Chinese basketball hero Yao Ming carried the Chinese flag at the Olympics opening ceremony. And there was a faux pas, unnoticed by most. With Yao Ming walked nine-year-old Lin Hao, a survivor of the Sichuan earthquake and a hero because he rescued two school-mates. Lin Hao carried the Chinese flag upside down and Xinhua promptly withdrew the photograph and apologised. Today, 15th August, there will be several such instances in India. Flags will be hoisted upside down. They will be left lying around, littering the ground. After all, there have been such incidents in the past, on the 15th of August and on the 26th of January. How can you blame private citizens if government gets it wrong? On the 27th of January last year, the central government issued an advertisement for Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana in West Bengal — and got the flag upside down. Occasionally, celebrities like Malini Ramani, Mandira Bedi, Sachin Tendulkar and Sania Mirza will be targeted, often by publicity-seekers.

Admittedly, one shouldn’t make fetishes of the national flag and anthem. Not everyone need be Naveen Jindal. But we do have a problem with national symbols. The fetish argument would have been acceptable had we felt proud of being Indians and exhibited it in other ways. The Chinese have taken visible pride in organising the Olympics, but national pride there certainly predates them. Consider also how football or cricket teams line up when national anthems are played. For every other country, team-members will mouth, if not sing, national anthems. How many times have you witnessed Indian team-members doing that? Had we possessed such pride, the fiasco at the opening ceremony wouldn’t have occurred. That’s a ceremonial occasion. Not long ago, I watched a documentary about what the Australian contingent would wear for it, and how meticulously it had been planned and designed. They clearly took pride in representing Australia. An Indian team doesn’t take pride in representing India. Otherwise, Sania Mirza and Sunitha Rao wouldn’t have turned up in training gear. The chef-de-mission’s argument that there was no time to change will not wash. A Bindra gold shouldn’t make the issue disappear.

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