An activist in a wheelchair was scolded and assaulted for not standing up during the Indian national anthem in a cinema.
Salil Chaturvedi and his wife Monika went to a Goa cinema to watch a movie, an outing they make every three months.
“Going to the cinema is not the easiest thing to do,” Chaturvedi wrote in a first-person BBC essay, adding that he has been using a wheelchair since 1984.
Chaturvedi wants to shed light on the possible rise of "aggressive nationalism" in India.
While in the cinema, Chaturvedi said numerous people stared at him, “Some toddlers usually point me out to their parents asking what a man is doing on a chariot. Cute, but irritating.”
The national anthem started playing before the movie began and, while everyone stood up to show their national pride, Chaturvedi was unable to do so.
“It's one of those moments when I feel a bit singled out,” Chaturvedi wrote. “It's an unsettling kind of feeling, as if one is not participating, somehow alienated.”
Chaturvedi heard a couple behind him belting out the national anthem with pride when suddenly, he felt a “whack” on his head.
A man sitting behind him had hit him hard on the head because he didn’t stand up for the anthem.
Chaturvedi was stunned, but he told the man, "Why don't you just relax in life?"
The man’s partner yelled: “You can't even stand up for the national anthem?"
A bothered Monika lashed out at the woman, telling her Chaturvedi is disabled, but she continued to argue.
The man realized his mistake and bent over to apologize, but the damage had already been done, and Chaturvedi was left shaken.
Chaturvedi said the incident prompted him to write a letter to the theater’s management department requesting to install a slide in the hall for the disabled.
It's not the first instance of "aggressive nationalism" in the country. In another case, Indian actress, Divya Spandana, was ridiculed by nationalists for allegedly praising Pakistan, India’s rival, according to the BBC.
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