A simplistic answer could be found in the word ‘marketability’. I-Day greeting cards don’t sell as much as V-Day cards. Mr Rajesh says in the case of New Year, Valentine and other such ‘days’, ‘messages start flowing in 10 days in advance,’ while no such thing happens for Independence Day. This could be said about Teacher’s Day, Kisan Divas, and other days with poor marketability.
Greetings card is Rs.75-crore business, according to Archies' Pramod Arora. His company keeps creating 'greet'-able occasions for pushing their cards. Daughter’s Day (would anyone know when) is their invention. Archies, they say, has a 50-member creative team to think up occasions to boost their greetings-card business . Now that Daughter’s Day is here we could expect a bahu divas before long. Has anyone thought of a Mothers-in-law Day?
To revert to the issue raised by Mr Rajesh, Independence Day isn’t such a hit because most people associate it with governmental functions. The I-Day is marked by PM’s state-of-the-nation address, flag-hoisting and sweets-distribution at schools. Attendance is mainly through invitation. And not all those invited turn up, as is evident from the number of empty seats at the Red Fort flag-hoisting function.
Audience here comprise ministers, ruling party leaders, members of the diplomatic corps and others who are otherwise obliged to attend. The nation’s multitude prefers to stay at home watching TV. And most channels have nothing other than movies and film-based programmes on the menu for the day.
I-Day means a paid holiday and little else to an increasing number. It is a day of remembrance for those who are old or matured enough to relate to India’s freedom-struggle experience - satyagraha, the Jallianwallah Bagh, lathi-blows, bomb attacks, Bose and Bhagat Singh. And they are not the ones that patronize the greetings-card industry.
Post-Independence, the country witnessed the emergence of a political class that exploited nationalist sentiments for political gains. Freedom-fighter pension and privileges (by way of land allotment, LPG gas dealerships etc.) came to be misused, while many deserving freedom-fighter families refused such privileges, saying there could be no trade-off for the service they rendered to the country.
I know of a lady (one of my cousins, I admit) who draws pension for having been in the Indian National Army (INA) in Burma. I reckon she got a freedom-fighter certificate from an MP in her area. Admittedly, she couldn’t produce any documentary proof for her INA service. But then one could get a certificate from an MLA or MP. Which was all that was required to claim freedom-fighter pension. My cousin draws pension from the union home ministry and also from her state government.
Besides, she is entitled to free rail travel, by first-class. The ministry-certified freedom-fighters had quota for their children in the matter of government jobs, dealership for petrol-pumps and LPG distribution or even allotment of cars and two-wheelers during the permit-raj.
