JRD: “Substantial patriot”

"I personally am strongly against (the playing of the national anthem after film screenings),” industrialist and Bharat Ratna awardee J. R. D. Tata had written to Prime Minister Jawarharlal Nehru on August 29, 1947, according to senior columnist Ramachandra Guha. In his column "Past & present” in the Hindustan Times of November 5, 2017, Guha states that Tata told Nehru that such an act would "cheapen the anthem which should, when played, arouse deep patriotic respect for what it represents. This would be ensured if it were played only on special and solemn occasions and not three times a day, as in the movies at the end of a show, when people are in a hurry to get away, and pay only perfunctory and impatient respect to it.” The missive ended with an appeal to Nehru to "soon issue a national directive in this matter, before mere habit creates a fait accompli.”

Tata’s advice was implemented, says Guha. Through the 1950s, the anthem was never played in cinemas, except for a brief period in the early 1960s at the time of the China-India war. When the central government mandated the playing of Jana Gana Mana in cinema halls in pursuance of a directive by the Supreme Court in November 2016, certain elderly people and foreigners who did not stand up in cinema halls were beaten up by vigilantes. Guha states that this compulsory playing has "clearly proved counterproductive.” The columnist lauded Supreme Court Justice D. Y. Chandrachud who ruled at a recent hearing that "you do not have to stand up for the national anthem to prove your patriotism.”
According to Guha, "Following JRD, we should make our patriotism deep and substantial, rather than cheap and jingoistic.”