Read the passages given below and answer the questions. It is not time yet to…
2024
Read the passages given below and answer the questions.
It is not time yet to wear the national flag on your sleeve, but signs are that we might be getting there soon. Thanks to the passion of one citizen, it has become legally possible for ordinary Indians to freely fly the Tricolour. In 1993, Naveen Jindal thought that flying the national colours atop one’s place of work gave everyone a “sense of belonging” but the authorities would not agree. Eight years later, having petitioned three prime ministers and waged a long legal battle, Mr Jindal has at last been granted his wish. The archaic flag code has been changed. The Union cabinet has decreed that the citizen shall now have the right to fly the flag on any day. In India, unlike in western democracies, the flag had thus far been treated by the political class as a zealously-guarded emblem of the state. From ministers to bureaucrats to the higher-level judiciary, all arms of the state were allowed the automatic privilege of flaunting the flag, but not so the common people. Citizens wanting to express their
identity or indeed their loyalty in a world becoming increasingly globalised and homogenised had, ironically, to seek the government’s prior blessings to do so. Even this grudging nod was granted only for the duration of special days, namely, Independence Day, Republic Day and the Mahatma’s birth anniversary. The thinking behind this ‘saving the flag from the citizen’ was a throwback to the days of the Raj when carrying the Tricolour was often regarded as an unacceptable symbol of defiance by our political masters. As has often happened in our history, however, this legacy was thoughtlessly upheld in the vastly changed post-Raj scenario.
In other words, even as India became a democratic republic, the state continued to treat the people’s right to bear their national colours with suspicion. Under the obsessive pretext of preserving the honour and dignity of the flag, the assumption survived that the ordinary citizen of the realm could not be trusted to respect it. Wisely, the powers that be have recognised the anachronism of such a mindset. But there is a further danger which must be guarded against. In time, as flag-waving is exploited commercially by the forces of the free market, puritans will cry foul at the crassness of the spectacle. But this is not a matter, primarily, of aesthetics. At the same time, the detractors should note that countries, where the national flag has long been an accepted currency of civil passion, have hardly been buried in an avalanche of flag-abuse. The post-September 11 boom in the sale of stars-and-stripes might have been a dream come true for the shopping malls of America, but it was also a
symbol of a people hanging together in the hour of their greatest grief. Of course, there are those who will argue that the flag code debate does not go far enough. That, in fact, it’s time to go further by questioning the central assumption on which it is premised: The primacy of the European idea of the nation-state and its antiquated symbolism. But till such time as we continue to inhabit the fragile Nationalist dream, the flag will remain an evocative totem. And, as with America, patriotism will continue to be the preferred refuge of scoundrels, citizens and the marketplace.
It can be inferred from the passage that -
I. Before the decision of the union cabinet, any citizen could fly the national flag, but not without taking permission prior to that from the government
II. It has always been illegal to fly the national flag without taking prior permission from the government
III. It has always been the special privilege of the ruling class to fly the national flag
- A.
Only II
- B.
Only III
- C.
both I & III
- D.
both II & III
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
A ‘can be inferred’ question is answered only by a statement the passage directly supports with specific textual evidence — not by a plausible-sounding claim that adds a stronger legal or temporal assertion than the text actually makes. Each Roman-numeral statement must be checked independently against its own anchor in the passage before any statements are combined.
Statement I: the passage says citizens ‘had… to seek the government's prior blessings’ and that this ‘grudging nod was granted only for the duration of special days’ — so, before the cabinet's decision, a citizen COULD fly the flag, but only after securing prior government permission. This is exactly what Statement I says, so it holds.
Statement II: the passage never calls the pre-existing restriction ‘illegal’ — it describes a state-enforced convention (an ‘archaic flag code’, a ‘zealously-guarded emblem of the state’) rather than a penal prohibition. In fact, the passage's own backstory (Naveen Jindal's legal battle) is precisely about there being no law against flying the flag — only an administrative code discouraging it. Calling this ‘illegal’ overstates what the text supports, so Statement II fails.
Statement III: the passage states ‘ministers to bureaucrats to the higher-level judiciary, all arms of the state were allowed the automatic privilege of flaunting the flag, but not so the common people’ — an explicit contrast between the ruling class's standing privilege and ordinary citizens' need for permission. This directly matches Statement III, so it holds.
Re-reading the passage's own framing — ‘the state continued to treat the people's right… with suspicion’ under an ‘obsessive pretext’ — confirms the restriction was a matter of political control and administrative practice, never framed as codified illegality. That rules out any combination built on Statement II.
Since Statement I and Statement III are both directly supported by the passage while Statement II is not, the correct inference is both I & III.