Tomorrow's Independence Day, not 'us vs them' day

We all want Independence Day to be safe and secure tomorrow. But much of I-Day has morphed from a spontaneous public celebration into a day of paranoid, xenophobic vigil. This week, a national-level skater and his father were denied a hotel room in Noida, because they were Bengali. The hotel staff reportedly explained to the two Kolkatans that the police had instructed them not to allow people from 'Bangladesh, Punjab, or Jammu and Kashmir to stay until August 15' and that 'people from Bangladesh' and Bengalis from West Bengal were the 'same thing'. Noida Police has denied giving any such instruction. Be that as it may, this is a genie that authorities have to put back in the bottle, ever since Delhi Police issued its infamous July 29 notification conflating Bengalis and (illegally residing) Bangladeshis.

Incidents like this, however stray, show how dog whistling - seemingly innocuous messaging, but containing a covert instruction - is becoming normalised among a pliant, willing citizenry. Last month in Gurgaon, a 'verification drive' targeting illegal Bangladeshi immigrants led to migrant Indian Muslim workers being detained. Such paranoid binary thinking - 'them' vs 'us' - vitiates the very spirit of I-Day. It replaces trust and unity with suspicion and division, patriotic pride with paranoia. Worse, it seeps beyond August 15, feeding dangerous narratives India 2025 can well do without.

GoI should issue a clear directive stating that valid IDs should suffice for hotel check-ins - which can, anyway, be verified with police if need be. The least it can do is condemn such divisive messagings before tomorrow, when all Indians celebrate freedom from a time when such nefarious conflations were the hallmark of colonial divide and rule.