NGO in Silchar starts collecting National Flag abandoned on roads

As we celebrated the 76th Independence Day, the whole town, along with the country was all donned up with our tricolour flag. From “har ghar” to every car, office, mandir and masjid, it was the tiranga everywhere, held high as it should be. The government’s “Har Ghar Tiranga” officially started on August 13, since patriotism flows in our veins, in reality, it is stated a week in advance.

The Flag Code of India opens with, “The National Flag represents the hopes and aspirations of the people of India”. It also says that any disrespect, destruction or damage to the flag is subject to punishment, including imprisonment. It was not unprecedented that, one more rule of the Flag Code, that is, “flag shall not be intentionally allowed to touch the group, floor or trail in water”, will be violated.

Today, a day after the 76th Independence Day, many flags were lying in groups, footpaths, road dividers and streets. This is a disrespect to the National Flag. To restore the dignity of the flag, a team from Thunderbolts NGO started a drive to recover those flags this morning. Volunteers from the NGO collected flags lying on the group, some destroyed, some damaged and some even torn in half.

Speaking about this, the NGO’s Treasurer, Fakrul Alom Laskar has said, “Our Tiranga is a symbol of our pride and no one should disrespect it by any means. But some people forget after they display the flag, they don’t take it down as per protocol and it gets damaged and soiled. Our goal is to stop it from happening. This morning we started our drive and collected those flags from various areas across the town. This year, such flags were relatively less in number and we can say this because we have been doing this since the last decade”.

They have also done awareness drives related to disposing of any damaged flags and with the flags collected today, they did the same thing. Laskar further said, “Even though it’s a matter of disappointment, the situation is improving, people are becoming increasingly aware. Out of the flags, we collected today, the damaged ones were disposed of following the protocol and Flag Code of India”. The Deputy Commissioner of Cachar was unavailable for any comment regarding this.