Black is no more beautiful. Not for the police in the Punjab district of Firozepur particularly. Why so, you may ask? Basically because black betokens booing. It is the colour of contempt or that is what the beat cop would have us believe. It all started with a Rahul Gandhi rally in a district of Uttar Pradesh. The state is all set for the assembly elections and the wooing of voters is on at a war footing. At one such rally, Rahul Baba as they call him, was shown black flags as a symbol of protest. This was enough to enrage the dyed-in-the-wool Congress party worker. And so, in order to avoid similar problems in Punjab, the cops in Firozepur took to this farcical fashion policing!
The black flag has always been the symbol of the pirates at the high seas, but that seems no logic to outlaw the colour on land. The upcoming state elections have seriously taken the upkeep of law to a new low. Earlier the Election Commission had come up with the absurd idea of covering up Mayawati statues and the elephants which symbolize her party in order to keep the balloter from becoming biased. To hide those figures behind pots of pink was enough of an insult to the intelligence of the public. And now the police put forth this equally perplexing proposal to ban black. The people had to put up with the inconvenience of taking off all that was black- pullovers, cardigans and shawls- the biting cold notwithstanding. Hopefully these men and women would not banish the colour from their wardrobes after this bizarre black out.
