campaign that started under the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to encourage people to bring the tricolour home and to hoist it to mark India's independence. 'It stemmed from the thought that our relationship with the national flag has always been more formal and institutional than personal. Bringing the flag home collectively as a nation thus became symbolic of not only an act of personal connection to the Tiranga but also an embodiment of our collective commitment to nation-building,' the ministry states on its website.
'The idea behind the initiative was to invoke the feeling of patriotism in the hearts of the people and to promote awareness about the Indian National Flag,' the ministry adds.
PM Modi himself has been a vocal proponent of the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign. In 2022, he made multiple social media posts to urge people to actively participate in the campaign. 'It is a special 2nd August today. At a time when we are marking Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, our nation is all set for Har Ghar Tiranga, a collective movement to celebrate our tricolour. I have changed the display picture on my social media pages and urge you all to do the same,' he had then said.
Sharing pictures of people in France hoisting the Tricolour in 2023, the Ministry of Culture said, 'Har Ghar Tiranga spirit knows no bounds.'
A BJP leader said the 'Tiranga template' for the party's campaigns had been much older, although its earlier yatras were called 'Ekta Yatras (unity processions)'. For instance, in 2011 – when Article 370 was in place in Jammu and Kashmir – Anurag Thakur, then president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the BJP's youth wing, undertook an 'Ekta Yatra' with the aim of hoisting the Tricolour in Srinagar.
Thakur, 12 years later, said he was jailed for the 2011 yatra, while the Har Ghar Tiranga of 2022 saw the national flag being hoisted atop houses in the Union Territory after the Modi government abrogated Article 370 in August 2019.
In 1991, then BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi also undertook an Ekta Yatra that culminated in him unfurling the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar with Modi at his side.
Vikas Pathak is deputy associate editor with The Indian Express and writes on national politics. He has over 17 years of experience, and has worked earlier with The Hindustan Times and The Hindu, among other publications. He has covered the national BJP, some key central ministries and Parliament for years, and has covered the 2009 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls and many state assembly polls. He has interviewed many Union ministers and Chief Ministers.
Vikas has taught as a full-time faculty member at Asian College of Journalism, Chennai; Symbiosis International University, Pune; Jio Institute, Navi Mumbai; and as a guest professor at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi.
Vikas has authored a book, Contesting Nationalisms: Hinduism, Secularism and Untouchability in Colonial Punjab (Primus, 2018), which has been widely reviewed by top academic journals and leading newspapers.
He did his PhD, M Phil and MA from JNU, New Delhi, was Student of the Year (2005-06) at ACJ and gold medalist from University Rajasthan College in Jaipur in graduation. He has been invited to top academic institutions like JNU, St Stephen's College, Delhi, and IIT Delhi as a guest speaker/panellist. ... Read More
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