Independence Day used to be a physical ritual. You woke up early. You ironed a white kurta, pinned on a wobbly tricolour, and practiced your salute until your arm ached. The celebration was a shared, sweaty thing. It lived in playgrounds, in the tremble of a student’s voice during the national anthem, in the samosa line that felt like a victory lap.

Now the celebration often lives inside your phone. The tricolour flutters in vertical video. Patriotism is a caption, a trending audio, a 3 second transition that gets you 10k views. That sounds shallow. And sometimes it is. But that is not the whole story.

Here’s my hot take. The feeling has changed. The function should not.

The problem: ritual turned to optics

We should call out what’s obvious. A lot of Independence Day content is performative. Brands slap on saffron and green for visibility. Influencers wear khadi for a sponsored post. People post flag selfies for likes and zero follow-up. The risk is real. When the ritual becomes an aesthetic, the deeper civic lessons , why we celebrate, who sacrificed, what freedom costs, fall out of frame.

Performative patriotism is lazy. It lets people outsource their memory and responsibility to a trending reel. That is a loss. Schools used to be where kids learned respect, history, and collective memory. That muscle is weakening.

The opportunity: democracy of attention

But hold up. The same technology that fuels shallow posts also democratizes participation. Not everyone marched in school. Not everyone could attend local events. A reel reaches a cousin in a village, an aunt in another state, someone scrolling at 1 a.m. The scale is real. The conversation can be bigger. Young people who never spoke at an assembly are now making history explainer videos, calling out injustices, sharing archival footage that schools never taught.

So yes, the medium changed. The message can still be meaningful if we choose it to be.

The subtle cultural shift

Independence Day used to be about belonging to a place. Now it’s also about belonging to a community online. That shifts who gets to tell the story. That is messy. It is also overdue. For too long, our national narratives were curated by a few gatekeepers. Social feeds break that gate.

But democratization requires literacy. We need citizens who can spot propaganda, who can read context, who can transform a trending post into an action. Otherwise the algorithm wins and memory loses.

What we should keep

Keep the march past. Keep the brass band, the trembling first-time salutes, the assembly speeches that feel awkward but earnest. Rituals anchor us. Without roots, a feed is just noise.

Also keep the reels. Use them to teach. Use them to amplify local heroes, not only celebrity faces. Use the reach for petitions, registrations, fundraisers, civic education. Turn a viral song into a viral campaign for blood donation, for voter awareness, for historical literacy.

A small blueprint

  1. Schools double down on context. Not nostalgia. Facts, sources, primary documents. Teach kids to question and verify.

  2. Creators add one line of value. If you make a reel, add a fact, a link, or an action. Don’t just look pretty.

  3. Brands stop pretending to be patriots. Sponsor civic causes instead. Fund local museums, document oral histories, support veterans.

  4. Citizens treat the day as a reminder. One day for pride. One year for action.

From March Past to Reels: Patriotism in the Age of the Algorithm

So here’s the truth, the tricolour doesn’t care if you salute it in the schoolyard or post it with a retro filter. What matters is whether your Independence Day is an act or an aesthetic.

Because the real question isn’t where you show your patriotism, it’s how long it lasts after you post.