MR. GANDHI in his notes in ‘Harijan’ referring to the incidents of hoisting Congress and League flags in schools and colleges writes: “I have two typical letters about flags in schools and colleges. Some boys hoist the Congress flag, therefore, others hoist the League flag. Both are wrong. My correspondents report that the mischief commenced by the hoisting of the Congress flag…. The right thing was and is that boys must not take the initiative in such cases.

“The buildings belong to the authorities and they must decide whether or not to fly, which, if any, flag over their buildings. If boys take the law into their own hands, the result must be chaos and confusion plus breaking of heads. This would be sheer vulgarity and does no good to anybody. Schools and colleges should be institutions for healing communal breaches, not for promoting differences. If boys and girls do not learn discipline in their school days, money and time spent on their education is so much national loss. The one bright thing that emerges from the Lahore episode is that Maulana Abul Kalam Azad promptly intervened and ruled that the boys who had hoisted the Congress flag were in the wrong.”

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2021