Gandhi cap no more a Cong trademark

Gandhi cap no more a Cong trademark
August 21, 2011 12:07:19 AM

VIJAY DEO JHA

Good news has stopped flowing for the Congress in the wake of the Anna Hazare movement and the bad news is that the party has seemingly lost property rights as exclusive user of the Gandhi cap as its trademark.

The surge of men, women and children with white cap on their head to support Anna all over the country from Delhi’s pulsating vista India Gate to numerous hinterlands of the country is a clear indication of this. But dare not to look at the sale record of the Gandhi caps which is nothing but a topi boom that has boomeranged on the Congress.

Jharkhand is not far behind in selling Gandhi cap, which some call Anna cap too. The Khadi Board of Jamshedpur has witnessed a sudden surge in the sale of cap after its establishment in 1995. “We have sold about 200 caps in three days meeting the gap between demand and supply. We store 500 caps, but have asked our production unit to be prepared to supply more. It is not only the politicians and social workers, but majority of the customers are students, businessmen, teachers, retired persons etc”, said Bhibuti Rai, manager, khadi retail outlet in Bistupur. He went on to inform that the sale after August 15 especially picked off due to the campaign led by Anna.

“Gandhi cap,” the civil society activist Vishnu Rajgadhiya observes, “is on more deserving heads, those who are fighting for democracy rather than those who have made daily business to disdain and doubt Anna and his campaign.”

Back to Ranchi it is topi industry in making. “Sir we are more in a topi industry than selling usual khadi stuff. Everybody wants a Gandhi cap to join some procession to support Anna. Gandhi caps were never in demand except for few occasions. If people are returning to this cap to join protest it is an indicator of a big change lurking before the nation,” an employee of khadi retail shop in Ranchi observed.

“All it comes with a little cost `25 to `40 no more, and you get right gear on your head before to announce Mai Bhi Anna (Me Anna too).” Pandit Prakash and Bipul Vikash, the two brothers who have recently passed their Class XII and their sister Preeti Kumari, proudly display their caps; nevertheless, they have little idea about this popular campaign. Asked whether they know anything about the cause for which Anna stands for: Probably very little. But that does not bother these brothers to join the campaign with others.

Senior citizen Gaffar Khan, a tailor, of the Main Road has two sets of concerns before him. He is wary about the success of the Anna Hazare-led movement for that he makes daily prayer, but, equally worried since he has to supply around 200 Gandhi caps in the coming four days. His sewing machines are making lot of noise to stitch odd pieces of white cloth to make a cap. “Arey gol nahi tikona banao kabhi Nehruji ka topi pahne foto nahi dekha kya, bewakoof aadmi log, (Keep it triangular doesn’t make it round. Idiot and unskilled people haven’t you even seen Nehruji in Gandhi cap),” he chides his staff. He could be yet another tailor earning his bread and butter but making cap is something different. He could have told you if bobbin had not run out of thread.

But few veterans and old time leaders left in the State Congress understand the loss that the party has suffered. “You could be distinguished either as Gandhian or a Congress worker if you had placed this cap on your head.

Gandhi and his cap were the symbol of the Congress but today it has become a seething symbol of protest against the Congress. It is a big loss and nobody is realising it,” a veteran Congress leader lamented privately.

Back in 2008, the Congress had formally dropped Gandhi cap from its political wardrobe during the conclave of Congress Sewa Dal when cricket caps were distributed among the workers in New Delhi. Then Sewa Dal president Mahendra Joshi had said that the Gandhi cap would be used during special situation like disaster management where Congress workers are seen organising help.

The Congress today is facing a disaster of a different kind which is hard to manage at the drop of the hat. In between it has lost this cap at the hand of public.