Today, the tricolour will be hoisted. The brass band will play the Jana Gana Mana. Politicians will stand straight—well, as straight as one can while still checking if the TV cameras are catching the good side of the face. There will be speeches—oh, the speeches! About our glorious past, our…


Robert Clements is a newspaper columnist and writes a daily column, which has graced the pages of over 60 newspapers and magazines, from a daily column in the Khaleej Times, Dubai, the Morning Star, London, and in nearly every state in India, from The Statesman in Kolkata, to the Kashmir Times in Kashmir to the Trinity Mirror in Chennai.