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Official Flags for Indian States

The Karnataka Government  recently setup a panel to look into legality of having an official flag for the state of Karnataka. This led to an outrage among many people calling a state flag a step towards separatist movement. Mostly because Indian states other than Jammu & Kashmir have no official state flags and as J&K is an autonomous state with some issues people feel having a state flag is a step towards breaking away.

Proposed Official flag for Karnataka


But according to me it should not be a big deal as every state in India have its separate identity and a state flag is just a symbolic representation of it.  India is among very few countries in the world where states does not have its official flags. Be it the US, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Australia and even Pakistan has official flags for their states and it is not a big deal in those countries. I believe the concept of a state flag should have been created when we formed out constitution so that by now everyone would have been cool with this concept. India is not a unitary state, it is a Federal Republic. An official state flag cannot undermine the national flag as the national flag is and always be above state flags.

Here are some of the state flags of other countries.

GERMANY
National Flag of Germany

Flag of German State of Saxony


UNITED STATES
Flag of State of Texas hoisted lower than the US national flag


CANADA

National Flag of Canada

Flag of Quebec, a French speaking state in Canada

Flag of Nova Scotia, an English speaking state in Canada

MALAYSIA

National Flag of Malaysia

Flag of Malaysian state of Sarawak

Want to find out which other countries have state flags? Check out this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_state

In a news debate I watched recently someone had said that we are not like the US, we took our system from the UK and we follow a Quasi Federal system and we are not a exactly a Federation. But even a unitary state like the UK also has official flags for its sub-national entities like England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

India has a diverse culture and I believe having an official state flag will remind people of it. Currently we are forgetting that India is not Hindi and we are not a homogeneous set of people like the Japanese, Thai and French people. We are Indians first, but we must not undermine the cultures of the states. There is neither a language called Indian, nor there is a homogeneous Indian culture. Check out my older post 'The Concept of India' to get some clarity on this topic.

I believe every state of India should have a state flag of its own just like they have their own seal. 
Having said that, I believe the national flag should be hoisted above every state flag in whichever government buildings it would be.

As Vir Das said in one of his stand-up comedy video, "If we just talk about the fact that we are different and acknowledge why we are different, instead of pretending that nobody is different and still secretly thinking we are different, we all might finally be on the same page and be less different."
So official state flags will remind ourselves about the diversity we have in our country. And that is what I had to say on this.

Jai Hind
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